Designing for Communities with Communities: Co-designing Public Libraries. Public libraries are critical social infrastructure for communities across Australia. This project investigates how to involve community participation in the design of their public library spaces by analysing the efficacy of co-design activities introduced into three case studies. New knowledge will be generated about engaging community participation in the design and re-design of library spaces, as the societal role of p ....Designing for Communities with Communities: Co-designing Public Libraries. Public libraries are critical social infrastructure for communities across Australia. This project investigates how to involve community participation in the design of their public library spaces by analysing the efficacy of co-design activities introduced into three case studies. New knowledge will be generated about engaging community participation in the design and re-design of library spaces, as the societal role of public libraries continues to expand. Expected outcomes include an online guide and overarching framework, and blueprints for community participation that ensure genuine engagement and input.Read moreRead less
Understanding migrant information literacy: a qualitative study. This project plans to establish an information literacy framework to inform the design and delivery of information to Australia's migrant communities. Migration is the major component of population growth in Australia. Between 1996 and 2013, Australia’s overseas-born population grew by 51 per cent to 6.4 million people. To participate in and contribute to Australia and its social, economic and cultural life, migrants must be able t ....Understanding migrant information literacy: a qualitative study. This project plans to establish an information literacy framework to inform the design and delivery of information to Australia's migrant communities. Migration is the major component of population growth in Australia. Between 1996 and 2013, Australia’s overseas-born population grew by 51 per cent to 6.4 million people. To participate in and contribute to Australia and its social, economic and cultural life, migrants must be able to make informed choices. Access to information that is timely, accurate, relevant and tailored to their specific needs is essential for all Australian migrants. This project intends to contribute to an empirically-derived evidence base for migrant information literacy in Australia.Read moreRead less
Building the basis for evidence-based library and information practice: a qualitative study. This project will help Australia's libraries to contribute in a more powerful way to national productivity. It will establish an empirical basis for evidence-based library and information practice that will help library and information professionals make tough decisions in an environment where there is competition for limited resources.
Studying 'research' in Australia’s library and information profession. With over 111 million annual visits, libraries are fundamental to Australia's social fabric and increasingly to its success as a national economy. In the current volatile economic climate Australia's libraries are being called upon to do more with less. This project aims to help Australia's libraries to contribute in a more powerful way to national productivity by helping library and information professionals make tough decis ....Studying 'research' in Australia’s library and information profession. With over 111 million annual visits, libraries are fundamental to Australia's social fabric and increasingly to its success as a national economy. In the current volatile economic climate Australia's libraries are being called upon to do more with less. This project aims to help Australia's libraries to contribute in a more powerful way to national productivity by helping library and information professionals make tough decisions in an environment where there is competition for limited resources. This project aims, for the first time, build an evidence base on research in Australia's library and information profession. It will establish a framework that can be used by library and information professionals to build a research culture that enables the adoption of "practitioner-researcher" as an approach to professional practice.Read moreRead less
Methodologies for Designing and Evaluating Information Retrieval Experiments. Australian researchers have been highly successful in the area of information searching for more than two decades. This project will reinforce that position. By developing better measures of how retrieval systems such as web search engines perform, we will be able to advise the providers of such services on how to structure software so as to maximize the utility gained by their customers. Targeted access to the right ....Methodologies for Designing and Evaluating Information Retrieval Experiments. Australian researchers have been highly successful in the area of information searching for more than two decades. This project will reinforce that position. By developing better measures of how retrieval systems such as web search engines perform, we will be able to advise the providers of such services on how to structure software so as to maximize the utility gained by their customers. Targeted access to the right information is a goal of all organizations, regardless of their type, and improved methodologies for conducting information retrieval experiments will have widespread and tangible benefits. The techniques developed will also be applicable in fields such as document categorization, text summarization, and machine learning.Read moreRead less
Static and Dynamic Query Pruning Techniques for Complex Text Retrieval Systems. Targeted access to the right information is a goal of all organizations, regardless of their type, and improved methodologies for implementing information retrieval systems have widespread and tangible benefits. Australian researchers have been highly successful in this area of information searching for more than two decades, and this project will reinforce that position. By developing techniques for providing fast ....Static and Dynamic Query Pruning Techniques for Complex Text Retrieval Systems. Targeted access to the right information is a goal of all organizations, regardless of their type, and improved methodologies for implementing information retrieval systems have widespread and tangible benefits. Australian researchers have been highly successful in this area of information searching for more than two decades, and this project will reinforce that position. By developing techniques for providing faster search, even in the presence of complex query variants and distributed implementations, we will be able to advise the suppliers of such services on how to provide a maximally useful product.
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Understanding health information literacy in Australia's ageing population: A qualitative study. Australians need to know how to find and use information to help them age well. This research will establish a national Health Information Literacy Framework that will be an evidence-based guide for community agencies to use in creating resources and services to support the information needs of ageing Australians. Ageing Australians who are healthy and active are able to participate in the workforce, ....Understanding health information literacy in Australia's ageing population: A qualitative study. Australians need to know how to find and use information to help them age well. This research will establish a national Health Information Literacy Framework that will be an evidence-based guide for community agencies to use in creating resources and services to support the information needs of ageing Australians. Ageing Australians who are healthy and active are able to participate in the workforce, engage in the community while easing the burden on the national health care system. The research will place Australia at the forefront of health prevention and information literacy research. The research will be undertaken as a partnership between QUT, Griffith University and the Health Contact Centre. Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0567353
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$98,035.00
Summary
An Intelligent Search Infrastructure for Language Resources on the Web
. Language occupies a central role on the web: most content is expressed in language, and most access takes place via natural language search. Today, investigation of human language depends on access to this vast store of language data. This project will develop new infrastructure for accessing language resources, namely a language-aware search engine. Language technologies will be employed to classify web content, and a ....An Intelligent Search Infrastructure for Language Resources on the Web
. Language occupies a central role on the web: most content is expressed in language, and most access takes place via natural language search. Today, investigation of human language depends on access to this vast store of language data. This project will develop new infrastructure for accessing language resources, namely a language-aware search engine. Language technologies will be employed to classify web content, and a special search keyword 'lang:' will constrain search results to be in the specified language. The system will be integrated with major language archives in Australia and overseas, and deployed on the high performance computing infrastructure at Melbourne University's Advanced Research Computing Centre.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100295
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$410,523.00
Summary
Public libraries in the lives of people experiencing homelessness. The number of Australians living without secure housing grows every year. Increasingly this community is reaching out to our public libraries for shelter, connection to others and access to resources and services. Despite this relationship, there are no public policies to guide libraries in supporting this community or in partnering with housing agencies. Using a process of particpatory design with the homeless community, public ....Public libraries in the lives of people experiencing homelessness. The number of Australians living without secure housing grows every year. Increasingly this community is reaching out to our public libraries for shelter, connection to others and access to resources and services. Despite this relationship, there are no public policies to guide libraries in supporting this community or in partnering with housing agencies. Using a process of particpatory design with the homeless community, public library staff and users, and housing agencies, the research builds theoretical frameworks and public policy foundations to support the design of public library services, resources and environments that will meet the needs of the Australian homeless community in our urban, regional and remote contexts.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0238392
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$100,000.00
Summary
AraDA: Arafura Digital Archive. The AraDA Project aims to digitally preserve and make available online material relevant to the lands bordering the Arafura Sea (Top End of Australia, Eastern Indonesia, East Timor). For the first time this material will be accessible from a website maintained by the Northern Territory University Library.