Deakin's e-book device loan trial

Powerpoint presentation presenting an overview of e-books and e-content at Deakin University, revolving around the e-readers trials that were done in 2010 at Deakin University Library.

Warrock collection: original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of the Warrock Homestead, a local heritage listed property in Victoria

This collection includes the original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of a well known local heritage listed property, the Warrock homestead. The Warrock homestead consisted of detailed original timber structures of the 19th century. The drawings are the result of a conservation project funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia National Estate Grants program. In 1999 a further deposit of original reports relating to individual buildings on the property was received. The collection consists of monographs, photographs and photograph negatives, architectural drawings, VHS tapes and ephemera.

The postgraduate mentoring program at Deakin University and international student transition

This study adds to the literature as it examines the experiences that international postgraduate (IP) students have with a peer-mentoring program at an Australian University. To analyse transition and peer mentoring thirty-four (34) semi-structured interviews with IP students from Indian, Chinese and other national cohorts were conducted. The study found that transitioning IP students who had a mentor, benefitted as it provided a variety of support mechanisms so that IP students could transition to the next stage. Transition was important for mentors who were able to develop greater self-confidence, graduate attributes and other employability skills.

Mirjana Lozanovska. Deakin University

Creativity can be related to the human capacity to make, but with more emphasis on the process of making and the way the thing made reveals this. Creativity can also be related to production or objects that involve beauty, innovation, pleasure and ideas beyond the functional, rational and economic. Creativity can thus be associated with the human subject and/ or the object produced. The subject and object of creativity are sometimes entwined, and often represented as symbiotic in relation to artists and artistic production. In the seminal text Keywords, Raymond Williams (1976: 76) explains the historical associations between the words 'create' and 'creation' and the 'divine'; and later associations with the poet's and the artist's productions, leading eventually to the 'creative arts: However, the subject and object of creativity are not the same, as illustrated in the study of archaeological artefacts, where often the human subject (maker) is unknown. It is important they are not merged, and in this text I will try to respond to each part.

Des Smith. Deakin University

Creativity might be described as that intellectual and intuitive area where one senses the connections between the requirements and the possibilities of a situation. With this, one is able to embody the positive qualities of these connections within a production whereby a new clarity is given to the situations touched by these requirements.

Richard Tucker. Deakin University

Creativity has been defined 'as the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain'. I would question the words 'novel' and 'useful' because, if the idea is 'useless' but new to the creator, the creator has still given birth to an idea via some form of creative process. I suggest, therefore, that 'creativity' is simply the production of ideas. But it is not quite that straightforward. Innovation is often distinguished from creativity as the successful implementation of ideas. Yet there is a creative process between the birth of an idea and its implementation—that is evolving/ developing/ operating on an idea. This development of an idea is also creativity. I would therefore say that creativity is a two-stage process: it is, firstly, the production and, secondly, the development of ideas; where 'production' is understood as the initiating activities a designer undertakes to inform or inspire ideas.

Emerging technologies : Deakin's experience with mobile devices

Powerpoint presentation presenting an overview of the ebook readers trial based at Deakin University.

Development of a tool for evaluation of academic library spaces (TEALS) (0242)

The paper provides a brief description of the tool for evaluating the quality and utilisation of academic library spaces (TEALS). Supported by Deakin University Library, TEALS has been developed out of a research project in the School of Architecture and Building, Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus. The tool is intended to establish the setting for evaluation of physical spaces at different phases of development of new academic library spaces and refurbishment of existing ones as well as throughout the life of buildings. The methodological framework of the tool consists of four key elements; establishing Criteria of Quality (CoQ), determining Quality Indicators, evaluating library spaces against QIs and interpreting results for future improvements. The characteristics that distinguish TEALS from existing evaluation models include adopting an approach that focus on people (students, faculty and library staff), acting as a “reflective” and “empowering” tool and being user-friendly, quick and easy to use.