There are only 7 working days until the deadline for responses to the Information Futures Commission.

As of 6.00 pm Tuesday 29 April we had received:

• four written responses from faculties and other groups
• written responses from seven individuals
• 125 completed surveys
• 10 comments on the Information Futures blog
• many informal emails

As well, we have run several exploratory workshops with students and staff, hosted four Information Futures Forums and an open consultation forum, attended a dozen committee meetings and consulted personally with deans, committee members and other interested individuals.

All in two months. Whew!

The consultation period comes to an end on Friday 9 May 2008, the deadline for all submissions to the Information Futures Commission.

If we haven’t heard from you yet, it’s time to get yer skates on. Come on, you know it’s important :-)

The conversations we have in the next few weeks will directly shape the University’s 10-year strategy for scholarly information and technologies. If you have an idea, a suggestion, a comment or a question, now is the time to speak up!

At yesterday’s project team meeting, we noodled out a diagram showing the process for consultation and drafting the strategy. (Click the image below to see a larger version, or keep reading for a description of what the diagram means.)

As Commission leader Linda O’Brien noted this week, “The first stage of the consultation process has been focused on opening up the issues, exposing the complexity of the environment and the opportunities and challenges before us. In this way we hope to elicit a wide range of views and opinions and ensure that we have explored all the significant issues.”

We started by publishing a Consultation Paper that defined the questions we needed to address.

During March and April we have sought ideas and input from the University community and from external stakeholders. We have held forums with guest speakers, attended meetings, consulted widely, run an online survey, given presentations and invited written submissions.

This exploratory phase will conclude with a series of workshops in late April — RSVP now to secure your place and have your say!

We have reached the widest part of the diamond shape in the diagram — it represents the half-way point for the process. Now we are entering a stage where we begin to refine our ideas based on what we have learned and the feedback received.

In early May we will hold a series of focus groups and other meetings to review all the input received and start drafting the 10-year strategy.

A draft document will be released for comment by the University community in early June.

Once finalised, the strategy will be submitted to an approval process that includes the Commission’s Steering Committee, Academic Board and University Council. An implementation plan will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.