FW: Source Data for "fields of expertise"
Simon Porter
Forwarding on behalf of Ken…
Please let me know if anybody else is having problems posting to the group. (I seem to get every message twice)
Simon
From:
Ken Richardson
Sent: Wednesday, 1 August 2007
6:20 AM
To: research...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: Source Data for
"fields of expertise"
Dear Daniel,
I think the idea of recording and displaying both the formal organisational structure and the less formal research and/or teaching alliances is important. At UQ we have a locally-built system for tracking the org structure. With a few modifications we have been able to record both the formal and informal affiliations within that.
kr
Ken Richardson
Executive Officer (Research)
Office of the
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
The University of Queensland
p: +617 3346 9290 . f: +617 3365 9040 . e:
k.rich...@research.uq.edu.au
This email is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private or confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, you must take no action based on it, nor show a copy to anyone. Kindly notify the sender by reply email. Opinions and information in this email which do not relate to the official business of The University of Queensland shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by the University.
From:
research...@googlegroups.com [mailto:research...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Daniel Gooch
Sent: Tuesday, 31 July 2007 5:54
PM
To:
research...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Source Data for
"fields of expertise"
We’re working at the moment on publishing individual sub-sites for each of our “disciplines”, including a list of staff involved in teaching/research in the discipline with links to their profiles.
The immediate challenge is that many of the disciplines we will publish sub-sites for will exist only on the web, i.e. they are not formal disciplines that exist in any of our administrative systems at the moment. While we do have a concept of disciplines in our Finance and HR systems, they are administrative in that they only exist as a cost centre to which salary or other costs will be allocated. They are also hierarchical in nature, in that a discipline is part of a school which in turn is part of a faculty. This hierarchy does not quite meet our vision for disciplines for web publishing purposes which may be cross-school or cross-faculty (e.g. environment law might include staff from 2 schools in 2 different faculties).
At the moment it appears as though we will be creating a new corporate source (i.e. database) for these disciplines, with an interface that will allow discipline coordinators (or delegates) to create relationships between individual staff members (from our HR system) with these disciplines. I don’t like the idea of creating a new database/application for managing this, but at the moment can’t see a good alternative. I remember a discussion at the e-Research conference workshop about a similar topic, and before we embark on any work I thought I’d seek advice from anyone on this group who’d care to offer it.