Your research data as a valuable asset: taking the long term view

Collecting and managing your research data is an important part of developing your research project and there is a growing awareness of the value of research data beyond the life of the project. With most data now being born digital the need to manage research data is paramount. This session will focus on good practice in research data management and provide information about the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) - infrastructure that helps make Australian research data discoverable and accessible to all researchers

Finite Element Analysis of Small Scale Continuous Calving

Ice shelves are floating ice masses, which are sensitive to climate changes. The main mechanisms for the mass loss of ice shelves around Antarctica are basal melting and calving. For an understanding of the mechanisms of calving the influence of environmental parameters needs to be investigated. We use a fracture mechanical approach to examine the nature and frequency of calving events. Ice responses to load in two ways: on long time scales ice reacts like a viscous fluid, and on short time scale like an elastic solid. As calving is a representation of the solid nature of ice, the elastic response is important and linear elastic fracture mechanics can be applied. However, gravity remains a long time load and hence, a viscous component needs to be taken into account as well. Therefore, we use a Kelvin-Voigt model for analyzing the transient response of an ice shelf to a calving event. In a simplified 2D-model the ice shelf is treated as a rectangular block, in which the gravity force is the only load in a first analysis. The stresses on the surface in the vicinity of the calving front are computed with the finite element software COMSOL. The boundary conditions are the water pressure at the front and bottom of the ice shelf and a constant displacement at the inflow. A stationary state will reappear until eventually the subsequent calving event occurs, the termination time is around 175days. Based on this time interval and the flow velocity of the ice shelf we estimate the calving rate. Different parameter studies reveal the influence of geometry and material parameters on the stresses for an elastic material model. The literature and measurements at the Ekstroem Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, provides the relevant parameter range. Due to the depth-dependent water pressure at the ice front, a bell shaped distribution of stresses on the surface is found. For this reason the location of the maximal stress denotes the most likely position for a calving event and is arranged in between 0.65H and 0.85H, with H the thickness at the ice front. The results of these studies are compared to the results for two cross-sections of measured geometries of the Ekstroem Ice Shelf

Getting Found - Using social media to build your research profile

Have you thought about your online profile? There are so many options that will help you to get found and network with others (e.g. LinkedIn, Academia.edu, ResearchGate and more). But where do you start? Do you know what option(s) will be the right fit for you, your objectives and your research? This presentation will prime you to make informed decisions about building your profile on social/research networking sites

Website Usability: A Window into a Learning Environment

Academic library websites provide a vital online learning environment for students. They should follow sound design principles, provide functionality, and ease of navigation. As part of a strategy to make effective changes to the library website, Edith Cowan University Library wanted to gather evidence to discover how users went about locating information resources accessible from its website. Concerns existed amongst the library staff about how intuitive it was to locate the various information resources provided. This paper will outline the action research process taken to test the website heuristics to determine what improvements were needed in the design. Using Jakob Nielsen\u27s usability testing principles as a guide, we conducted usability tests with students selected from across the three metropolitan campuses. Results provided us with an understanding of how students approached the interface, which problems related to design and which highlighted an information literacy issue

An academic library partnership in the Indian Ocean region

The emergence of a global marketplace in education offers valuable partnership opportunities. Libraries in small developing countries often do not have a critical mass of library professionals to share knowledge and to provide advice and collegial support. This case study describes a World Bank funded “Link Institution Arrangement”, which established a library partnership between an academic library in Western Australia and one in the Republic of Maldives. The authors describe the state of libraries and the emerging library profession in the Maldives. They also reveal ways in which the partners explored development issues facing an isolated academic library, shared knowledge in developing print and digital collections and planning collection development. The authors affirm the value of building enduring professional partnerships and conclude with recommendations for building print and digital collections, which may have implications for other small academic libraries

Pushing library information to first-year students: An exploratory study of faculty/library collaboration

The authors contend that better information literacy and library skills development practice is needed for students entering university. This paper presents a case study of how a teacher education (TE) lecturer and a faculty librarian collaborated in an Australian university to provide information literacy practice. A mutual interest in technology-enhanced learning and teaching through podcasting media was the catalyst for the collaboration. A semester-long trial was conducted in which library pod/vodcasts were provided to first-year teacher education students. This paper explores this student learning and proposes a prototype for further media-related collaboration between academic and library staff

Research data management in a collaborative network

Darren Gibson and Julia Gross explore the research data challenges that may arise within a collaborative research network, and offer possible solutions

Twenty-three steps to learning Web 2.0 technologies in an academic library

Purpose – This paper aims to report on the adoption and evaluation of a Learning 2.0 program in a pilot program at the Edith Cowan University Library during 2007. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the suitability of Learning 2.0 for training eight “early adopters” among library staff in the new and emerging Web 2.0 technologies. The program was set up and deployed via a blog, which recorded staff progress through the nine-week implementation phase of the program. At the conclusion, a focus group was held and the pilot group members responded to questions about the relevance of the program, and the effectiveness of their learning. Findings – It was found that library staff responded positively to this program, not least because it adhered to adult learning principles. For the authors\u27 purpose, Learning 2.0 was an eminently suitable training package. Originality/value – The paper is unique in that Edith Cowan University Library was the first Australian university library to adopt Learning 2.0