Just a few slides I put together to quickly introduce the idea of Virtual Research Environments (VRE) at the University of Lincoln. All content was borrowed from JISC's work on VREs.

1. A VRE helps researchers
from all disciplines to work
collaboratively by
managing the increasingly
complex range of tasks
involved in carrying out
research.

2. Heavy investment from JISC
The intention is not to produce one single
complete VRE, but rather to define and help
to develop a common architecture, and to
progress the institutional capabilities
needed to develop and populate VREs with
applications, services and resources
appropriate to their needs.

3. Research-active staff
The primary target user group, including staff
occupying a variety of roles within institutions, such
as full- and part-time
Lecturers, Readers, Chairs, Research
Assistants, Research Fellows and Research
Associates

4. Research support staff
Including those who do not conduct research
directly, but provide various types of support to
research-active staff within their institutions

5. System administrators
Staff who support the installation, technical
set up and maintenance of a VRE

6. Soundbites
tools & technologies, frameworks & standards
local, national, international
leads to faster research results and novel research directions
dependent on discipline, context and security requirements
community building projects rather than technology projects.
complementary to and interoperable with existing resources
iterative, user driven, bottom up development
flexible, lightweight and adaptable to changing and specific needs
connects resources, people, infrastructures
a social as much as a technical achievement
moving
target

7. Three
types of
socio-technical
systems

8. Accessing and combining data
and computing resources
Working with dispersed data
sources, across
databases, applications and legacy
systems

9. Online collaboration
Facilitating the (a)synchronous
combination of expertise of dispersed
researchers

10. Virtual research management
Supporting the whole research lifecycle
Collecting and managing Information
Crossing inter-departmental boundaries

11. Benefits
VREs can close the gap between research steps (such as data collection, data
processing, data analysis, writing, publication) and therefore speed up the research
process.
VREs can enhance the transparency and reliability of research processes which, in
turn, can lead to a better understanding of the research question. Moreover, projects
proved how VREs can contribute to data generation, e.g. by facilitating multi-site
trials and experiments, and in some cases, even leading to greater speed and
accuracy of data capture and analysis.
At the same time, projects showed how VREs can expand the boundaries of current
research methods in a specific discipline as well as introduce new ways of doing
research. In either case, the result has been both the generation of new knowledge
and research paradigms.
In addition to introducing a new way of conducting research, VREs also provide a
different way of handling data and related documentation, thus making project
management more effective.

12. Challenges
Policy:
legal, ethical
Sustainability:
Require continued investment.
Need business model
Researchers won't use them if
there are not long term guarantees

13. Further information
Our wiki: http://learninglab.lincoln.ac.uk/wiki/The_Virtual_Research_Environment
JISC Programme: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/vre.aspx
VRE Study: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2010/vrelandscapestudy.aspx
VRE Lessons Learned:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/vre/vre1lessonslearntdefsum.pdf
JISC Podcast: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/06/podcast82frederiquevantill.aspx
JISC Video for researchers:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/avfiles/programmes/vre/researchneeds.wmv
JISC video for developers:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/avfiles/programmes/vre/technicalsolutions.wmv
JISC video playlist of projects:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CA985FC0D5F724F8

14. Content for these slides came from various JISC sources
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/vre.aspx
Joss Winn
jwinn@lincoln.ac.uk
Centre for Educational Research and Development
University of Lincoln