Information Futures

We live in a world in which research is increasingly interdisciplinary, international and collaborative, yet one in which discipline differences coupled with technological change are driving even more marked differences in the ways in which scholarly information is created and disseminated across different disciplines. We have seen tremendous growth in scholarly information, in all forms. These trends show no sign of abating.

To enhance Melbourne’s position as one of the great research universities of the world, a university that values diversity, that adheres to the importance of being research-led and comprehensive, we must provide the people, information and infrastructure to meet the diverse needs of our researchers, both staff and students, across the different disciplines. Melbourne has a unique opportunity to provide these capabilities in a way that fosters cross-disciplinary research by developing information professionals and frameworks which enable researchers to easily work across discipline boundaries.

In the rapidly changing scholarly information landscape all researchers will need to work in partnership with professional staff, staff with a breadth of relevant discipline understanding together with current, deep knowledge and skills in information management. These new information professionals blend aspects which are both academic and professional, in one sense the ‘scholar librarian’ re-invented for the digital world. In an increasingly complex environment they will be ‘connectors’, linking researchers with researchers, researchers with professional experts, researchers with relevant information, tools and services, to achieve research outcomes. They will be part of the research process, understanding the scholarly information landscape, ensuring our researchers have access to relevant scholarly works, leading techniques and tools, advising and assisting with data management, particularly how best to maximise the impact of the research through publication.

In the humanities the value of such professionals will primarily lie in their deep understanding of our collections, of other collections which may be of value, and in their awareness of emerging opportunities being offered through technology. In science-based disciplines they will typically bring a deeper technological understanding, assisting researchers to describe, manipulate, manage and curate large data sets, blending an understanding of information management with emerging technological possibilities. Growing this capability will ensure that Melbourne stays at the forefront in a rapidly changing world.

Whist we are seeing a growing trend toward open access publishing there is no sign that the amount of published ‘for profit’ journals and books are in decline – in fact the reverse. And whilst it is clear that journals have moved to predominantly digital form, and textbooks may well follow within the next decade, we will still need to pay for these publications for the foreseeable future – no matter what their form.

The scholarly community will need to find ways in which the peer review process can evolve in a changing publishing landscape given its importance to the sector. We will be paying for access rather than ownership in many cases, so it will be incumbent upon us to participate in international consortia which seek to protect in perpetuity access to digital publications, fulfilling our traditional obligations as a custodian of knowledge for future generations. If the University seriously seeks to be internationally competitive and comprehensive we must be able to provide access to deep and rich collections, no matter what their form.

Open standards, open publishing, open source and collaboration will continue to grow in importance for research information, systems and infrastructure. International collaboration will be essential if we are to be positioned as a leader. We will need the ability to enter partnerships, to collaborate, from a whole of University level down to the level of the individual researcher. We should strongly encourage, perhaps ‘mandate’, open publishing of our research if we value our role in contributing to knowledge creation, equity of access and promoting the work of our scholars. We should make it easy for our researchers to publish in this way. We will need to recognise complex intellectual property and copyright issues, particularly in some disciplines and will need to manage these appropriately, while advocating for change where possible and beneficial.

Whilst more research computing will happen in the “Internet cloud”, for the foreseeable future a great research university with a strong science-base will need ready access to peak computing facilities to be globally competitive. And whilst there are emerging international repositories for research data through to publications there will continue to be a need for the University to provide such capabilities. Our researchers will need ever-increasing amounts of storage for research data during the course of research, and for publication of both the data and final outputs, where these make an enduring scholarly contribution of national and international significance. We need to make this easy yet sophisticated, so that researchers can allow differentiated access to collaborators, students, colleagues, or to the world.
The tools and infrastructure required to facilitate collaboration, access to and sharing of scholarly output will be critical foundations. Our internal network, our links to the world, our collaboration tools, will need to be continually upgraded to cope with rapid technological change, ever increasing demands for greater bandwidth and massive increases in data.

In summary, to advance Melbourne’s position as a leading research university it will:

• have the necessary capabilities to compete in a globally competitive world by providing advanced large scale data stores, collaboration tools and networks;
• differentiate and demonstrate unique value by building its scholarly information capabilities in a way that encourages and facilitates discipline depth whilst making it easy for interdisciplinary research to occur.