Emily Silvester

Catch APO at conferences and events in 2018

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APO will be out and about in the coming months, attending many conferences and events – if you see us come and say hello!

June

HealthInfoNet Roundtable

APO Director Amanda Lawrence presented at the HealthInfoNet Roundtable on 6 June in Melbourne. HealthInfoNet is an organisation ‘helping to close the gap by providing the evidence base to inform practice and policy in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health’. HealthInfoNet have recently updated their website, and have developed a short video on the redesign. This site is crucial to anyone working in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait health sector.

HealthInfoNet Melbourne Roundtable speakers_June 2018 — HealthInfoNet Melbourne Roundtable speakers, June 2018

VCOSS Good Life Summit

With a state election coming up in Victoria, the Victorian Council of Social Service VCOSS Good Life Summit on 13 June delivered a terrific day of presentations, conversations and networking across the policy and social sectors. In the words of VCOSS: ‘Delivering a good life for all Victorians, regardless of their background or individual circumstances, must be on the agenda for the 2018 State Election, and beyond.’ summit_webbanner (1).png

Amanda Lawrence and Michelle Zwagerman attended the event with thanks to our partnership with VCOSS. Continue reading “Catch APO at conferences and events in 2018”

APO Forum 2018 – save the date!

APO ANNUAL FORUM

In 2017 APO held its first public forum to celebrate our 15 year anniversary and bring together key partners and friends to discuss some of the many pressing issues in the delivery of evidence-informed public policy and better access and use of research. Videos of the presentations are available here.

This was the first of what we now consider to be an annual event. So please mark your calendars for the 2018 APO Annual Forum which will be held on Thursday 25 October in Melbourne – again at the Engineers Australia conference space in the city. It is the day after the Global Evidence and Implementation conference so a great week to be in Melbourne!

If you have any thoughts or suggestions for the program please get in touch with Emily Silvester (esilvester@apo.org.au) or Michelle Zwagerman (mzwagerman@apo.org.au) – it is still very open at this stage. We will be finalising the program in August following discussion with the APO Advisory Board and input from the APO community.

APO website updates

The APO website has undergone some improvements lately. These changes include the addition of the My APO button on the home page for quick access to the APO dashboard, a dedicated Advertise page, and a Footer to improve navigation.

The My APO dashboard update applies to all contributors and advertisers who upload content to the site as well as website users employing the bookmarking tool.

Dashboard myAPO

Users need to be registered and logged in to access the My APO dashboard. Once they are in the My APO dashboard view, they will have access to all their listings and bookmarks. Users can add new blocks to the dashboard configuration simply by clicking on ‘Add a block’.

Add a block view

Continue reading “APO website updates”

Welcome to Les Kneebone – APO Information Architect

Les’ enduring interest is in thesauri, aka taxonomies, aka subject headings – however you put it, Les loves controlled vocabularies! Following management of ScOT (Schools Online Thesaurus), Les now manages vocabularies and implements ontologies (joins the dots) in the policy and research data management domain.

Les has worked in information management roles in government, school, community and research sectors since 2002. He mainly contributed to managing metadata, taxonomies and cataloguing standards used in these sectors.

Before graduating in Information Management at RMIT, Les gained post-graduate qualifications in Sociology and the History and Philosophy of Science (Queensland University of Technology and and University of Melbourne).

Les is a non-cardigan-wearing librarian and enjoys powerlifting, satirical news and pointing out inappropriate quotation marks in signs.

A very warm welcome to the APO team Les!

ARC LIEF Linked Semantic Platforms kick-off meeting

LIEF group — LSP project kick-off meeting, Mayor’s Room, Hawthorn Town Hall

APO got started on the Linked Semantic Platforms for Policy and Practice (LSP) project on the 6 March, with a kick-off meeting at the Hawthorn Arts Centre in Melbourne.

Funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant, the LSP project is significant because it aims to revolutionise the way researchers are able to access, and analyse policy documents and data. The main objective of the two-year LSP Project is to develop the next generation of decision-support tools for interdisciplinary research on critical public policy issues.

By applying linked open data, knowledge graphs and collaborations across existing research infrastructure projects, the project will improve interoperability across major social science databases. The ultimate outcome of this project will be the creation of new analytical tools that will transform the research capabilities for evidence-based policy making. The LSP project also aligns closely with the Research Graph pilot project that APO is currently involved with an launching at Research Data Alliance Plenary in Berlin in March. Continue reading “ARC LIEF Linked Semantic Platforms kick-off meeting”

APO student placements

APO is pleased to be hosting three student placements this semester. They are Julia Pham, a fourth year Arts/Commerce student at Monash, and Ana Collings and Isabella Tilley, both International Studies students at Swinburne University. All three will be working on APO site development as well as on individual projects that will extend their writing and analysis capabilities.

Isabella and Ana — Isabella Tilley and Ana Machado-Colling

APO welcomes further placement applicants and other volunteers with aspirations of pursuing interesting projects. Potential placement opportunities include marketing internships and data visualisation or data analytics projects. And we are open to many other ideas too!

APO is able to host placements from various disciplines – including information management, politics, sociology, public policy in any discipline area, marketing and communications, computer sciences and other courses.

We also support those seeking work experience – particularly librarians and information managers who would like to help with curation and database improvements.

To find out more about organising a placement or volunteering with APO, please contact Penelope Aitken editors@apo.org.au.

Meet our current students on APO placement:

Ana Machado-Colling: ‘I’m a third year student completing a Bachelor of Arts, with a major in International Studies and minor in Politics and Public Policy at Swinburne. I undertook the APO internship to further enhance my writing and researching skills in a workplace setting. I’m interested in tackling contemporary policy issues through a range of open access resources and contributing to a reputable organisation.’

Isabella Tilley: ‘I’m a third year student at Swinburne, completing a Bachelor of Arts with a major in International Studies and a minor in Security Studies. The APO internship enables me to further my writing capabilities and learn to write in a style that is practical and job focused. Thus far, I have enjoyed getting to write about a current issue whilst actually envisioning policy reforms and recommendations.’

Julia Pham: ‘I applied for an APO placement because I have found the APO site incredibly helpful in the past. I thought that it would be a cool experience to work at a place whose mission it is to provide greater access to public policy research. Currently I am looking at the site’s metrics using Google Analytics.’

APO joins Australian Digital Alliance in support of copyright reform

Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) logo

APO is delighted to have joined the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) – the peak body representing copyright users and innovators in Australia. APO strongly supports all the ADA positions including Australian copyright reform for fair use.

ADA’s mission

ADA advocates for balanced copyright laws by drafting policy submissions to government, engaging in legal cases concerning copyright and preparing publications on new developments in copyright law and policy.

The ADA’s mission is to promote a copyright law that is balanced and flexible, respects user rights, and encourages access and innovation in the public interest – stating that, ‘Balanced and flexible copyright laws are fundamental to the broad dissemination of knowledge, culture and education and to encourage innovation.’

Fair use advocacy

The ADA and APO both support the introduction of a broad, flexible, and technology neutral exception into the Copyright Act allowing fair and reasonable use of copyright material. Such an exception – similar to the United States ‘fair use’ doctrine – would enable a greater range of reasonable uses of material.

APO looks forward to updating you on our alliance with ADA and copyright reforms as they evolve.