This 15-minute questionnaire asks students, staff and other scholars to describe, in their own words, how they find, use and share scholarly information.

In part, the survey was inspired by Danny Kingsley’s PhD research at the Australian National University. By surveying almost 300 academics Danny identified discipline-specific differences in how academics find and publish scholarly information.

The table below is based on my notes of a presentation given by Danny at the VALA 2008 conference. The full text of the refereed paper is available from the conference web site.

Will we find similar patterns among students and academics at the University of Melbourne?

The Outstanding! survey will be online until Friday 9 May. It takes about 15 minutes to complete, and we’d love to hear your voice. What’s your experience of finding and using scholarly information?

If all the current barriers disappeared and you were working or studying in an ideal environment, what would that environment be like? How would it feel? How would you do things differently from today?

The award recognises “significant and influential contributions to the development of computer-mediated communications and to the empowerment of individuals in using computers and the Internet.”

Michael was a keynote speaker at the VALA 2008 conference in Melbourne earlier this month.

We at the Information Futures Commission were delighted to welcome Michael to the Melbourne University campus, where he delivered the second Information Futures Forum lecture for 2008 — a video of Michael’s presentation is available online.