Issue 46 – Monday 23 November 2020
Contents
HeadSup
Kia ora koutou
It’s nice to be winding down with only a few key academic activities remaining to tie off Semester 2, and some social events to look forward to in the lead up to the Christmas-New Year break. I hope to see all our PhD cohort and supervisors at the end-of-year doctoral celebration on Thursday 17th December. Please remember to RSVP Samantha (see notice below) and don’t be shy! We have the Annual Staff End-of-Year party coming up fast (4 December) and Nick and family have kindly offered up their place again. It was a great event last year and it will be lovely to see everyone in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. We are incredibly lucky to be able to socialise so let’s make the most of it while we can!
I was delighted to learn that Sila and Lorna gained Marsden funding this year. Lorna’s project ‘Does climate influence the frequency of volcanic activity and earthquakes?’ is a collaboration with NIWA, GNS Science, Victoria University Wellington, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, California State University and the University of Leeds. Sila’s FastStart project ‘Digital breadcrumbs feeding urban decision-making’ is a collaboration with University of St Andrews and The University of Melbourne. Well done both of you! Congratulations also to Gary, who is contributing to Professor Dame Anne Salmond’s successful project on ‘Let the River Speak: Working across ‘worlds’ for socio-ecological transformation’, and Paul, who is contributing to a U. Canterbury-led project on ‘Māori-ecosystem interactions and adaptations on the offshore islands of Aotearoa/New Zealand’. I’m impressed by the diversity of collaborations in each of these projects, and the value of networking!
Over the next couple of weeks I’m catching up on my ADPR paperwork that went by-the-by as we worked through the Covid issues this year. Usually I turn these around straight after our conversations but this year I am late. It would be much appreciated if you could check and counter sign asap when you get the advisement that the ADPR is ready for your approval.
Have a great couple of weeks!
JR
Whakawhanaungatanga-Communities
CitiSci – Workshop day
The School of Environment is collaborating with the Auckland Museum Institute (Auckland branch of the RSNZ) and the Auckland Council to produce the event CitiSci on 29th November: This is a workshop day where citizen scientists and anyone interested in conservation can learn about some of the new tools, resources, and techniques available. CitiSci is being run as part of the 2020 Auckland Council Festival weekend.
Workshops are short 1.5 hour sessions. Free registration is via the AC website (please register by 23rd November): https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/events/2020/11/auckland-pestival-weekend/?/%E2%80%8B
Or you can email Rosemary Barraclough with any questions: rk.barraclough@auckland.ac.nz
Morning coffee and refreshments will be available on arrival.
Details for the 2020 sessions can be found here.
BioHeritage National Science Challenge Ngā Rākau Taketake
Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Impacts PhD positions
Three new Ngā Rākau Taketake PhD positions are available.
Applications close 30 November.
Learn more here https://bioheritage.nz/risk-assessment-and-ecosystem-impacts-phd-positions/
Young Ocean Explorers’ Scholarship
The Young Ocean Explorers’ Scholarship could fund your Master’s thesis focused on researching a new environmental education programme for primary students (the 21 Day Challenge). The scholarship will also provide funding for your student fees and transcription! See the University of Auckland Scholarship’s page for more details:
This is particularly relevant for: Marine Sciences, Biological Sciences and Environment students.
This scholarship is for a niche audience. Basically any applicant needs to have done their research methods course and be ready to begin their thesis in Semester 1 2021 to be eligible.
Target audience:
- Master students in S2 2020 that have done their research methods course and are ready to start their theses next semester
- Postgrad Diploma Science students who completed the research methods course, finished their studies in Sem 1 or finishing up their studies this semester
The Young Ocean Explorers’ Scholarship is now open until 1st December. Please click here for more details
2020 Financial Year-End Deadlines
Please see below table for our 2020 year-end deadlines for purchasing and expense claims.
