November 20188 IN MY V EWTHE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON RESEARCHUniversities have rich and diverse operations: they equip students to be effective global citizens, their researchers provide solutions that are relevant nationally and internationally, and they are strong partners in business, industry, and local communities. Technology is driving rapid change in each of these dimensions. This poses a number of challenges and many of the lessons apply across all industries. Increasing research complexityThere has been phenomenal growth in the demand for compute and storage for research. However, the impact of technology on research runs much deeper than these mechanics. Technology, and the availability of previously unimaginable volumes of data, is enabling fundamentally different approaches to research. For example, data visualization is an increasingly important aspect of many research projects.The IT challenge is to ensure researchers are aware of and equipped to use the best tools to support their particular research. However, it is not feasible for IT teams to retain expertise across the range of tools that can be used across the different disciplines. One approach which has been successful is to use the power of the crowd and to facilitate putting researchers in touch with peers across the organization who have the skills and experience to assist. This can take many forms, from online communities to more traditional approaches. For example, a weekly "hacky hour" at a campus café enables researchers to bring their technology challenges to discuss and problem to solve with peers, and from there use existing research networks to identify still others who might assist.While university research might take this to an extreme, it is not uncommon for IT teams in many other industries to lack the scale to have deep expertise in all the applications used across their organization. Indeed, as we head into the future, deeper IT knowledge will increasingly become part of everyone's role - rather than remaining the domain of the IT team. The hacky hour approach could be adapted for those situations.One very interesting development in higher education is the formation of shared compute facilities by multiple universities in partnership with government. Examples are BY CHRISTINE BURNS, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEYChristine Burns
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