Information Management stream

Staff profiles: Steve Wright teaches units in both the undergraduate and postgraduate Information Management programs, addressing information seeking and use, the place of IM in organisations, and social informatics. His current research interests and publications concern social software, the place of IM and different documentary forms in social movements, information literacy, and class analysis. Kerry Tanner is course director of Monash’s graduate programs in Information Management and Systems. Her current and previous teaching areas have included information organisation, systems analysis and design, strategic information and knowledge management, IT management, information services management, professional issues, industrial experience/Studio, and research methods. Her research, consultancies and publications reflect similar interests. Sue McKemmish, PhD, is Chair of Archival Systems, Monash University, and Director of the Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics. She teaches in the recordkeeping and archives professional tracks in the Information Management and Systems program. She is engaged in major research and standards initiatives relating to the use of metadata in records and archival systems, information resource discovery, Indigenous archival services, and the nexus between memories communities, and technologies.

What is Information Management (IM)?

Information Management aims to help the development of organisations, communities and individuals by improving information flows and recorded memory. It involves the design, development, implementation, management, use and evaluation of library, archival and recordkeeping systems and services.

Information Management assists the cycle of data capture, processing, storage, retrieval, manipulation, presentation, communication, use and evaluation. Organisations and structures provide a framework for the cycle. In Information Management the emphasis is on processes and methods of use, and evaluating their effectiveness from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders.

IM at Monash

Monash offers an undergraduate degree and postgraduate and research qualifications in Information Management. Monash's professional qualifications are recognised by the Australian Library and Information Association, the Records Management Association of Australasia and the Australian Society of Archivists.

Library, archival and recordkeeping systems have been established teaching and research areas at Monash for over 30 years. Monash has gained the reputation for being at the forefront of development, with a strong theoretical and applied research base, which supports the development of a curriculum that is both well-grounded in theory and of current practical relevance. The location within the Faculty of Information Technology means that graduates have a thorough grounding in technologies upon which Information Management increasingly depends. Having offered these specialties in off-campus as well as on-campus mode for many years, the professional track draws on a national and international market.

IM Careers

Graduates in Information Management work as information service providers, librarians, archivists and records managers in business, government and community organisations. They are employed in a wide variety of information and knowledge-related roles, as an information manager, information services manager, librarian, teacher librarian, community information officer, research analyst, indexer, cataloguer, metadata analyst, records manager, archivist, office systems manager, document manager, enterprise content manager, information architect, knowledge manager, chief information officer and chief knowledge officer.

Monash graduates will:

• Analyse organisational information systems to identify current and potential problems.
• Plan processes of information product, service and systems development within organisations.
• Describe complex information needs, and design and evaluate alternative information products, services and systems to meet such needs.
• Manage the implementation of information products, services and systems.
• Deploy a range of technologies, tools and techniques in the development and exploitation of organisational information and knowledge assets.
• Develop coordinated enterprise-wide plans and strategies for Information Technology, Information Systems and Information Management and for achieving systems integration.
• Exploit global information networks.
• Develop strategic frameworks for information mangement and systems infrastructures, operations and evaluation.
• Pursue best practice, industry standards and professional ethics.

Student Testimonial

Suzanne Clarke – the Monash undergraduate degree. The Monash degree tests the grey cells. It requires independent thinking. As a student, you do not just read a text and regurgitate it. You need to think and apply ideas. I was at TAFE, which is very much like a school. I qualified as a Library Technician. At Monash, the course content is broader, including all forms of Information Management, in all types of organizations. University gives me the chance to manage my own time and deadlines. No-one will forces me to work. The Monash degree is well structured. The flow of units is logical. The technical units in the Monash degree are hard, especially the basics of computer programming. For many students, programming was a completely new world. After the first programming unit, it became a lot easier. There is a good balance of units in the degree, covering Information Management, programming, modelling, and business principles. In the workplace, an employee is expected to give full attention to the tasks in hand. You are responsible for the outcomes of your decisions. This is how university learning works too. I aim to work as a library manager, in children's services, with books and audio, in a suburban public library.