Research projects

A collaborative repository of computational generative systems for art and design

Dr Camilo Cruz Gambardella, Dr Maria Teresa Llano, Professor Jon McCormack, Dr Maria Teresa Llano and Dr Xavier Ho

Personal computing devices are becoming ubiquitous and increasingly powerful. As a result, the popularity of computational generative systems as methods to support creativity in architecture, design and art, as well as tools for the exploration of complex ideas in computer science and other related fields, is on the rise.

Sitting at the intersection of two fields, this repository is expected to appeal to a diverse audience including academic researchers, artists, designers and other creative practitioners, as well as hobbyists, educators and anyone interested in creative coding.

Cybersecurity Metadata Modelling for Resilient Recordkeeping Systems and Digital Archives

Associate Professor Carsten Rudolph and Associate Professor Joanne Evans

Security is critical for records and archives, with authenticity, confidentiality, reliability and integrity all integral to data.

Digital records are fundamentally changing how these security requirements can be satisfied – particularly in the context of these records becoming continuous and participatory.

Metadata standards have been established to improve trustworthiness and reliability, however existing standards don’t include sufficient information on cybersecurity controls and other security-relevant properties of digital systems. As a result, the concept of security-aware provenance graphs was developed.

This project will explore how the approach of security-aware provenance can be applied to recordkeeping and archives to extend the set of available metadata, improve risk assessments and enhance continuous monitoring of security risks in participatory recordkeeping. It will also create the opportunity to identify the level of cybersecurity maturity achieved even on an individual level of records.

Library, Information Science, Archives and Recordkeeping: Doctoral Research trends in Australia

Steven Wright and Tom Denison

Research in the Library Information Science (LIS), Archives and Recordkeeping sectors faces challenges caused by course closures which could impact a number of future ‘academic-research-trained LIS  professionals’ – and consequently the volume and quality of future research.

This project aims to identify emerging trends in related PhD research together with community needs. The results are expected to support those seeking to develop research programs or undertake future research, funding bodies and the aforementioned sectors at large. This initiative will also help by not only identifying priority areas related to real need, but also the potential for cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Recordkeeping Frameworks, Protocols and Models for Transformative Participatory Practice: Voice, Treaty, Truth Telling

Sue McKemmish, Shannon Faulkhead, Greg Rolan and Kirsten Thorpe

Records held in government and non-Indigenous organisations and institutional archives are repositories of data created about, and collected from, First Nations people from the time of invasion. Resourcing for community-based recordkeeping and archiving is not part of the national agenda, yet Indigenous Data Sovereignty is central to First Nations Sovereignty and self-determination.

Conventional, western colonial data and recordkeeping practices dispossessed Indigenous people of their cultural material and knowledge, and were instruments of colonialism, with records and archives being weaponised against indigenous peoples since colonisation. Increasingly this data is being activated and converted to datasets through digitisation.

With emerging opportunities to enable communities to reclaim ownership of this data through transformation of recordkeeping and archives practice, this project will undertake a  series of exploratory and pilot studies to provide the foundations for an ARC Linkage Project application. The overall goal is to support First Nations Sovereignty and Data Sovereignty, with specific aims to research and co-design recordkeeping frameworks, protocols and models for transformative participatory practice in government and non-Indigenous organisations, and develop a network of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Living Archives of People and Place.

Archives, records and Accounts: Visualising the Royal Capital of Medieval Angkor

Tom Chandler and Damian Evans

Compelling evidence of Angkor’s premodern urban demographics have been revealed by air-borne laser scanning technology’s unique capability to ‘subtract’ vegetation and reveal the archives of human activity inscribed on the ground.

The massive enclosure of Angkor Thom is key among these findings. Not only was this the royal capital and heart of the Khmer empire, it was also the location of the only eyewitness account of Angkor by the 13th century Chinese emissary to Angkor, Zhou Daguan.

Virtual reality technologies allow us to examine the physical record of the past in unparalleled visual detail. This project draws upon archives, records and accounts to reanimate a medieval South East Asian nexus of power.

Empowering Volunteers for Recordkeeping and Storytelling in Migrant Community Organisations in Australia

Delvin Varghese, Viviane Hessami and Yi-Shan Tsai

This project will enable sustained engagement with migrant community organisations in Victoria that serve marginalised communities.

Through an Action Research approach, researchers will collaborate with Migrante and Australian Karen Organisation who work with Filipino and Myanmar communities, respectively. The collaboration will result in a better understanding of this under-researched community informatics context, the capacity building of migrant communities and the design of an innovative storytelling platform by re-using the NGOs existing online documentation and social media archives.

The platform will respond to the unique cultural, linguistic and socio-technical constraints and opportunities of the migrant communities.

Investigation of the recordkeeping systems used by community-based organisations and youth organisations in Bangladesh

Dr Viviane Hessami, Dr Khalid Hossain

Since the 1990s, a significant number of community-based organisations (CBOs) have been formed mostly by non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh to empower local communities. These CBOs and youth organisations (YOs) get registration from the Government and to remain registered they must meet several criteria including keeping records of their discussions and decisions.

