Language Data Commons of Australia – Co-Design Workshops

About the Event

Important: the co-design workshop has 2 parts, and we hope you can participate in both sessions – you will need to register for each separately. 

The sessions will be recorded if you are unable to join, and there will be opportunities to contribute to shaping the program outside the workshops.

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) invites the research community to join 2 workshops to co-design a national research infrastructure program that will support the Language Data Commons of Australia.

The program is part of the ARDC’s HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, which is establishing long-term, enduring national digital research infrastructure to support researchers to harness research data to enhance Australian social and cultural wellbeing, and help understand and preserve our culture, history and heritage.

Last year, the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons was awarded $25 million from the Australian Government’s 2023 National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Funding Round, which is in addition to the the $8.9 million received from NCRIS to establish the HASS and Indigenous RDC, which was launched in 2021.

The new funding from the Australian Government will be invested through the ARDC’s co-design and co-investment approach to building digital research infrastructure. 

In this workshop, we seek input from the HASS and Indigenous research community to co-design the programs and projects that will meet the digital infrastructure needs of researchers now and in the future.

The HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons is committed to enabling capable people, effective institutions, innovative technology, relevant data and collaborative governance with the aim of elevating research capability in the HASS and Indigenous research sectors.

About the research infrastructure program

The Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) is developing an integrated national technical infrastructure for analysing language collections at scale in order to open up the social and economic possibilities of Australia’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage. 

This program is the next phase of  the ARDC-supported Language Data Commons of Australia, which began in 2022.

In alignment with the commitment of the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons to enable capable people, effective institutions, innovative technology, relevant data and collaborative governance with the aim of elevating research capability in the HASS and Indigenous research sectors, the next phase of the Language Data Commons of Australia program aims to further the following objectives:

1. Develop the social and technical foundations for a national, distributed archival repository

2. Continue securing vulnerable and nationally significant collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, Indigenous languages in Australia’s Pacific region, (varieties of) Australian English and migrant languages, and sign languages of Australia and its region.

3. Develop a national data portal for accessing and repurposing language data of significance to researchers and communities, both that is held in GLAM institutions, including libraries, archives and museums, as well as language collections held in the distributed archival repositories.

4. Establish an integrated analytics environment for researchers to create fully described, reproducible research on written, spoken, multimodal and signed text in accordance with Open Science principles, and aligned with community expectations for research of practical benefit.

5. Provide training and develop resources for researchers and communities to support best practice in accessing, analysing and archiving language data in line with FAIR and CARE principles.

The ARDC’s co-design process for developing national research infrastructure

We seek to develop infrastructure that creates the greatest impact for research and researchers by co-designing that infrastructure with the people who will benefit from it. Co-design will involve a wide range of stakeholders with different experience and expertise. Our aim is to include all the perspectives necessary to allow a consideration of specific researcher needs, balanced by relative needs and priorities, and what is practically possible to address.

We will be holding 2 open co-design workshops to better understand the current challenges around establishing the Language Data Commons of Australia. We will discuss the investment opportunity that ARDC has identified, with the aim of learning: 

• what outcomes and developments would be of most benefit 
• what will be both valuable and feasible
• how our investments can align with other activity in the sector. 

Workshop participants are expected to actively participate in discussions. We encourage participants to attend both workshops if possible. A summary of the discussions will be made available after each workshop. 

The process we will follow is described in the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Co-Design Framework, and is based on established methods such as the TACSI Co-Design Framework. Development of our co-investment activities will follow these steps: 

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

The Problem Identification and Project Shaping phases will be conducted through open co-design workshops. We will seek community feedback on the draft project plan, and the final plan will be reviewed by the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons Advisory Panel prior to endorsement.

The planned work will be delivered as a contracted co-investment activity. The ARDC will enter into a single 4-year contract with the lead organisation, who will sub-contract external partner organisations on the project team as required.

Who will be speaking?

• Jenny Fewster, Director, HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons, ARDC
• Professor Michael Haugh, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland
• Robert McLellan, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland

Who should attend?

• HASS and Indigenous research community, including academics and researchers, particularly those involved in using language data in research and language revitalisation
• managers of language data
• those who collect and manage data for use by research
• senior decision makers at research, GLAM and Indigenous institutions, industry and NGOs
• research infrastructure providers and digital skills trainers

What participants will gain from the session? 

• Learn about the program and partnership opportunities
• Contribute your use cases and experience to shape the development of infrastructure for language research

Join more ARDC co-design workshops

This program is one of a series of co-design workshops we’re running in February and March 2024 for the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons.

Please also consider registering for:

• Creative Arts
• Media(ted) Data
• Improving Indigenous Research Capability

Further ARDC resources

• HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons
• Resources for HASS and Indigenous research

Will the session be recorded?

Yes, the session will be recorded, provided to all registrants and published online.

Have questions?

Email [email protected]

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Please note that this event may be recorded and published by the ARDC. This may include your contributions during the session. ARDC respects the privacy of individuals. Information collected is in accordance with the ARDC Privacy Policy.

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