Community information literacy : developing an Australian research agenda

The majority of information literacy (IL) research has been con ducted within the confi nes of educational or workplace settings. Little to no research has explored IL in community contexts. This paper will consider the current state of IL research within the community setting. The paper uses three re cent IL studies as a vehicle for developing an Australian com munity IL research agenda. Three observations are made about community information literacy (CIL) and CIL research: (i) it is multi- and inter-disciplinary; (ii) it has a learning lens; and (iii) it has a pluralistic approach. The CIL research agenda should be seen as practical and real – it is about real people, doing real things in real life contexts. To achieve this we must bring to gether a research community that is ready to cross boundar ies and forge relationships with other groups. In addition a coherent and structured research agenda should be established.

Coordinated research support services at Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a large multidisciplinary university located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is increasing its research focus and is developing its research support services. It has adopted a model of collaboration between the Library, High Performance Computing and Research Support (HPC) and more broadly with Information Technology Services (ITS). Research support services provided by the Library include the provision of information resources and discovery services, bibliographic management software, assistance with publishing (publishing strategies, identifying high impact journals, dealing with publishers and the peer review process), citation analysis and calculating authors’ H Index. Research data management services are being developed by the Library and HPC working in collaboration. The HPC group within ITS supports research computing infrastructure, research development and engagement activities, researcher consultation, high speed computation and data storage systems , 2D/ 3D (immersive) visualisation tools, parallelisation and optimization of research codes, statistics/ data modeling training and support (both qualitative and quantitative) and support for the university’s central Access Grid collaboration facility. Development and engagement activities include participation in research grants and papers, student supervision and internships and the sponsorship, incubation and adoption of new computing technologies for research. ITS also provides other services that support research including ICT training, research infrastructure (networking, data storage, federated access and authorization, virtualization) and corporate systems for research administration. Seminars and workshops are offered to increase awareness and uptake of new and existing services. A series of online surveys on eResearch practices and skills and a number of focus groups was conducted to better inform the development of research support services. Progress towards the provision of research support is described within the context organizational frameworks; resourcing; infrastructure; integration; collaboration; change management; engagement; awareness and skills; new services; and leadership. Challenges to be addressed include the need to redeploy existing operational resources toward new research support services, supporting a rapidly growing research profile across the university, the growing need for the use and support of IT in research programs, finding capacity to address the diverse research support needs across the disciplines, operationalising new research support services following their implementation in project mode, embedding new specialist staff roles, cross-skilling Liaison Librarians, and ensuring continued collaboration between stakeholders.

Life in the 'real world': a profile of Queensland University of Technology Library and Information Science graduates.

A graduate destination survey can provide a snap shot in time of a graduate’s career progression and outcome. This paper will present the results of a Queensland University of Technology study exploring the employment outcomes of students who had completed a library and information science course from the Faculty of Information Technology between 2000 and 2008. Seventy-four graduates completed an online questionnaire administered in July 2009. The study found that 90% of the graduates surveyed were working and living in Queensland, with over three quarters living and working in Brisbane. Nearly 70% were working full-time, while only 1.4% indicating that they were unemployed and looking for work. Over 80% of the graduates identified themselves as working in “librarianship”. This study is the first step in understanding the progression and destination of QUT’s library and information science graduates. It is recommended that this survey becomes an ongoing initiative so that the results can be analysed and compared over time.

Information literacy programs and research : an international review

This paper provides an overview of contemporary information literacy research and practice. While the content is highly selective, the intention has been to highlight international and Australian developments which have achieved significant recognition, which are representative of similar trends in other places, or which are unique in some way. There are three main foci in the paper. Firstly, an exploration of ways of interpreting the idea of information literacy. Secondly, a synthesis of various efforts to seek new directions in educational, community and workplace contexts, beginning with the major initiatives being undertaken in the United States. Thirdly, an introduction to some recent research, concluding with a summary of my own investigation into different ways of experiencing information literacy

Identifying and delineating information experience as a research domain : A discussion paper

A line of information and information literacy research has emerged that has a strong focus on information experience. Strengthened understanding, profiling and theorising of information experience as a specific domain of interest to information researchers is required. A focus on information experience is likely to have a major influence on the field, drawing attention to interpretive and experiential forms of research.

Scientific Research in Information Systems : A Beginner's Guide

- ​Covers entire research process from start to end - Places particular emphasis on motivational components, modes of inquiry in scholarly conduct, theorizing and planning research - Includes aspects such as publication and ethical challenges This book is designed to introduce doctoral and other higher-degree research students to the process of scientific research in the fields of Information Systems as well as fields of Information Technology, Business Process Management and other related disciplines within the social sciences. It guides research students in their process of learning the life of a researcher. In doing so, it provides an understanding of the essential elements, concepts and challenges of the journey into research studies. It also provides a gateway for the student to inquire deeper about each element covered​. Comprehensive and broad but also succinct and compact, the book is focusing on the key principles and challenges for a novice doctoral student.

Cloud computing for healthcare research information sharing

With the widespread application of healthcare Information and Communication Technology (ICT), constructing a stable and sustainable data sharing circumstance has attracted rapidly growing attention in both academic research area and healthcare industry. Cloud computing is one of long dreamed visions of Healthcare Cloud (HC), which matches the need of healthcare information sharing directly to various health providers over the Internet, regardless of their location and the amount of data. In this paper, we discuss important research tool related to health information sharing and integration in HC and investigate the arising challenges and issues. We describe many potential solutions to provide more opportunities to implement EHR cloud. As well, we introduce the development of a HC related collaborative healthcare research example, thus illustrating the prospective of applying Cloud Computing in the health information science research.

