Emily Silvester

Informit launches new Policy database via partnership with APO

Media release from RMIT University Newsroom – see the original here

5 March 2019

Informit is thrilled to announce the addition of a new Policy database as part of an ongoing partnership with the Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO). Informit customers will now have access to over 35,000 public policy records including research reports, articles, papers, policies and other grey literature. The new database expands Informit’s range of hard-to-find Australasian content, located in one place.

In 30 years of service to the information management industry, Informit has firmly established itself as the go-to place for Australasian research content. It provides access to unique specialist content through its collection of over 100 databases, across a range of subject matter.

The new Policy database is an extension of this offering and part of the next phase of Informit which includes significant platform upgrades and enhancements.

Michael Tully, Informit Director, said,“What makes this partnership so exciting is that Informit and APO are working together to deliver on preserving and providing access to high quality content and towards a common goal of delivering the most value to Informit customers.”

Michelle Zwagerman, APO’s Digital Product Manager commented, “This collaboration enables us to expand the reach of our policy content through Informit’s well-established Australasian network and helps Informit customers discover our hard-to-find Policy content quickly and easily.”

APO provides access to digital policy and practice resources, making them visible, discoverable and usable. Established by and hosted at Swinburne University of Technology since 2002 and supported by the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and the Australian Research Council, APO is highly regarded in the policy space and well known for curating top quality content.

Karen Mahlab from Pro Bono Australia praised APO’s content and its practical applications in her role, “I use APO to find evidence for issues I’m interested in. Every week, it becomes more authoritative with the papers pulled together from thousands of sources.”

The Policy database is now available via Informit and will soon be searchable through all major library discovery services. Customers who are interested in subscribing to the Policy database are encouraged to contact us [Informit] for a trial or quote.

For more information about Informit or to start searching, visit informit.org or to find out more about APO, go to apo.org.au/about.

APO for students

APO has produced a handy new guide for students studying public policy and social issues – as well as tools for lecturers and librarians to introduce students to APO.

*Discover your policy studies ‘secret weapon’*

With ‘toga, toga, toga’ echoing around Swinburne University Campus, you can be sure that we’ve once again encountered that very special time of year… O Week. Meanwhile, university staff madly prep their course materials for the rest of the semester.

With this in mind, APO is making it easier than ever for staff to introduce students to their new policy studies ‘secret weapon’ – and for students to discover APO’s vast repository of digital public policy resources.

*Steve Urkle in a toga – he looks like a BIG public policy fan to us!*

Guides for students and lecturers

Students who are studying public policy or social issues at any level are invited to access our new student page at apo.org.au/students. Make sure that you view our Student How to Guide to learn how to search APO for resources for your assignments. You can also Subscribe to our free Briefing service for regular updates from the policy sphere.

If you’re a university course coordinator or lecturer you can download our Lecture Slide to introduce your students to APO. Or, if you’re a tutor or librarian you can download our Tutorial Exercise Slide to use in class.

*Download our quick guides for students, lecturers, librarians and tutors*

Tell us what you think

Here at APO, we hope that we can make your studies just that little bit easier – once you finally stop wearing that toga and decide to knuckle down! Haha, just kidding. Seriously though, we’re always looking for ways to help our student community, so please feel free to contact us with your questions or feedback.

APO goes HTTPS!

APO recently upgraded its website to use HTTPS, which is the web standard for secure traffic. This means that your use of APO is now encrypted and more secure. With this improvement, users logging into APO are offered better protection when they key their passwords in.

These changes shouldn’t affect your experience of the APO website. However, if you have saved bookmarks or have cited APO resources with ‘http’ links, these will need to be updated by 1 January 2020.

‘Overall, the website now responds more quickly, as confirmed by our post-implementation testing. This increase in speed is often due to the removal of third-party security testing examining web traffic that is not encrypted – which can add delays. Instead, encrypted web traffic is not vulnerable to having malicious content inserted into it,’ said Craig Burton, APO Development Manager.

‘APO resources uploaded by contributors will also be listed higher in Google search results, because Google prioritises web based resources served over HTTPS.’
Craig Burton, APO Development Manager

In addition, any resource downloaded from APO’s website can now be proven to have come directly from APO because the HTTPS certificate our website provides is strongly associated with APO.

Please feel free to contact us if you require further information on this upgrade to our website.

APO holiday closure and Briefings break 2018

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.

Happy holidays!

APO Forum 2018 – videos and slides

Redesigning the Public Knowledge System

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

Dr Howard White, The Campbell Collaboration: The Four Waves of the Evidence Revolution – Howard White slides

APO Workshop – Systematic Reviews for the Social Sciences

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’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.

Congrats to our 2018 work placement students

Work placement student Grace Coleman filming APO Director Amanda Lawrence at the APO Forum 2018

APO is delighted to report that several of our 2018 work placement students have recently gone on to find fantastic professional roles.

Grace Coleman accepted a Policy Analyst role at FPL Advisory in November. She joined APO in July when she was completing the final semester of her Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics at La Trobe University and worked under the guidance of APO’s Marketing Coordinator, Emily Silvester. Grace worked on on a range of projects, including the creation of a ‘What is Policy?’ article and video, a ‘How to Contribute a Resource to APO‘ video, analysis of the APO’s most popular reports from 2017, as well as interviewing, filming and producing APO Forum 2018 testimonials.

‘Grace was a fantastic addition to our small team. We quickly released that she had a talent for both policy analysis and producing media. She has an extraordinary ability to understand complex ideas quickly and was very motivated to create outputs that could be utilised by APO in our Marketing activities. All while maintaining a contagiously upbeat attitude,’ said Emily.

Julia Pham, who started her APO work placement in February, has accepted a role at multinational engineering firm AECOM. Julia – who was in the final year of her Arts (International Studies) and Commerce (Economics) degree at Monash University while she was at APO – said that she applied because she had found the APO website useful during her studies. ‘I applied for an APO placement because I have found the APO site incredibly helpful in the past,’ she said.

‘I’ve recommended APO to my fellow colleagues and we’re all using it now!’
Julia Pham