CRAG and the Research Administrators Wiki

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CRAG and the Research Administrators Wiki
Rod Lewis
21 May 2008
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Overview

• Who is HES and what was CRAG
• Collaboration in a competitive environment
• Collaborative Research Administrators Group
• Research Administrators Wiki

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Background

• About HES
• Subsidiary of Universities Australia (formerly
  AVCC)
• Not-for-profit, established to help universities
  work collaboratively
• Main activities Oracle licencing for HE sector
  HR Group Finance Group Student Group Research
  Group manage WPP funded projects in HR and
  Finance (procurement) other group contracts and
  some consulting services
• About me
• Currently work at HES
• Co-ordinate group collaboration in student and
  research administration
• Prior to this 13 years at UoN in research admin
  in a number of roles

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Callista Research Advisory Group

• Focus on support in implementing, developing and
  using Callista Research
• Alas, Callista Research hasnt delivered what it
  promised to
• The end of the group?
• Shifted to discussion and knowledge creation
  around research admin processes

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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• The case for collaboration
• What it means to collaborate
• Collaboration occurs when people from different
  organizations produce something together through
  joint effort, resources, and decision making, and
  share ownership of the final product or service.
  Linden, 2002
• Text book reasons for collaboration
• Better use of scarce resources cost savings
• Ability to create something that you cant create
  on your own
• Higher quality, more integrated product or
  service for the end users
• Potential for organizational and individual
  learning
• Better ability to achieve important outcomes
• Impediments to Collaboration

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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• Personal Experience - HERDC Finance collection
• University restructure ? have I got a job for
  you

CPA 25 years exp Bursar's Unit HERDC since
inception Lives and breathes spreadsheets
Not CPA No financial background Zero HERDC
exposure Lives and breathes spreadsheets
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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• Personal Experience - HERDC Finance collection
• Internally
• Relied on scant internal documentation and the
  HERDC spec.
• Worked with Finance dept
• Externally -
• Surreptitious search for best practice.
  Identified ideas and methods to approach
  collection (its not all in the Finance system!)
• Other CRAG members, in particular UWS
• Advice from DEST sometimes not overly helpful
  universities dont decide what gets included in
  Table 1.. it is external auditors who determine
  inclusions
• If were all doing it would a shared knowledge
  base assist?

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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• Some other thoughts on the case for
  collaboration
• HERDC publications collection
• Institutional repositories and open access
• Research-admin email discussion list (alls
  quiet on the Western front)
• ABS/ARC forums
• The RQF and now development of ERA

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Collaboration in a competitive environment

• A quick comparison with the UK
• Association of Research Managers and
  Administrators
• Research Admin 101 - The Fundamentals of
  Research Administration
• An induction program for research administrators
• An example of something to aspire to?

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Impediments to collaboration

• Competition for Research Block Grants
• Competitive advantage
• Cost
• Whats in it for me?
• Is it recognised internally? (eg HES HR Group)
• Knowledge gets created - how is it retained,
  managed, accessed, leveraged?
• Were doing quite OK, thanks
• What about the age old problem - a camel is a
  horse designed by a committee
• Others factors

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Collaborative Research Administrators Group

• Origins in Callista Research ? new CRAG
• Branched into collaboration around business
  process, benchmarking and sharing knowledge
• CRAG benchmarking covers performance data,
  business processes, research office structure and
  function, looking at best practice (subject of a
  WPP project)
• CRAG has done a lot of collaborative work.
  Outcomes managed through old technology a file
  sharing facility accessed via a secure website.
  Email discussion lists. Relies on co-ordinator.
• CRAG decided to pilot a Wiki to support knowledge
  creation and management

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Research Administrators Wiki

• The Research Administrators Wiki is a pilot
  project supported by CRAG and HES.
• www.radwiki.edu.au
• Idea for RAdWiki initiated Sept 2007. Content
  generation didnt really start until Feb 2008.
• High Level Aims
• Support of knowledge creation
• Knowledge management
• Support for a dialogue between research
  administrators
• Establishment of best practice
• Audience beyond university research admin staff

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RAdWiki

• Project Status
• Still a pilot
• Running MediaWiki on a test server hosted at
  Deakin
• Project Plan
• Migrate to Confluence
• Secure a server footprint
• Seek advice
• Expand the trial, more participants
• Survey participants for needs
• Steps to build a virtual community of practice

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RAdWiki

• Specific Objectives
• Discussion Forums
• Question Answer ? FAQs
• News
• Repository of knowledge about Research
  Administration and related topics/issues
• Easy to use
• Not Wikipedia

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RAdWiki

• Challenges
• Do we need an organisation to take it further?
• Will it grow organically (virally in
  WikiPatterns parlance)
• Establishment of a Charter to set the tenor of
  the initiative
• Feedback from other Uni Wiki projects suggests
  Champions are critical to success
• Other examples are intra-university or strongly
  focussed around a specific project/program.
  Whats our community?
• Supporting the Wiki

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RAdWiki

• Content
• Current structure determined by CRAG based around
  main functional areas in research administration
  and topical areas with sidebar links for

• What is the best way to structure RAdWiki?

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RAdWiki

• Usage
• Didnt start keeping stats until March 2008.
• Busiest period, straight after Research Code
  translation tool released on 10 April

• Most use from edu.au domain
• Most frequent visitors HES, UWS,
• Deakin, Adelaide, ANU, Curtin
• Approx 13 from .com domain
• .nz sites usage above many
• Aus universities

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RAdWiki

• WikiPatterns
• 90-9-1 Theory
• Barn raising (socialising the network)
• Champions
• www - Will a Wiki Work?
• Do we really have a strong research admin
  community?
• Are there closed communities within the sector?
• Wiki is just a tool, the community is the driver

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Final thoughts

• RAdWiki is a great idea
• CRAG has forged a strong collaborative group
• Taking it forward
• Questions?