Key questions
The following are some of the big questions that need to be considered as we seek to develop a suitable strategy for scholarly information and technologies at the University of Melbourne.
Please let us know what questions we are missing and what you think some of the answers might be. A consultation paper (with more detailed questions), a description of the opportunities to respond and more background information are available elsewhere on this web site.
How should we develop our scholarly information and technologies, services and infrastructure to achieve our research, learning, teaching and knowledge transfer aspirations over the next decade?
Our people
What knowledge and skills will our scholars need to find, evaluate, create, manipulate, share, present, use and manage scholarly information effectively? (We use the term "scholars" to describe the academics, students, information professionals and members of the broader community involved in scholarship in its broad sense.)
What does scholarly literacy mean in a digital environment? In a mixed environment? Is it different for the various types of students, staff and other scholars?
What is the university’s role in developing scholarly literacy in these environments?
How do we build a capacity for our scholars to be adaptable to future changes?
What is our role in supporting our people to manage their information in a responsible, legal, and ethical manner?
Our scholarly information
What scholarly information services and collections (physical and digital, both Melbourne owned and remotely accessed) will our scholars need?
What is the balance between collecting and connecting?
What do we need to do ourselves, what do we need to do through partnering?
How will the aesthetic of paper-based scholarship change in a digital context; that is, using the power of digital information in its connectedness, not just its presence?
How might scholarly information and technologies be used to help link the strands?
Our information infrastructure
What types of information professionals and information infrastructure will scholars need to support innovation and creativity (in all 3 strands of the helix)?
How can we meet scholarly information needs across a broad discipline base?
How should our scholarly infrastructure support collaboration across disciplines, institutions, globally, between teachers and students, and with our communities?
Our sense of place
What is the role of the scholarly commons (the physical and virtual places where people engage with scholarly information, often collaboratively) in a digital age?
How do we encourage a sense of the University as a learning community?
What kinds of physical and virtual spaces do we need to support scholarship?
What is the role of and balance between places for collaboration, individual study space, and access to collections (physical or digital)?
How can learning and teaching spaces support scholarly information in a digital age?
Our commitment to knowledge sharing
How do we wish to make our scholarly output available to others?
Will we contribute to the world’s knowledge by publishing in a way that enables open access to our publications? (includes theses)
Will we contribute to the development of new knowledge by making our nationally and internationally significant research data available to other scholars?
Will we make our learning and teaching resources openly available?
Are we committed to making all of these sustainable over time? How do we assure the preservation of the scholarly record in the digital context, or the veracity of it?
Are we prepared to see publishers and the peer review process diminish? To self promote? To let go of any benefits of sole ownership of data for the purposes of commercialisation and further research?
Are we committed to open access to our publications and research data despite all these challenges and considerations?
Is make our existing collections visible, usable and sustainable important to us? What about collections that don’t fit our research profile?