Caution
Copyright © Monash University 1996
ISBN 1320-6222
Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
The department is committed to the view that the management of information in both paper and electronic forms by archivists, records managers, librarians or generalists is a key discipline for the information age of the twenty-first century. Moral as well as technical aspects of document supply and management are a central concern.
+ to develop, from their foundations in the humanities and social sciences, professional courses in archives, records and librarianship which reach out to the new horizons offered by contemporary information technology;
+ to develop and manage a broadly-based undergraduate program in information management which prepares individuals to take their place in contemporary organisations;
+ to continue to be a benchmark inventor and provider of quality initial, continuing and advanced professional education for the professions of archives, records management and librarianship;
+ to offer to all students of the university the opportunity to master the implications of information management and access for the twenty-first century;
+ to develop a foundation for the understanding and application of broadly-based information management processes in the context of contemporary society.
Its bachelors degree in information management is designed to replace the BA as the general degree for entry to a wide range of career opportunities. Graduates of the department's courses will be multi-skilled, information-literate, broadly based practitioners.
Students are expected to arrive in the department with a declared willingness to acquire the skills of information management and an understanding of what these skills are.
In its professional courses, the department orients its teaching to an understanding of the practical and theoretical bases of the course, with an emphasis on historical foundations; postgraduate students engaged in thesis work are expected to make an active contribution to research in the professional disciplines. Courses targeted to a professional qualification are routinely submitted to the accreditation processes of the appropriate professional body.
The department offers the following courses:
+ Bachelor of Information Management
+ Graduate Diploma in Archives and Records Management
+ Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies
+ Masters degrees by coursework or research
+ PhD programs by research.
Students enrolled in the Master of Arts (Librarianship) are eligible to compete for selection to carry out fieldwork at Blackwell's in Oxford, England. Two students are selected each year to work at Blackwell's on library-related projects.
Academic staff: Ms J Anderson
Automated library systems; use of SGML for library records; application of information technology to libraries.
Academic staff: Mr D Foott
Information technology; automation in library and information systems in developing countries; hypertext and hypermedia systems; academic and research library systems.
Academic staff: Professor E Lim
Academic and research library services; collection building; bibliography (historical, descriptive and analytical); textual criticism and editorial work.
Academic staff: Dr B McMullin
Public librarianship; library services to ethnic minority communities; international and comparative librarianship; library developments in South-east Asia.
Academic staff: Ms R Rasmussen
Academic staff: Ms L Iacovino
The nature of recorded information; recordkeeping and accountability; appraisal and documentation; electronic recordkeeping; education of recordkeeping professionals.
Academic staff: Ms S McKemmish
Electronic recordkeeping; organisational culture and strategic recordkeeping options; recordkeeping audit; documentation and appraisal.
Academic staff: Ms B Reed
History and future development of archival and records management theory and practice; the impact of electronic recordkeeping upon archival science; organisational analysis and recordkeeping processes.
Academic staff: Mr F Upward
The aim of the major is to provide students with knowledge and understanding of the way society, its organisations and individuals apply information technologies and adapt them to a variety of contexts.
Students completing this major will have knowledge of:
+ information transfer activities;
+ the principles of the relational database model;
+ the global information net;
+ tools and techniques for information delivery in a wide variety of contexts;
+ methods for capturing information as record;
+ ancillary properties (legal, moral and philosophical) of information access and delivery;
+ the social and organisational dimensions of information.
They will have an understanding of:
+ business organisations and their operation;
+ business systems and related computer-based information systems;
+ theoretical aspects and techniques of processing information;
+ the importance of content and structure in documentation processes;
+ application, operation, security and management of database systems;
+ the ethical and legal issues associated with information retrieval.
They will be able to:
+ diagnose information need, provide access to, deploy and package information in the interests of clients;
+ use techniques for managing the information resources of an organisation;
+ identify and document user requirements;
+ assist in defining organisational recordkeeping regimes;
+ use database management systems query languages to satisfy the information retrieval inquiries;
+ use software systems to generate interfaces for information retrieval;
+ communicate effectively with users, clients and other computing professionals;
+ think logically, and develop, analyse and communicate alternative solutions to problems;
+ cooperate with others to work effectively in a team environment, and be able to take initiative and work independently where appropriate;
+ undertake basic research, and be able to locate and retrieve information in the technical literature from a range of sources, including on-line sources.
They will have developed the following attitudes:
+ enthusiasm for the field of study;
+ concern for accuracy, security and privacy in the management of information;
+ professionalism in their roles as information management personnel.
The aim of the major is to provide students with knowledge and skills in information management.
Students completing this major will have knowledge of:
+ information transfer activities;
+ the global information net;
+ tools and techniques for information delivery in a wide variety of contexts;
+ methods for capturing information as record;
+ ancillary properties (legal, moral and philosophical) of information access and delivery;
+ the social and organisational dimensions of information.
They will have an understanding of:
+ business organisations and their operation;
+ theoretical aspects and techniques of processing information;
+ the importance of content and structure in documentation processes;
+ the ethical and legal issues associated with information retrieval.
They will be able to:
+ diagnose information need, provide access to, deploy and package information in the interests of clients;
+ use techniques for managing the information resources of an organisation;
+ identify and document user requirements;
+ assist in defining organisational recordkeeping regimes;
+ communicate effectively with users, clients and other computing professionals;
+ think logically, and develop, analyse and communicate alternative solutions to problems;
+ cooperate with others to work effectively in a team environment, and be able to take initiative and work independently where appropriate;
+ undertake basic research, and be able to locate and retrieve information in the technical literature from a range of sources, including on-line sources.
