DART News November 2006

DART Progress

The latest progress reports have just been circulated to the DART Board of Management and to DEST, showing the DART project is around 60% complete, a 10% advance over the last report, submitted two months ago. This is on track for a proposed ‘18 month project’.

Some items of interest reported to the Board and DEST were:

• Installed JAINIS (JCU And INdiana Instrument Services) at the IMB at UQ. This is an extension of the CIMA work at JCU, which will also be installed at Monash.

• The SI1 work package (Rafi, Xiaofang and Jane) has been completed, which includes the integration of SRB (Storage Resource Broker) with Fedora.

• Strong development using & integrating SRB, Fedora, Kepler, CIMA and XACML.

• The SI5 work package (Jagan) has now added GFarm replication management.

• Asad’s SI WPs have successfully GSI-enabling SRB, GridFTP and the portal on the Monash SunGrid, enabling single sign-on (Grid Security Interface).

• Development of the DART portal is slowly progressing, with a demo of a rough version to the SIRCA project team, and also to Dr Malcolm Read, JISC (UK).

• Work is progressing with the Creative Commons (CC) and Science Commons (SC) licensing with ACRO at UQ. Work has also started with Fez at the UQ Library using Sherpa/ Romeo publisher/journal data.

• Solid development continues on the annotation tools (Co-Annotea, Annotea), expanding functionality, evaluating new add-ons, etc.

• Shibboleth and PKI security requirements are being explored and developed.

DART Project Review

Richard Tan has submitted his final report on the review of the DART project to the DART Board of Management, which was discussed at the October 27 meeting in Brisbane. As a result of Richard’s review, a one day workshop was held the same day between the DART Board of Management and the Chief Investigators, facilitated by Richard. Ah Chung and Andrew will also be presenting the DART project review to Margot Bell in DEST, as part of our accountability to the federal government for public funds.

DART_ARCHER Planning Workshop

This workshop was held on October 27 for members of the Board of Management and the DART Chief Investigators, plus Anthony, to discuss the findings of the DART project review. Most importantly, the intention was to apply the lessons learnt to help setup the ARCHER project to be more structured, with tighter project management control, giving it a better chance of succeeding given its ambitious aims and tight timeframes.

DART Objectives - revisited

One of the outcomes of the DART review was to revisit the DART WP objectives. Andrew, Jeff and Anthony held a half day workshop to review all WP objectives, including analysis of the original objectives and the latest changes made by the DART CIs. Andrew will be following up with meetings with each CI to further clarify these objectives.

DEST Reporting

Final DART progress and cash-flow reports for 2006 have now been sent to DEST and Monash University will receive the final $539,500 payment this week. I will be writing to DEST, seeking permission to carry forward unspent funds for the DART project into 2007. Each university will also need to make similar requests internally.

DART Security Workshop

A day and a half security workshop has been organized by Anthony Beitz to be held in Brisbane on November 14-15. All DART researchers working on security will be attending, as well as MAMS and e-Security Framework people, to align the implementation of security across the DART WPs and demonstrators, with national security directions.

Changes in DART Staff

The following people have recently joined the DART team:

• Andrew Newman (UQ) – for the DMQ4 and SI3 WPs (working with Rafi)

• Tim Ho (MU) – for the SI5 and SI6 WPs (replacing Jagan).

The following people have recently left the DART team:

• Sai Sun (UQ) from the DMQ4 WP

• Jagan Kommineni (MU) from the SI5 and SI6 WPs

• Mohamed Medhat Gaber (JCU) from the DMQ3 WP

Robyn Polan (MU) is on 3 months leave (to finish her PhD) from the SI4, SI7, SI8, SI9 WPs.

JISC visit

Dr Malcolm Read (Executive Secretary) and Louisa Dale of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) in the UK recently visited Australia. Professor Ah Chung Tsoi and Alan McMeekin hosted their visit to Monash University, together with Margot Bell (DEST) and Kerri Blinco (RUBRIC), to discuss the ARROW, DART and ARCHER projects.

ARCHER Director of Engineering

This position was advertised and interviews of three candidates took place on Nov 2. An announcement is likely very soon. Hopefully the new person can start soon, to assist with scoping the ARCHER project and to define the WPs required, plus outcomes and milestones.

ARCHER directions and discussions with NCRIS

Many DART people have been busy working with the NCRIS capabilities to develop five year investment plans (Ian with Marine Sciences or 5.12, Mark with Bioinformatics or 5.1, Ah Chung with Platforms for Collaboration or 5.16), plus establish ICT requirements under 5.16 (facilitated by Rhys Francis). Rhys has organized a number of workshops: Jeff and Ah Chung attended an Authentication/Authorisation/Audit workshop in Sydney on Sep 15, plus Andrew and Anthony attended a Data Management Workshop in Melbourne on Oct 23. More Rhys scheduled workshops will be held on Nov 23, Nov 27 and in February.

DART Board of Management Meetings

The Board met on September 29 and again on October 27. Major items for discussion were the DART project review, ARCHER project requirements, the need for a Director of Engineering, the planning workshop on October 27, plus discussions with DEST and NCRIS about the future of the DART/ARCHER projects.

Melbourne Cup Day

Melbourne almost shuts down for this day, except for universities of course, where it is business as usual. Hopefully, your horse won the sweep :) (My horse came last!)

Jeff McDonell, DART Project Director

November 7, 2006