This project aims to investigate current practices of recordkeeping by CBOs and YOs in Bangladesh to identify improvements that could be made to their recordkeeping practices to help them acquire and maintain official recognition and to support their capacity building. It is intended as a preliminary investigation that will enable the investigators to gather data and build collaborations in preparation for a larger project which will look at how the development of recordkeeping capabilities can support capability-building in community-based organisations in Bangladesh.

Systematic Sharing of Tacit Knowledge from Recordkeeping Perspective in Informal Settings: A Cross-Country Study on the Fisherfolk Community

Dr Tanjila Kanij, Dr Steven Wright, Dr Khalid Hossain, Dr Misita Anwar

Since tacit knowledge contains experience-based knowledge, it is the most challenging type of knowledge to systematically express, record, and share. Recordkeeping, instead, emphasizes efficient and systematic processes for capturing and maintaining information and knowledge in the form of records. Consequently, the existing literature highlights the management of tacit knowledge from a recordkeeping perspective, primarily in formal organizational settings. However, such a process is equally valuable for informal settings like fishing by coastal fisherfolk communities where sharing tacit knowledge is related to sustaining livelihoods. This project explores current practices of sharing tacit knowledge by fisherfolk communities in Bangladesh and Indonesia to scope out a better potential recordkeeping system for this domain combining digital and non-digital tools.

Investigation Of The Stakeholder Requirements For Community Recordkeeping In Voice Based Community Engagement Platforms

Delvin Varghese, Dharshani Chandrasekara, Bronwyn Cumbo, Maja Krtalic, Tom Bartindale

Voice-based community engagement platforms can use telephone systems to enable organisations to consult and otherwise engage with communities whose voices are underrepresented due to a lack of access to internet services. Despite these platforms often storing audio and metadata resulting from these engagements, the recordkeeping needs and requirements of the communities and organisations engaging with them have been underexplored.

Through a series of design engagements with communities and non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh, this project will explore (i) the existing recordkeeping cultures of the stakeholder groups, particularly with regards to audio-based records; and ii) the requirements and concerns of participating community members that would need to be accounted for within a system's design, and how they compare to those of the engaging organisations.

Understanding Farmers Record Keeping Practice To Support Decision Making Using Data Driven Farming In Indonesia

Dr Misita Anwar & Dr Arif Perdana

The vast majority of farmers in developing countries are smallholder farmers. They often make decisions in the field based on general recommendations or historical information rather than scientific data. There is an opportunity to use data management and communication technologies to provide smallholder farmers with data-driven guidance to better manage their crops, reduce yield variability, and increase food security. However, challenges remain around data collection and a lack of understanding of how recordkeeping can enhance decision making. Research about farmers' attitudes, especially smallholders, toward data collection and recordkeeping practices remain limited. Furthermore, most design concepts have been developed primarily for industrialised farms and adopted from high-income countries. They are not tailored to the needs of smallholder farmers in developing countries.

This project examines farmers' recordkeeping practices to identify ways to design strategies that will improve farmers' ability to engage with data-driven farming. The project, conducted in Indonesia, serves as a preliminary investigation to provide a foundation for further work on how enhanced recordkeeping capabilities can help farmers use data-driven agriculture as a decision-making tool.

Caring Records: Understanding the barriers to child centred recordkeeping in child protection

Joanne Evans & Barbara Reed 

Caring Records aims to understand the intrinsic and embedded barriers to rights-based and child-centred recordkeeping in child protection contexts. It is a pilot exploration of both case recording experiences and how recordkeeping is represented in current social work curriculum, capturing the experiences, expectations, intentions and challenges regarding child protection case recording of child protection practitioners, social work students and curriculum developers. This study will deliver rich information about the structural, cultural and systemic challenges to rights-based recordkeeping in current child protection frameworks, processes and systems, and form the foundation for a future interdisciplinary recordkeeping system design research project.

A Stitch in Time: Creating novel access points to Australia's Convict Records with data embroidery

Jon McCormack & Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

Our project uses a new form of data physicalisation, data embroidery, to display historical life courses of Australian female convicts, by integrating information from the Vandemonian convict records into an embroidered image. We aim to open new access paths to the Australian convict records.  Our expected outcome is to create interest in a part of Australian history that so far has been hidden in the archives.

Exploring The Medical Recordkeeping Practices In Indonesia For Data Driven Public Health Action

Agnes Haryanto and Juliana Sutanto

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 aims to ensure good health and well being for all, requiring governments to gather sufficient data for planning public health initiatives. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) have proven to improve healthcare quality and safety in developed countries, and many developing countries have started adopting the system, including Indonesia. However, EMR implementation remains underutilized by healthcare providers, and the underlying culture of paper based recordkeeping was inconsistently applied. Therefore, this research examines Indonesia's recordkeeping practices and culture, together with the readiness for EMR system implementation, and how it has been impacted by historical, political, geographical and socio-economic cultural contexts.