It ended at close of business on Friday 9 May 2008.

In the intervening two-and-a-bit months,  more than 300 people joined the Information Futures conversation in some way:

• filling in a survey
• writing or contributing to a submission (we received 66!)
• emailing or phoning to offer their ideas
• attending an Information Futures Forum
• attending a student-staff consultation forum
• inviting the Commission to attend a committee meeting
• requesting an individual meeting or briefing

So — what’s next?

This week the project team is drafting an interim report, drawing together the main themes that have emerged during the consultation period. The interim report includes a draft strategy for the University’s scholarly information and technologies.

The draft report will be:

• discussed at a Steering Committee meeting on Wednesday 14 May
• presented at Academic Board on Thursday 22 May
• released for review and comment on Friday 23 May

The final review period will run for two weeks, from Friday 23 May to Friday 6 June.

During the review period, a range of staff and students will be invited to attend focus groups to discuss detailed aspects of the draft document.

As well, we will seek input from all interested members of the University community, including our friends from Victoria, interstate and overseas.

Once finalised, the interim report will become three documents: a report, a strategy and a plan. These will be submitted to the June meeting of Academic Board, then the July meeting of University Council.

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.

Answer: You can download a one-page summary statement (PDF 20 kb) outlining the scope and purpose of the Information Futures Commission.

In summary: the Information Futures Commission will develop a 10-year strategy for the University ’s scholarly information and technologies.

The work of the commission will build upon Growing Esteem, the broader University strategy adopted in 2006. Growing Esteem provides the logical foundation for a re-conceptualisation of the University’s information strategy and plans for the next decade.

What do these changes mean for our libraries? For our teaching and learning spaces? For our research infrastructure? For our information and communication systems and infrastructure?

Here are some more specific examples. The final report might include recommendations about:

• principles for deciding when the University should collect and when it should connect to other institutions’ resources
• a strategy for support services relating to information literacy and information-seeking behavior
• prioritising of physical and virtual spaces for scholarly information
• expected standards and attributes of technological infrastructure or services to support scholarly activities
• models and concepts describing how scholarly information is used in different disciplines, and how best to support this for learning, teaching and research

The Commission will not make recommendations about questions such as:

• how people in the University should teach (pedagogy)
• how we should undertake research
• design of ‘research spaces’ such as laboratories and other specialised facilities
• organisational structures
• specific technologies

For more information, please visit the Information Futures Commission’s main web site.

Question: How will the Information Futures Commission seek input from the University community?

The summary project plan outlines the different ways in which University students and staff can participate in the Information Futures Commission.

We also welcome feedback and questions from outside the University. Please feel free to use the ‘comments’ facility on this weblog, or contact the project team directly.