28 September 2023 is UNESCO International Day for Universal Access to Information.
An opportunity to champion those who create, collate and generate access to information that elevates the Australian international education sector.
Today, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) celebrates over 6.2 million downloads from its research repository by folks from almost every country on the planet.
This dissemination improves education everywhere for everyone. The library has preserved print publications since 1930 and is now an online repository. ACER provides this metadata work to other curators, including the National Library of Australia, Informit, CrossRef and the Internet Archive.
No password… no registration…, and access to 15,884 works is free and instant.
Jewel in the crown
The ACER library team maintains the coveted Database of Research on International Education. A repository of over 16,500 Australian and global resources related to international education.
Post covid, with staff movement across the sector, promoting this resource flying below the radar is timely. “It provides a valuable resource for professionals interested in international education to ensure their work builds on the evidence of prior research” says Pru Mitchell, Manager of Information Services at ACER.
A shout-out from The Koala Colony (we know who you are) to the diligent contributors and individuals who have maintained and championed this national asset.
Developed and maintained through partnerships and funding from the Australian Dept of Education (2002-2007) and IDP Education (2008-18) it’s a global ‘go to’ platform for international education resources, sitting with ACER, who hold stewardship of its future.
What next for the database?
The iconic Australian resource is a guiding beacon of the sector’s self-investment. Not simply a historical record, it reflects corporate and national knowledge, identifying the important markers of growth and development that the sector is still learning from.
Since 2019, Pru notes there have been a raft of positive, on again off again, and energetic conversations with IEAA, the Department of Education, a bevy of commercial organisations and the usual ‘stakeholders’ to fund and invigorate the database, to no avail.
Perhaps an area of focus for initiatives falling out of the Australian Universities Accord?
What to do now?
We don’t know what we don’t know, right? So, this is your place to explore all things #intled
- Contribute your documents, reports and research to the database here
- Explore database content here or go deep with an advanced search here
- Check out the activity on X (twitter) @IDPDRIE with over 22k followers
If you are keen, submit an EoI to partner with or sponsor the database here
