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Session 2341

Sustainability Knowledge Network

David F.Radcliffe and Nicole Clark

University of Queensland, Australia

Abstract

Sustainability is a critical issue across many industry sectors in Australia. Research activity in sustainable development and sustainable technology is being undertaken in many disciples in the physical, social and life sciences. Currently, there is limited communication between researchers working on aspects of sustainability across different disciplines or different industry sectors.

In response, a Sustainability Knowledge Network (SKN) has been developed and launched that will bring together researchers, policy makers and practitioners working across the diverse and fragmented field of sustainability. The objective is to catalyse collaboration and technical innovation in this field. The gateway is available at: http://avel.edu.au.

The Sustainability Knowledge Network is built off the very successful AVEL (Australian Virtual Engineering Library). Thus it benefits from an established partnership that is growing to include a number of universities and Cooperative Research Centres as well as government and non- government organisations.

Introduction

The Sustainability Knowledge Network (or AVEL-SKN) is a new Australian Web-based initiative whose aim is to assist researchers, practitioners and other professionals working in the areas of sustainability and engineering. It is a collaborative project, lead by the University of Queensland. The Sustainability Knowledge Network and its previous incarnation, The Australasian Virtual Engineering Library (AVEL), is part of a wider movement in Australia which has focused on developing discipline -specific, subject gateways in order to assist with the delivery and dissemination of academic information. In Australia, this movement is coordinated by the Australian Subject Gateways Forum. Subject gateways grew out of initiatives undertaken in the United Kingdom, such as the eLib program.1

Subject gateways perform an important role as a “middle-ware” agent. They sit between the user and the Web, helping the user discover relevant resources and delivering them in a usable format. The fundamental strength of gateways lies in human expertise and judgment in the selection of resources and the manual creation of metadata records. In essence they assist the information seeker to make sense of and to navigate an increasingly vast and dispersed array of information resources.

“Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2003, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Clark, N., & Radcliffe, D. (2003, June), Sustainability Knowledge Network Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11932