Health information management : What business are we in?

Developments in information technology will drive the change in records management; however, it should be the health information managers who drive the information management change. The role of health information management will be challenged to use information technology to broker a range of requests for information from a variety of users, including he alth consumers. The purposes of this paper are to conceptualise the role of health information management in the context of a technologically driven and managed health care environment, and to demonstrat e how this framework has been used to review and develop the undergraduate program in health information management at the Queensland University of Technology.

Talking about watching : using the video card game and wiki-web technology to engage IT students in developing observational skills.

Designers need to develop good observational skills in order to conduct user studies that reveal the subtleties of human interactions and adequately inform design activity. In this paper we describe a game format that we have used in concert with wiki-web technology, to engage our IT and Information Environments students in developing much sharper observational skills. The Video Card Game is a method of video analysis that is suited to design practitioners as well as to researchers. It uses the familiar format of a card game similar to "Happy Families,, to help students develop themes of interactions from watching video clips. Students then post their interaction themes on wiki-web pages, which allows the teaching team and other students to edit and comment on them. We found that the tangible (cards), game, role playing and sharing aspects of this method led to a much larger amount of interaction and discussion between student groups and between students and the teaching team, than we have achieved using our traditional teaching methods, while taking no more time on the part of the teaching staff. The quality of the resulting interaction themes indicates that this method fosters development of observational skills.In the paper we describe the motivations, method and results in full. We also describe the research context in which we collected the videotape data, and how this method relates to state of the art research methods in interaction design for ubiquitous computing technology.

Knowledge-Based Urban Development : Planning and Applications in the Information Era

In the globalizing world, knowledge and information (and the social and technological settings for their production and communication) are now seen as keys to economic prosperity. The economy of a knowledge city creates value-added products using research, technology, and brainpower. The social benefit of knowledge-based urban development (KBUD); however, extends beyond aggregate economic growth.

Towards digital facility modelling for Sydney Opera House using IFC and semantic web technology

The challenges of maintaining a building such as the Sydney Opera House are immense and are dependent upon a vast array of information. The value of information can be enhanced by its currency, accessibility and the ability to correlate data sets (integration of information sources). A building information model correlated to various information sources related to the facility is used as definition for a digital facility model. Such a digital facility model would give transparent and an integrated access to an array of datasets and obviously would support Facility Management processes. In order to construct such a digital facility model, two state-of-the-art Information and Communication technologies are considered: an internationally standardized building information model called the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and a variety of advanced communication and integration technologies often referred to as the Semantic Web such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This paper reports on some technical aspects for developing a digital facility model focusing on Sydney Opera House. The proposed digital facility model enables IFC data to participate in an ontology driven, service-oriented software environment. A proof-of-concept prototype has been developed demonstrating the usability of IFC information to collaborate with Sydney Opera House’s specific data sources using semantic web ontologies.

Research productivity levels of Chinese TEFL academics

Since China’s Economic Reform and its Open Door Policy, China has entered a new era of education (Adamson, 2002; Hu, 2005a). English has gained status as a language for international relations (Graddol, 1997) and international trade (Qu, 2007). Hence, in 2001, China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) required universities to offer 5-10% of their course units in English, particularly in the fields of information technology, biotechnology, finance and law (Jen, 2001; MOE, 2001). However, “the upgrading of national English proficiency, then, is predicted largely on the professional competence of the teaching force” (Hu, 2005b, p. 655). For TEFL academics, one component of this competence is the capacity to conduct research (Day, 1991; Shu, 2002). Indeed, research productivity has become essential for university success, and academics’ employment and promotional prospects. This study aims to investigate 182 Chinese TEFL academics’ research outputs across three Chinese higher education institutions through the research question: What are the research productivity levels of Chinese TEFL academics? A survey instrument was devised to gather TEFL academics’ calculations of research productivity and, in particular, the quality and quantity of research outputs over a five-year period (2004-2008). Descriptive statistics through SPSS were used to analyse data across research output fields (e.g., journal articles, conference papers). Academic status varied (n=182; teaching assistants 23.6%, lecturers 47.3%, associate professors 22.5%, and professors 6.6%) as did years of teaching (1-5 years 27.4%, 6-10 years 24.7%, 11-15 18.1%, 16-20 years 13.7%, > 21 years 15.9%). Results (n=182, male=27%, females=73%) indicated 18% had not produced any research in the five-year period. Indeed, more than 70% had produced no research in all categories except non-core journal articles and provincial projects. An overwhelming majority of TEFL academics had zero productivity in 10 of the 12 categories. Nevertheless, there were highly-productive TEFL academics, who had produced five or more pieces of research across the 12 categories. In addition, there was not much difference between sole and co-authored research outputs, except non-core journal articles where sole authored work was 20% higher than co-authored work. China’s desire for international competitiveness in education will require measures that facilitate higher levels of research productivity. These measures must include professional development, support and mentoring programs, and employment of personnel who can guide these processes. Research performance is an outcome, hence there is a need to understand Chinese TEFL academics’ perceptions about research, and experiences that may hinder and facilitate higher research productivity.

Privacy and security in open and trusted health information systems

The Open and Trusted Health Information Systems (OTHIS) Research Group has formed in response to the health sector’s privacy and security requirements for contemporary Health Information Systems (HIS). Due to recent research developments in trusted computing concepts, it is now both timely and desirable to move electronic HIS towards privacy-aware and security-aware applications. We introduce the OTHIS architecture in this paper. This scheme proposes a feasible and sustainable solution to meeting real-world application security demands using commercial off-the-shelf systems and commodity hardware and software products.