The Library and the Internet: Special Issue of On The Horizon

"Somewhere out on that horizon" - Joe Walsh (from The Warriors soundtrack)

A special issue of On The Horizon: “The Library and the Internet”

On the Horizon is the strategic planning resource for education professionals in the international post secondary and life-long learning arena. An environmental scanning journal, On the Horizon covers corporate universities, e-learning, private for-profit degree granting institutions as well as the traditional university. Areas include the business of education delivery, content and certification, as well as rules and regulations in areas such as institutions and intellectual property.

This special issue is devoted to new concepts and innovations in higher education, especially online, that may provide impetus for a paradigm shift. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htm. Go to volume 16, number 1, 2008. The papers include:

• Constructing the café university: teaching and learning on the digital frontier by Cornel J. Reinhart
• Can we talk? Course management software and the construction of knowledge by Carla R. Payne and Cornel J. Reinhart
• Adaptive individualization: the next generation of online education by Nish Sonwalkar

As program director for the MSc in Library and Information Management at the University of South Australia, I am always glad of the chance to keep up to date with progress in this area.

Indigenous knowledge management event

"I'll be courting some disasterWith the Melbourne wrecking crew" - The Indigo Girls (God bless them)

I have just returned from a master class in indigenous knowledge management held in Melbourne.

This is an area I am really interested in partly because I want to learn more about the history of my new home and partly because I think that the desert knowledge, in particular, is going to become really useful as things heat up here and elsewhere. (You can learn more about desert knowledge from the program of the 2008 DESERT INNOVATION FESTIVAL.)

There are many other issues involved in the area of indigenous knowledge management. For example

• how western corporations can learn from owners of indigenous knowledge without exploiting them
• how IT professionals can interact ethically and professionally with owners of indigenous knowledge.

Our track record in both cases is not good. Looking to the future, I hope to integrate indigenous knowledge management into the BIM and L&IM programs I direct at the University of South Australia.

In terms of e-learning, indigenous knowledge is hard to represent for a good many cultural reasons, not least of which is the permission to use knowledge that developers do not own. Also, within some cultures, representing people with multimedia can mean that the material cannot be used when these people die. I think that all of us will come to rely on a good deal of indigenous knowledge for our future survival. There are many challenges ahead. We need to start thinking about the ethical and educational issues before the sun sets.

Homepages at UniSA

"Home thoughts from abroad" - Clifford T. Ward

Dr Simon Shurville has a new homepage at the University of South Australia. There is also a page about my work on the BIM and LIM programs.

Started at Uni SA today

"... it will be a start!" - The Jam

I have started work a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems in the School of Computer and Information Science at the University of South Australia.today! I am based at the City West Campus and my new e-mail is Simon.Shurville at unisa.edu.au. My home page at Uni Sa is http://people.unisa.edu.au/Simon.Shurville. I am program director of Business Information Management and Library Information Management.

I flew in from Perth a couple of weeks ago to start the reno on our house in Brighton. I have lifted a lot of dusty carpet so far. Marian flew over a few days later and has been busy stripping wall paper. The reno is going well and our furniture from Brighton, Enfgland and Fremantle arrived this morning. Fairly soon we will be able to relax in the pool and watch Skippy the cat slide on our newly polished floors into our newly painted walls. Bliss.