“Scholars in all fields are taking advantage of the wealth of online information, tools, and services to ask new questions, create new kinds of scholarly products, and reach new audiences. The Internet lies at the core of an advanced scholarly information-intensive collaborative research. These developments exist within a rapidly evolving social and policy environment, as relationships shift among scholars, publishers, librarians, universities, funding agencies, businesses, and other stakeholders. Scholarship in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities is evolving, but at different rates and in different ways… This is an opportune moment to think about what we should be building.” (Borgman, preface, page xvii)
This quote from Professor Christine L Borgman, Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles is from the preface of her work on scholarship in a digital age.
The Information Futures Commission was formed to explore this very notion: what should we be building? The work of the Commission is to develop a strategy that positions the University as a leader in the application of scholarly information and technologies to underpin next-generation research, teaching, learning and knowledge transfer, binding the strands to achieve the Growing Esteem vision.
We began by asking many questions — questions for which we knew there would not always be an obvious answer. Through the consultation process we heard many exceptional, thoughtful responses that reflect the diversity of our University community. That community has acknowledged the importance of this conversation, but also struggled with the complexity of the issues.
We begin this report by briefly describing the environment in which we operate. We follow with a summary of what we have learned from our community and from assessments of the world in which we operate and our place within that world.
We conclude with an analysis of the key points of agreement and, more importantly, the strategic questions and difficult choices. These are the matters where no clear consensus has emerged, where there will need to be informed debate and discussion, where trade-offs must be made, where the University will ultimately have to make some perhaps challenging decisions.
Attached to the Progress Report is an initial Draft Information Future Strategy. This has been developed to assist and inform the debate, drawing on all we have learned so far. The draft strategy is a starting point. Its final form will be determined by the choices we make, based upon your advice and involvement. The draft document proposes some principles to guide to the development and implementation of the ultimate strategy. The principles are followed by an example strategy for Melbourne’s information future – a strategy that seeks to ensure Melbourne can compete in a global knowledge economy by building upon its unique strengths.
This Progress Report and Draft Information Future Strategy are presented to elicit your comments, which will help to shape the final strategy that will be presented to Academic Board in June and University Council in July.
How to respond
Following its presentation to Academic Board in May this Progress Report and the attached Draft Strategy will be released for comment by the University community.
These documents and further relevant information will be available on the Information Futures web site.
During the two-week review period following the Academic Board meeting, the Information Futures Commission will convene a series of focus group sessions and host an open consultation forum for students and staff.
The review period will close on Friday 6 June 2008.
Your response to this report would be appreciated. Please leave a comment on this weblog or contact the project team directly.