As most of you are already aware School/Department, PBRF & Research enhancement funds need to be spent by the end of the year and can’t be carried over to next year. The deadlines below are to ensure the expenses are captured in the 2020 year.
| Type of transaction | On or before |
| Staff reimbursements via Concur | 11th of December |
| P-Card/E-Card Reconciliations
(Reconciled, submitted and approved) |
6th January 2021
(if you are on leave, make sure you reconcile and submit before going on Christmas break) |
| Purchase Order requests | 10th of December |
| Purchase Order receipting and invoice matching | 18th of December |
| Student reimbursements requests | 10th of December |
| Customer invoice raising requests e.g. to recover costs/charge for usage | 14th of December |
| Travel Purchase order request for Orbit | 14th of December |
Events
#Whisperfest2020 (23-26 Nov)
It will be a series of online events: workshops, knowledge sharing opportunities and fireside chats around four themes:
- Wellbeing
- Collegiality
- Facing disruption
- Taking back control
See https://researchwhisperer.org/presentations/whisperfest-2020/ for more information.
The full programme can be found at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DGYs-5aT1wekMKmRxggzjbSYyMpDleP05_8xkOIj86A/edit#slide=id.g8fbf8b8e4f_0_64
Please email Luitgard Schwendenmann for details
School of Environment PhD Drinks & Nibbles
Dear Staff and PhD students,
Please join us for School of Environment PhD Drinks & Nibbles on Thursday 17 December, 4-6pm in Level 6 Breakout Space (Room 302-680).
We’d love you to come by and celebrate your contributions to the School.
Please RSVP here by Monday 7 December for catering purpose and contact Samantha Huang for any queries.
ResBaz 2020 : Pick n Mix
23-27 November
We, the Centre for eResearch, LOVE the usual ResBaz 3-day cohort event that is full of digital research skills workshops, social activities, and amazing food. However, we’ve had to adapt the event this year (and forgo the usual nachos)!
Join us to virtually up-skill in digital research tools and skills through a series of short FREE ONLINE key story and workshops sessions – ResBaz 2020 : Pick n Mix. Sessions are intended to offer a brief practical introduction to a broad selection of topics and tools related to digital research practice relevant across disciplines – research data management, topic modelling, using Jupyter Notebooks, Linux commandline, open science, writing in LaTeX, research compute, Tidy Data and Open Refine, creating surveys with Qualtrics, qualitative analysis with NVivo, R for social sciences, publishing data, etc.
A collaboration between the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington, we welcome researchers and research postgraduate students from ALL disciplines to look at the schedule and book for individual sessions. Research technologists, librarians and those who support researchers should also come along!
Taiao Tutor Community of Practice
Phew! We made it to the end of the semester! The final 2020 meeting of the Taiao Tutor Community of Practice will be held on 27 November from 1-2 in Ontology.
This will be a tutors-only catch up before the summer starts. We would love to have any student or Research Fellow with an interest in teaching join us, even if you aren’t currently tutoring.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to anyone on the organising committee (Anthony Gampell, Sophia Tsang, Jack Barrett, Salene Schloffel-Armstrong, Martin Joe, and Lan Chen). Hope to see you soon!
Rangahau – Research
Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services
Bespoke Data requests from Statistics NZ
University staff and students can access Stats NZ information and data exclusively available to universities made possible through an agreement between the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) and Stats NZ. You can request customised data sets for your research, including data that is not openly made available via the stats.govt.nz website.
Customised data
Universities each have a set allocation of hours for customised data that is available to individuals for specific research purposes. This applies to all datasets produced by Stats NZ for which customised tables can be prepared.
Our current balance is 94 hours. Most requests average between 2-4 hours of work.
Examples of requests
- Figures on the number of Māori that have migrated from Auckland to Northland from 1980 to 2000.
- Occupation fields and cross tab against age, ethnicity and sex, and a breakdown of Auckland, rest of NZ and total NZ, for both 2013 and 2018 census figures.
- Finding data on the number of Pacific academics in higher education in NZ, broken down by institution (i.e. universities, polytechnics, wanaga). What percentage of the academic workforce they comprise.
- Type 1 diabetes incidence data on the Auckland region from 1976-1996 broken down by age (0-4, 5-9 and 10-14), sex and prioritised Level 1 ethnicity.
