The future according to…

12 June 2008 – 6:40 am

Some of our leading suppliers of technology and books visited the Melbourne University campus last month to share their thoughts about the next 10 years.

Videos are now available on the Information Futures web site — follow the links below. Each presentation is 20-30 minutes long.

Blackboard’s Regional Manager, Tony Macguire, talked about the changing expectations and behaviors of our students, particularly younger people who are part of the Net Generation. Blackboard is a major component of our online learning management system, LMS+ (pronounced “Ell Em Ess Plus”).

Simon Phipps is the Chief Open Source Officer for Sun Microsystems, and we were lucky that he happened to be visiting Australia at the right moment. As Sun is a major supplier of computer hardware, you might expect Simon to talk mainly about data storage and servers. No, indeedy — Simon talked about changes in society, in politics, in business practices, in how people interact with each other in everyday life. (For background about these ideas, try reading The Cluetrain Manifesto and Small Pieces Loosely Joined.)

Richard Siegersma, Executive Chair of DA Books, spoke enthusiastically about the exciting possibilities of new technologies for accessing books, both in print and digitally. Imagine being able to download your entire reading list onto an ebook reader at the start of semester, including textbooks, articles and extracts. And if you want a printed copy of a book or reading pack, simply place an order at the campus bookshop and pick up your nicely-bound printed-on-demand book less than an hour later. These technologies aren’t quite fully developed yet — but they’re just around the corner…

Michelle Selinger is the Director of Education in Cisco’s Asia-Pacific division. Again, you might be surprised by the content of Michelle’s presentation. Cisco is known as an IT network specialist — cables, routers and so on — but they also take an interest in what their university clients are doing. Michelle explored questions about who owns knowledge, how it is shared and acquired, the nature of authority, learning through games and rich media environments, and the meaning of “academic rigor” in this new world.

Blackwell Ltd is a global supplier of books and other library materials. Area Sales Manager Carolyne Cohn’s presentation started with some observations about the challenges facing academic libraries: currency exchange rates, declining funding, competition for space on campus, different copyright laws in different countries, the changing expectations and preferences of academics and students — I’m sure this struck a chord with many of our own library staff! Publishers of monographs and other scholarly works are responding to these challenges in different ways, and Carolyne gave several examples of new ways to provide access to scholarly information.

Crispin Blackall, Telstra’s Director of Future Technology Solutions, gave an overview of the IT industry’s growth to date. Mobile computing — via your phone, ebook reader or other portable device — is predicted to be the major change in digital communications in the next few years. The future is fast, portable and flexible. (Oh, and don’t get too attached to that keyboard — in the next 10 years you will probably learn several other ways to interact with digital devices and information environments.)

Huge thanks to Kylie Nickels, Reuchlin Teo and James Beckford Saunders for organising the Vendors’ Day.

By Margaret L Ruwoldt | Posted in collaboration, online, publishing, technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

The review period has closed

6 June 2008 – 5:13 pm

The review period for the Progress Report and Draft Strategy closed today, Friday 6 June.

Many thanks to everyone who submitted a written response, commented via this blog or attended a meeting or focus group session during the last fortnight.

The written submissions are available from the main Information Futures web site.

Over the next 10 days we will revise the strategy and seek further input from the University’s senior executives and from the Information Futures Commission’s Steering Committee.

The completed strategy will be presented to the 26 June meeting of Academic Board for endorsement, then to the 14 July meeting of University Council.

An implementation plan will be presented to the Planning and Budget Conference at the end of July.

By Margaret L Ruwoldt | Posted in about, draft strategy, progress report | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Documents released for comment

22 May 2008 – 2:32 pm

Following their presentation at today’s Academic Board meeting, we are releasing two new documents for comment:

  1. Progress Report from the Commission’s Steering Committee
  2. Melbourne’s Information Future: one possible strategy

The documents outline the Commission’s work to date and describe some long-term options for the University’s library, archive and cultural collections; research data management; IT support for research activities; collections of information created for learning and teaching purposes; scholarly outputs such as theses and journal articles; and the support services and human capabilities required to create, acquire, use and manage all of these.

The documents are available for downloading from the main Information Futures web site, or in a ‘commentable’ format on this weblog (see the “Progress Report” and “Draft Strategy” links in the navigation bar at the top of this page.)

We encourage you to read and comment on the documents.

Of particular interest are the five “strategic questions and difficult choices” identified in the Progress Report:

1. What type of library or libraries should we have?
2. What should be in the libraries?
3. Who can use our libraries?
4. How ‘open’ do we want to be?
5. How should we organise ourselves to achieve our aspirations?

Ways to respond

Deadline for comments

The review period ends on Friday 6 June.

What happens after 6 June

Your feedback will be used to refine a 10-year strategy for the University’s scholarly information and technologies.

The revised strategy will be presented at the June meeting of Academic Board and the July meeting of University Council.

A funding proposal will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.

By Margaret L Ruwoldt | Posted in about, draft strategy, events, progress report | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Introduction

22 May 2008 – 2:30 pm
“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.

By informationfutures | Posted in progress report | Comments (0)

Process to date

22 May 2008 – 2:29 pm

We approached the strategy development process in two stages. The first stage consisted of a consultation process aimed at opening up the questions, exposing the complexity of the environment and the opportunities and challenges before us. We hoped to elicit a wide range of views and opinions and to explore all the significant issues.

The Vice-Chancellor launched the Commission in late January 2008 at an event attended by over 200 people. A month later the Commission published a Consultation Paper and issued an open call for submissions. Over 900 copies of the Consultation Paper were downloaded from the web site and 450 printed copies were distributed.

During March and April we sought ideas and input from the University community and from external stakeholders. We hosted two open consultation forums. Four Information Futures Forums featured international and national expert speakers and attracted hundreds of attendees both in person and online.

The Commission’s web site and weblog have attracted almost 7000 visits and 14,000 pageviews. Students and staff offered comments on the blog and sent emails via the web site. An online survey asked individuals to describe their information seeking and management strategies and their view of an ideal future state. The survey attracted more than 130 responses, mainly from academic staff and graduate students.

We consulted widely with individuals and discipline-related groups. Deans and senior faculty staff were interviewed and presentations were delivered at meetings of 15 faculty and University committees. Discussions were held with representatives of several external organisations and special-interest groups, including the Council of Australian University Librarians and the Council of Australian Directors of IT.

In late April six exploratory workshops involved more than 30 volunteer students and staff.

We received 72 written submissions from faculties, groups, individuals and external organisations, including a submission from University College London’s Director of Library Services, who was a recent visitor. Written submissions are published on the Information Futures web site.

The internal Expert Panel met weekly throughout this process, providing invaluable guidance, encouragement and critical feedback. We also benefited from regular contributions by Richard Katz, Vice-President of EDUCAUSE and an External Reviewer for the Commission, and early feedback from Dame Lynne Brindley, CEO of the British Library.
In total, more than 300 people participated in the initial consultation phase.

This report heralds the second stage of the Commission’s work, in which we synthesise what we have learned and offer an initial draft of an Information Future Strategy. This report and the draft strategy will be released for comment by the University community following the May meeting of Academic Board. In May and June 2008 we will hold focus groups and other meetings to review and test the draft strategy. Input from this review process will be used to further refine the strategy.

The improved strategy will be presented to the Commission’s Steering Committee, Academic Board and University Council for final review. An implementation plan will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.

By informationfutures | Posted in progress report | Comments (0)