They will have developed the following attitudes:
+ enthusiasm for the field of study;
+ concern for accuracy, security and privacy in the management of information;
+ professionalism in their roles as information management personnel.
The technological focus of the department covers a number of areas:
(a) the digital and analogue circuitry of computer components and devices, including varying levels of circuit integration up to custom ASIC/VLSI. A particular emphasis is placed on `embedded systems', ie the skills and techniques associated with the design and development of customised processor controlled systems;
(b) the internal controlling software, particularly as it operates at the device level. Again particular emphasis is placed on the close and effective integration of hardware and software;
(c) a selected set of application areas, in particular:
+ digital communications, including switching hardware, protocol development and network design;
+ robotics, particularly vision systems, sensor fusion, and industrial applications;
+ signal coding, analysis and processing, particularly in video, audio and geophysical applications;
+ neural network theory and application to vision and image processing, including hardware implementation.
+ the Bachelor of Digital Systems undergraduate degree, which provides a foundation in hardware and software technology, and in a number of application areas;
+ the honours degree in digital systems which extends a small number of students into advanced theoretical and applications areas;
+ the research degrees of Master of Computing and PhD, in which candidates work with staff within the research and development program of the department;
+ the postgraduate coursework offerings of the Graduate Diploma in Digital Communications, the Graduate Diploma in Robotics, and the Master of Digital Communications.
+ investigation of algorithms suitable for hardware implementation - the algorithms include artificial neural networks, and fuzzy logic;
+ advanced implementation systems such as full custom VLSI systems, programmable devices as FPGAs and EPLDs.
Specific projects and topics include:
+ theory of artificial neural networks, unsupervised learning algorithms, feature map formation, stochastic neural networks, biologically motivated structures;
+ application of ANN in the control of nonlinear dynamic systems, early vision algorithms, image coding and processing;
+ hardware implementation of neural networks;
+ analog, digital and hybrid VLSI systems.
Academic staff: Dr A P Paplinski, Mrs N Bhattacharjee, Dr B Qiu, Mr C M Greif
+ the development of an experimental medium speed (2-20Mb/s) local area ATM network for voice and data - the development includes the switching hardware, the routing and management protocols and software, the adaptation layers to carry other protocols such as TCP/IP, and the interface to other devices and networks;
+ the analysis of the performance of ATM protocols, and the interaction of higher-layer protocols in ATM networks;
+ the handling and performance of compressed video and audio streams over ATM networks;
+ attachment and management of small- and large-scale cellular radio to ATM networks;
+ the security of networks, in particular the implementation and management of encryption systems over inter-networked systems.
Academic staff: Professor J W Breen, Dr L Zhang, Dr B Qiu
Digital audio, image and video signal processing includes fast algorithms, coding and compression, coding distortion analysis, adaptive quantisation algorithms, filtering, digital signal quality metrics, finite word length computation effects, and computational complexity analysis.
Computer/robotic vision includes active vision algorithms, pattern recognition, neural fuzzy pattern recognition, and motion tracking algorithms.
DSP applications cover active noise cancellation, on-line image processing for industrial processes, noise cancellation for mobile communications, electrical impedance tomography, geophysical data acquisition and processing, implementation of audio and video codecs for multimedia computing, ATM network communications and information processing/retrieval systems, and advanced digital signal processing systems.
Academic staff: Dr H R Wu, Dr A P Paplinski, Dr B Qiu, Mr C M Greif
+ sensor-fusion - establishing knowledge-based and algorithmic strategies for combining multiple sensor signals so that meaningful trajectory commands can be sent to the controlled robot;
+ application of fuzzy-logic control to industrial processes;
+ application of neural networks to robot control;
+ application of robot vision systems to assembly processes;
+ knowledge-based methods for the determination of feasible assembly sequences.
Academic staff: Dr S D Hill, Mr G S Lowe, Dr P J Atkinson
The aim of the program is to provide an integrated and practical study of computer hardware and software, with a particular emphasis on `embedded systems', ie processor or microprocessor controlled systems with special-purpose software. It is possible to characterise the course as being a synthesis of elements found in both traditional electronic engineering and computer science courses, but with a particular emphasis on the design and development of digital hardware and related controlling software.
Students completing this course will have knowledge of:
+ the functioning of computer components, and the principles and techniques for the design, development and testing of computer circuitry;
+ programming, software engineering and software module integration particularly where applied to low-level device control and operating system tasks;
+ principles and procedures for the design, development, testing and implementation of software in assembler and appropriate higher-level languages for use in operating systems or embedded system applications;
+ the theoretical aspects of instrumentation, control and signal analysis, and their application to a variety of tasks and environments;
+ a selection of applications of processor-controlled technology, including digital communications, robotics and computer graphical systems.
They will be able to:
+ design, develop, test and implement software in assembler and appropriate higher-level languages for use in operating systems or embedded systems applications;
+ design, assemble and test medium-sized circuits and devices, including processor-controlled devices operating in multi-processor systems;
+ apply the theoretical aspects of instrumentation, control and signal analysis to a variety of tasks and environments;
+ apply learned techniques appropriately in the development of hardware/software solutions to real-world problems;
+ undertake research and development into the techniques and applications of digital systems;
+ keep abreast of the developing technologies in the field, and to apply these to the development of digital systems.
They will have developed attitudes of:
+ enthusiasm for the development of combined hardware and software solutions to broad classes of problems
+ respect for the scientific and mathematical foundations of much of digital technology and its applications.