APO Blog

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 project brings $2m boost to connected platforms for public policy

APO has received a $1.4m grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) program to fund the Linked Semantic Platforms (LSP) project over 2018 and 2019. Together with contributions from partner organisations the project has an overall budget of around $2m over two years.

visualisation — Key elements of the Linked Semantic Platforms project

By using linked open data, knowledge graphs and collaborations across existing research infrastructure projects, the collaborative project aims to develop the next generation of decision-support tools for interdisciplinary research on critical public policy issues.

Expected outcomes include inter-operability across major social science databases and new analytical tools that will transform the research capabilities for evidence-based policy making.

Outcomes are expected on a number of different areas, including sustainable built environments and transport in urban and regional communities, social care and health in the community, work and wellbeing, digital inclusion and digital health. Continue reading “APO project brings $2m boost to connected platforms for public policy”

APO and UniSA’s new Cultural Policy & Creative Industries Collection

Creative industries add both economic and cultural value to society by generating knowledge, information and artefacts through creative practice and production. With this in mind, APO and University of South Australia (UniSA) have joined forces to launch the new Cultural Policy & Creative Industries Collection.

Resources in the collection focus on work by and about the cultural sector, including galleries, libraries, archives, museums, publishers, film and performing arts organisations, as well as arts funding and advisory bodies.

loic-furhoff-497244-unsplash (1) — Image: Loïc Fürhoff (Unsplash)

Additionally, the collection considers the broader creative economy, including advertising, arts, television, music, crafts, fashion, research and development, radio, journalism, games, software, and artistic expression more generally.

The collection has been commissioned and supported by the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences at the UniSA and is overseen by Professor Susan Luckman, who writes:

‘I would like this resource to be the “go to” reference for key Australian documents on the issue, and on social inclusion and diversity in the Australian cultural and creative industries generally. Reports such as Screen Australia’s Seeing Ourselves: Reflections on Diversity in Australian TV Drama, and Laboratory Adelaide’s and David Throsby’s work on incomes and the working conditions for arts workers will be key here.’

If you have produced research in this area, or know of work we should be considering, please contact Penelope Aitken at APO at paitken@apo.org.au

Welcome changes to the Copyright Act

ADA copyright principles icons — *Icons borrowed from ADA*

While copyright reform moves at a glacial pace, it is pleasing to report that in 2017 the Australian Government introduced important changes to copyright law in the form of the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Act 2017 which came into force on Friday 22 December. The changes it brings about are the most significant to Australian copyright law in over a decade, according to the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA). The ADA report states that the Amendment:

‘…ends the antiquated concept of perpetual copyright for unpublished works, instead applying the same basic terms to all materials, regardless of whether they are published or not. It also applies flat terms to orphan works whose authors cannot be identified 70 years from when they were created or made public (this fact sheet on the changes from the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee explains what all this means).

When these laws come into effect on 1 January 2019 they will apply to all works currently protected by copyright in Australia. This means that literally millions of old unpublished works from our national collections will enter the public domain all at once, including recipes used by Captain Cook, letters written by Jane Austen and endless ephemera. Every year after that, unpublished works whose authors died 70 years earlier will also fall into the public domain, and orphan works created/made public 70 years earlier.’

Continue reading “Welcome changes to the Copyright Act”

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 Research Graph pilot project and RDA plenary launch

APO has joined a pilot project being run by the DuraSpace foundation that will assist us to export and connect our data with that of other research systems and standards from around the world and visualise the results as graph databases.

Graph close up — Image: APO data graph (close up view) by Research Graph

Research Graph is an open collaborative effort toward connecting scholarly records across global research repositories. Their work is focused on linking research projects and research outcomes on the basis of co-authorship or other collaboration models such as joint funding and grants.

Research Graph is enabled by adopting the interoperability model created by the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Data Description Registry Interoperability (DDRI) Working Group. The implementation of this model is an open source software system called Research Data Switchboard. It is being leveraged to form a distributed network of scholarly works.

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A demonstration is planned for this Friday at the RDA Plenary 11 in Berlin at the end of March. Thanks to generous travel support from the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), Amanda Lawrence, APO Director, is attending the Plenary for the first time.

We are looking forward to working with Peter Vats and Dr Amir Aryani as well as the DuraSpace team and helping turn the roadmap into a reality. This project also aligns closely with the work we will be doing on the APO Linked Semantic Platforms LIEF grant over the next two years.

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.