Draft Project Plans for the ARDC Community Data Lab Now Open for Feedback

We invite the research community to share their feedback on the draft project plans for the second phase of the ARDC Community Data Lab, which is part of the ARDC’s HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons. 

We welcome feedback on 4 projects via the form below until COB Friday 23 May 2025:

1. Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents (RAPID)
   – a platform to make public interest document collections more accessible for research, starting with Federal Hansard and public inquiries and reviews
2. Curated Collections
   – a national service to publish data collections as websites
3. Research Software Engineering Capacity Enhancement Project (RSE-CEP)
   – recommended patterns in HASS software engineering
4. Enhanced Analytics
   – research tools for RO-Crate data and digitised documents

Jump to download the project plans

About the ARDC Community Data Lab

The ARDC Community Data Lab (CDL), initiated by the ARDC’s HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, offers diverse tools, datasets, analysis environments, and collaboration options for humanities, arts, social sciences and Indigenous research in Australia. It not only provides instruments and infrastructure but also establishes governance and protocols for robust research management.

In phase 2 of the CDL, our goal is to develop infrastructure that maximises impact for research and researchers by involving the community in its creation. The new projects will develop and expand open access, generalisable, data-based capabilities and resources, such as software, workflows, workbenches, researcher guides, and curated data.

The Community Data Lab Co-Design Process

Your feedback on the project plans is an important part of the co-design process, and we value your input.

We are following the co-design process described in the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Co-Design Framework, which is based on established methods such as the TACSI Co-Design Framework. 

The co-investment projects are being developed through the following steps: 

1. Problem Identification
2. Project Shaping
3. Project Planning
4. Endorsement 

The ARDC has completed the Problem Identification phase over several years of extensive consultation and information-gathering activities. The Project Shaping phase was conducted through open co-design workshops held during February and March 2025 with the ARDC and partners. 

The co-design workshops

During March, we held 5 workshops, with over 160 participants. The large number of participants helped the project teams and workshop participants to better understand the current digital research challenges faced by researchers. The workshops aimed to refine our understanding of the challenge, validate the problem statement and its impact, confirm the user base for the proposed solution, and gather feedback on the proposed solution’s features. 

You will find reports on the workshops for each of the projects below, alongside the project plans.

Project planning

We’re now in the Project Planning phase, seeking community feedback on the draft project plans. 

The project plans presented here for feedback are drafts. They represent the current state of the project plans, and there may be changes as project partners refine their plans and in response to feedback collected in this process. The project teams are also consulting with each other on points where the different plans can align to create a stronger HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons. Furthermore, the projects all have further consultation and work with the community built into the specification of the work they are going to do over the coming 3 years to ensure ongoing input from the communities they are working to support through new and enhanced research infrastructure.

Once submissions close, the project plans will be updated, refined and finalised to incorporate feedback from the community. The final project plans will be released in the coming months, alongside reports addressing the feedback received in this phase. All published feedback will be anonymised. 

The final plans will be reviewed by the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Advisory Panel prior to endorsement.

The feedback period is short to enable us to take advantage of the significant investment in HASS and Indigenous research by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Download the Draft Project Plans and Workshop Reports

Please download the project plans:

1. Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents (RAPID) – draft project plan [pdf]
   
2. Curated Collections – draft project plan [pdf]
   
3. Research Software Engineering Capacity Enhancement Project (RSE-CEP) – draft project plan [pdf]
   
4. Enhanced Analytics – draft project plan [pdf] 

You can also view the 5 workshop reports. Although we held 5 capability workshops, 4 project plans were created because 2 capabilities, research tools for RO-Crate and Digitised Documents, were combined into one project plan. 

View the 5 workshop reports:

• Public Interest Documents workshop report
• Curated Collections workshop report
• Framework for Research Software Engineers workshop report 
• Research Tools for RO-Crate workshop report
• Research Tools for Digitised Documents workshop report

Feedback closed COB Friday 23 May 2025. 

ARDC respects the privacy of individuals. Information collected is in accordance with the ARDC Privacy Policy.