Staff and student development

We continuously improve our skills in working with information.

The university needs to provide an adequate, relevant and ongoing development programme to enable staff and students to create, access, manage and disseminate information resources effectively.

Finding the best and making it common

The aim of the team working on the fifth principle of IM - Staff and Student Development - is to say to people let's find the best practice and make it common by learning and doing.

Finding the best and making it common is not something often heard in management principles; more often we are told to find the best and make it better. But it is precisely this upside-down way of thinking that makes the principles of Information Management (IM) work.

"We know that everybody knows lots of bits and pieces, but they have often not brought these together into a cohesive whole," says Project Manager Helen Palmer.

"One way to develop skill and expertise is to gather knowledge on how teams or individuals do certain things, such as structuring their email folders for example, and try and find the best way that is done and share this with others."

Helen and her team, who are implementing the 'Working with information efficiently and effectively' (WIEE) project*, acknowledge that IM requires some skill. University staff and students need knowledge supplied to them, along with the opportunity to train and have access to resources.

In addition, the collaborative nature of gathering information is vital to the success of implementing IM principles.

Helen says that individual staff and teams have an opportunity to use the tools being provided, such as the forums, to determine the way the team agrees to work and documenting it. This process will be supported by the website being developed, along with the new 'Information Management for Workgroups' plan, which will help a team in inducting members to their agreed IM practice.

The practice of Information Management practice is therefore about acquiring the skills and discipline. It is not necessarily a 'right' way of doing things, but rather options for a 'better' way of doing things that will benefit staff and students and the university.

"The fifth principle is therefore illustrated by the phrase: 'Staff and student development - we continuously improve our skills in working with information'."

For further information, contact the Information Management team.

*The project is an important element of the implementation of the university's comprehensive information management strategy, one of the key strategic priorities for Monash University for 2006.