Abstracts
Building Standards Capability in the Australian Education and Research Sector
Monday 4 May 2009, 1430 - 1500
Presenter: Judith Pearce
Link Affiliates/University of Southern Queensland, NSW
Presenter Biography
Dr Judith Pearce is currently working as an information technology consultant for Link Affiliates, a group based at the University of Southern Queensland that . Her specialisation in service frameworks and interoperability standards. In 2007 she was awarded a Public Service Medal for She is a member of Standards Australia Committee IT-19 (Information and Documentation) and editor of – Registry Services for Libraries and Related Organizations for ballot as a Draft International Standard.
Abstract
In June 2008 the Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee (AICTEC) published a charter of principles for cross-sector collaboration that envisages a shared body of knowledge and common agreed guidelines on interoperability, based on international standards and Australian requirements. Organisations wishing to engage in collaborative activities would have access to a knowledge base that would help them to assess the benefits of doing so; and to ensure the interoperability of their systems and services.
In this paper we argue that such a knowledge base would need to be a registry (not a repository) for both standards and guidelines, and that its development needs to go hand-in-hand with the development of guidelines, so that standards capability can be built through an iterative, collaborative, evolving process. We also argue that there are opportunities to leverage off the Australian government’s investment in the e-Framework for Education and Research by using its service genre registry as a means of categorising and assessing the capabilities of standards and linking through to implementations and tools registered in the e-Framework knowledge base.
Lastly, we argue that, the knowledge base should be developed to support the sharing of knowledge and solutions across all sectors involved in developing the Australian information infrastructure. This can be facilitated by developing the knowledge base registry itself as a set of standard system interfaces, using these to deliver a pilot service targeted to the needs of the education and training sector - and particularly the Digital Education Revolution (DER) - and making the registry available to other communities wishing to engage in building the knowledge base.
