Research Experience

Incidental Research

• I have been involved in some form of internet research for all companies I have worked for since 1996. This research has included competitive products, acquiring knowledge about a process, comparisons of software tools (for example, a comparison of PDF creation tools), etc.

Microfusion Pty Ltd

• Responsible for research into competitor products: This research entailed hundreds of hours of internet searching as well as a two week fact-finding trip to the US to investigate competitive products. A further two weeks in the US involved gathering together a focus group of professionals and eliciting ideas from them as to the 'perfect' system.

Department of Education and Training

• My main work as a Teacher-Librarian was in teaching information and research skills to students. This involved all stages of the information process from teaching brainstorming and concept-mapping through to the final production of a piece of work (including bibliographic referencing and note-taking skills to avoid plagiarism). Over 18 years I taught these skills to students from Years 5 to 12, and in-serviced both primary and secondary teaching staff in them.

University

• Skills learned in researching and writing major university assignments are as applicable now as they were then – the media formats may have changed but the process remains the same. Of particular note was my direct involvement in research into the amount of television violence displayed on all Perth television stations over a two week period. A small group of undergraduates took part in analysing every second of taped television footage to codify and quantify every violent action displayed. I believe this research was later used by our US lecturers in papers and/or dissertations they subsequently wrote.
• Research work I undertook while working towards my B.Ed. was also acknowledged in a book on International Librarianship (Recent advances in School Librarianship, Frances Laverne Carroll, Pergamon Press, 1981).