With 2018 drawing to a close, we would like to wish all our readers, contributors, supporters and partners a safe and happy holiday season.
Office closure
APO’s offices will be closed from Monday, 24 December 2018 and reopen on Wednesday, 2 January 2019. The website remains open and content posted during this time will be included in the January or February Briefings.
Briefings break
The newsletter Briefing service closure dates are as follows:
Daily Briefing: The last update will be sent on Friday, 21 December – service resumes on Monday, 4 February.
Weekly Briefing: The last update will be sent on Wednesday, 19 December – service resumes on Wednesday, 16 January.
New Zealand Briefing: The last update will be sent on Tuesday, 18 December – service resumes on Tuesday, 15 January.
APO Team 2018: (L-R) Tim McCarthy, Michelle Zwagerman, Amanda Lawrence, Emily Silvester, Camilo Jorquera, Penelope Aitken, Adam Scott, Craig Burton and Les Kneebone (absent: Claire Kelly and Ian Muchamore)
Over the years the APO team has been remarkably stable, but it is inevitable that some people will leave while new people arrive – and with big new projects the APO team continues to grow, which is very exciting. The main team is based at Swinburne University of Technology, with collaborators based at partner universities and organisations including University of South Australia (UniSA), RMIT University, and the University of Melbourne.
The objective of the APO-led ARC LIEF grantLinked Semantic Platforms (LSP) for Social Infrastructure Project is to develop the next generation of decision-support tools for interdisciplinary research on critical public policy issues through linked open data, knowledge graphs and collaborations across existing research infrastructure projects.
The project expects to achieve significant benefits for evidence-based policy research by creating open linked databases and innovative analytical tools for the diverse data and documents available. This will support researchers in universities, industry, government, and NGOs to find new solutions to critical public policy issues in social care, public health, work and wellbeing, transport, built environments and digital inclusion.
Research team
The team of researchers and positions that have been filled are as follows:
The staff and board of APO would like to thank all our readers, researchers, contributors, advertisers, Major Partners, Collection sponsors, collaborators and everyone else who has worked with APO in 2018.
We wish you all the best for the festive season and the New Year!
The APO team gets into the silly season spirit (L-R): Michelle Zwagerman, Tim McCarthy, Emily Silvester, Penelope Aitken, Amanda Lawrence, Craig Burton, Camilo Jorquera, Les Kneebone and Adam Scott (front).
APO best of 2018
Every year at APO we prepare the Top 10 list of most viewed content across all major subject areas. View the full Top 10 list overall, or filter for the Top 10 in each of our 13 broad subject categories.
The year in review
It always seems to be a big year for APO but this year we have really grown significantly thanks to a large ARC infrastructure grant, the support of our APO Major Partners and an increasing number of special projects and collaborations.
Technology is changing so rapidly, the database continues to grow, there are new ways of connecting and operating knowledge infrastructure, and more demands and expectations of services and functionality. Now more than ever APO needs to work with other systems and organisations to ensure we can thrive as a public knowledge service in such a dynamic and exciting environment.
Most people know that APO provides an excellent alert service, with daily, weekly and bi-monthly New Zealand Briefings updating readers on the latest research reports and papers. But APO is much more than this – we are also a publisher and open access repository of full text policy reports, papers and data, organised and available for the long term. Both services are essential if we are to have productive and democratic access to quality research and information on public interest issues.
Some of APO’s growing list of special collections.
APO’s research and Feature Collections act as knowledge hubs for key publications, data sets and other resources, bringing together both new materials and building up an archive that can be searched and analysed.
With our extensive database of research we can quickly pull together the key research on a particular issue from the APO archive as well as seeking out essential resources to add to the collection. In 2018 we have continued to grow our Special Collections supported by Major Partners, Australian Research Council (ARC) project partners and a range of other organisations.
This year’s theme: ‘Redesigning the Public Knowledge System: New Tools and Strategies for Research, Policy and Practice’ addressed the global crisis in the production, use and management of publicly funded research and information across all industries.
For those who were not able to make the APO Forum 2018 – or those who did but can’t get enough – we captured the day on video so you can watch the presentations from our public knowledge luminaries at your convenience. You can also find the run of the day in the APO Forum 2018 Program and see our picture gallery in the APO Forum 2018 Wrap Up.
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Prof Jane Farmer, Director of the Social Innovation Research Institute at Swinburne University of Technology.
Keynote Presentation: The Four Waves of the Evidence Revolution
APO held its first workshop following the APO Annual Forum in October at Swinburne University of Technology. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Julia Littell, Professor of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College (US) who also works with the The Campbell Collaboration, an organisation dedicated to evidence synthesis for evidence-based policy and practice.
‘It was wonderful to see such highly engaged participants from a broad range of sectors at APO’s first workshop. The diversity in the room allowed for unique sharing of experience and ideas – not only by our knowledgeable workshop leader Julia, but from the participants themselves.’
APO Director Amanda Lawrence
Dr Julia Littell
Dr Julia Littell’s Systematic Reviews for the Social Sciences slides are now available to view. We’d like to thank Julia for her brilliant systematic reviews thought leadership on the day and for allowing us to make this resource publicly available.