- Numbers of tertiary students using public transport to travel to university in Auckland
To make requests for research data contact Dr Donna MacColl from Research Services at donna.maccoll@auckland.ac.nz
MBIE College of Assessors
MBIE are seeking to expand their College of Assessors for the Endeavour funding mechanism
Assessor criteria:
- To assess Excellence assessors must be “Qualified, Meritorious, Current and Connected”
- To assess Impact assessors must be “Knowledgeable, Experienced, Acknowledged in the Relevant Community, Connected, and either have an understanding of the New Zealand and sector-specific context and what science could be of high-impact to New Zealand, as well as an international perspective, and/ or have previously been involved in transformative outcomes e.g. rapidly changing companies, start-ups, emerging sectors, entrepreneurship, experience in transformational leadership or leading change.”
- MBIE are working to strengthen their capacity to have reviewers experienced in te Ao Māori and Kaupapa Māori research design reviewing proposals that have this focus.
Other areas that do not yet have proportionate representation include social science, and general diversity (most recent stats on gender split F 28%/ M 72%).
How to express interest:
Assessors are selected based on the above criteria, and then on the content of the proposals submitted to the Endeavour Fund in a given round. Individuals interested in joining the College of Assessors can express their interest by sending their CV and other relevant information to submissions@auckland.ac.nz
Research and Funding Opportunities
Winter 2020 funding: Laura Bassi Scholarship
The Laura Bassi Scholarship, which awards a total of $8,000 thrice per annum, was established by Editing Press in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed. The scholarships are open to every discipline and the next round of funding will be awarded in December 2020:
Winter 2020
Application deadline: 25 November 2020
Results: 20 December 2020
All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of their employment. Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV through the application portal by the relevant deadline. Further details, previous winners, and the application portal can be found at: https://editing.press/bassi
Postgraduate scholarship programme
DOC offers postgraduate research scholarships for conservation related research in natural and social sciences. These help achieve New Zealand’s conservation goals.
Applications close 1 December 2020.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/our-work/research-and-development/postgraduate-scholarship-programme/
Marsden 2021 Application Round
We expect the call for applications to be released and the Marsden portal to be open late November/early December.
If you intend to apply, please let your RPC (Kelly, Franca or Kathryn) know so that we can ensure that you are kept up to date with important info. Any info will also be circulated via P-cubed once it is available.
Research Trip
Last week Kathy went out to Rotorua to film a VFT for her new Astrobiology course. She was joined by Michaela (PhD student), Brendan (Technician), Bryan (Research Fellow), Haritina (Director of the New Zealand Astrobiology Network), and three excited and engaged undergraduate students. Brendan filmed some amazing drone footage of the steaming hot spring features. Check out some of the photos from filming below:
Events
6th ENV seminar
1st of December, Tuesday 1pm
Join us on Tuesday the 1st of December from 1:00 pm to learn about research your colleagues do. All staff members and students from the School of Environment are warmly invited to attend this brilliant seminar. As you may be already aware we are running the seminars every three months and so far they have been incredibly fascinating.
In the upcoming ENV Seminar, we will have three or four presenters: Ingo Pecher, Jen Eccles and Jenny Salmond plus Martin Brooks.
Early Stage Researcher from the Global South doing Scholarship in the Global North: Issues and Ethics
Programme details can be found here: Early Stage Researcher Workshop Flyer.
The Invitation link is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-for-early-stage-researchers-tickets-128710116423
Please don’t hesitate to contact Valentine, should you need any further clarifications.
New Publications
- Dombroski, K.; Diprose, G.; Sharp, EL.; Graham, R.; Lee, L.; Scobie, M.; Richardson, S.; Watkins, A.; Martin-Neuninger, R.(2020) Food for People in Place: Reimagining Resilient Food Systems for Economic Recovery. Sustainability, 12, 9369.
