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Western Catchment Management Authority, in New South Wales, has made public over 2000 pieces of evidence using software provided under a program at Land & Water Australia.
Western CMA is just one of the regional organisations using software called Evidence Base software developed by the Knowledge for Regional Natural Resource Management Program. The software enables regional bodies to develop online collections of information used as evidence in decision-making.
Western Catchment Management Authority's Evidence Base includes a large number of unique publications not found in any other library. These publications, along with any others listed as public in the Evidence Bases, can be searched using the search engine on the NRM Toolbar (found at: www.nrmtoolbar.net.au), therefore potentially exposing the information to an extremely wide audience.
"Western CMA has been eager to establish a centralised location for its knowledge resources for some time. The opportunity to make that knowledge available to the wider public through the NRM Toolbar adds a whole new layer of relevance to the project," said Project Officer, Mandy Cohen.
Many other regional organisations have cataloguing projects underway to capture the information resources they have to make them more easily accessible to staff and the public. The Fitzroy Basin Association, based in Central Queensland, aims to assist the communities manage natural resources sustainably.
As part of a project to catalogue the information produced over the years of working in the 156,000 square kilometres of the region and split into five sub-regions, Bronwyn Fryar, the Association's librarian, values the availability of the Evidence Base software.
"I have been working to catalogue the information held across our various offices and now have collated around 2000 records. The Evidence Base software helps in the important area of sharing knowledge.
"I anticipate that once the collection of information from the Fitzroy Basin region has been entered into the Evidence Base, it will be permanently available to all who wish to access it."
Capturing the resources produced from publicly-funded programs is an important focus for the users of the Evidence Bases. Providing the software free means that Land & Water Australia is helping regional organisations to reduce doubling-up of research but also to reduce the doubling-up of software to catalogue research and outcomes.
Sean Dwyer, from Mallee CMA said that the organisation was going to have to design and pay for its own software but using open source software, available to all, was an opportunity to not be missed. "Taking on the Evidence Base software means that we weren't being backed into a corner with purchasing expensive software. The Evidence Base software, with no initial software costs, provides an opportunity to get something up and running quickly and to make our own changes in the future, if needed".
Another feature Sean has found beneficial is the Evidence Base software's ability to automatically search for metadata records. Most existing cataloguing systems make no use of the existing metadata in Australia's publicly-funded databases such as: the National Bibliographic Database with over 6 million records; Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online (AANRO); and the Australian Spatial Data Directory. "This makes it all a lot easier-think of the time required entering metadata for 10-15,000 records", says Sean.
The software is now being used by 16 regional bodies across Australia as well as six other organisations. In addition to this, partnerships between regional bodies are underway to develop shared Evidence Bases, and even a state-wide Evidence Base, thus encouraging greater sharing of information and knowledge.
For more information about Evidence Bases see: the NRM Toolbar or contact the Knowledge for Regional NRM Program (regionalknowledge@lwa.gov.au, 02 6263 6000)
- 30 June 2008 -