- Jayathilake D.R.M., Costello M.J. 2020. A modelled global distribution of the kelp biome. Biological Conservation 252, 108815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108815
ENV IT Committee Updates
IT Committee – Software expenses in 2021
A reminder that if you are planning to request any software, limited hardware, or (new:) data, funded by ENV’s School IT budget in 2021, please send the following information to Ingo, i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz, by Fri 13 Nov:
– Requestor
– Names of staff supporting request
– Name of software/hardware/data package
– Cost (good approximation in NZD is sufficient at this stage)
– Amount of co-funding from research projects
– Classes for which software is requested
– Justification, including what would happen if you did not get the software/hardware/data
Please also do so if you request renewal of software used in 2020. We will not automatically roll over license expenses.
A few additional points:
– This only affects funding from the School budget (not research projects) with focus on teaching.
– Contribution from research budgets is expected, if funded research projects are using the requested software/hardware/data.
– Most of our software expenses are annual renewals. If we fund your request for 2021, do not automatically expect continuation in 2022.
– Hardware is very limited and falls under Capex and IT purchasing rules (computers e.g., cannot be purchased). Just submit your requests though; we will have a look.
– Data requests are new – let’s see how this goes.
Please contact Ingo for enquiries.
Other information
Need to store and share research data? Request Research storage or UoA Dropbox for research
Queries about virtual machines? Virtual machine consult or Nectar Research Cloud?
ResearchHub: connects people, resources, and services -research-hub.auckland.ac.nz
Remote working issues: Please refer to the remote working page. If you do not find the answers to your questions, please log a call on the IT Portal for any IT-related issues or contact the Staff Service Centre for other queries.
Two-factor authentication: Authy
YubiKeys work but of course require a USB port.
VPN: Instructions on how to install
VPN, Linux: FortiClient is running fine on Linux. Check the VPN link listed above.
VPN, Mac desktops: (information from April, may be outdated). Students may need IT to make their machines mobile and install FortiClient directly from the website. They will also need to set-up two-factor authentication by downloading an app like “Authy” on their phones and then setting up their University of Auckland account. I suggest people do this part before IT gets to them to make the process faster. To do that, they can use the instructions on this page:
To get a mobile account set up, log a service request or go to one of the service kiosks. It is unclear how this is being done remotely but I am sure this can be done. Please let me Ingo (i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz) know if you have managed to install FortiClient on their macs remotely.
FlexIT and Remote Access
FlexIT is straight-forward for remote access to computing power and programs. Alternatively, check if your project/group or so has a virtual machine. Remote desktop access to specific machines can be set up by IT but may note be reliable. Check the Staff Service Center https://uoaprod.service-now.com/sp.
Remote access is possible to some workstations in the geocomputational lab for research, and on a needs basis. This may be a viable solution for specialized data analysis. Please look into alternatives: It is unclear however, if/how on-site desktops can be maintained, if needed..
FlexIT access and requests: Use the FlexIT form in the IT Portal to request access as a staff member, to ask for an application be added, or to report any issues or faults.
FlexIT, Linux: Please check FlexIT link: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/my-tools/flex-it.html. It does not have any information on Linux but should be useful for “translation”.
Depending on your browser (in particular, Firefox), you also need to do the following, from https://communities.vmware.com/thread/595554.
“…tested with the Horizon 4.8.x and 4.10.x clients and Firefox v64.0. Both are 64bit versions, running on Ubuntu 18.04.1
- Download the client from the VMWare Horizon Client for 64-bit Linux
- In Firefox, open about:config and click through the warning.
- Add a new boolean entry called network.protocol-handler.expose.vmware-view and set the value to false
- Create a file called `test.html` somewhere on your computer and put the following in it:
test - Open the file in Firefox and click on the link, which should prompt you for a path to open the link.
- Select /usr/bin/vmware-view and it should work for future uses! “
(1) was provided by UoA but I think it works with generic software from VMWare as well.
Check with Ingo (i.pecher@auckland.ac.nz) if you run into problems.
Software licenses: Software vendors have relaxed their licensing to allow students to install software at home, rather than relying on Flex IT. There is a running list here https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/my-tools/flex-it/install-software.html
Please email content to Bizza for next edition of P-cubed by Friday 4th December