ITNR - Information and Telecommunications Needs Research

About ITNR - A joint venture of Monash and Charles Sturt Universities

ITNR explores and analyses how people use information, telecommunications and new media.

The two photos, below, include most ITNR members.

From left: Dr. Graeme Johanson, Professor Don Schauder, Jen Sullivan, Dr. Kirsty Williamson, Dr. Steve Wright.

From left:  Dr. Joy McGregor, Professor John Weckert, Dr. Kirsty Williamson, Professor Don Schauder, Dr. Graeme Johanson.

Since 1991, ITNR has researched people's relationships with each other and their new information and communications environments.  We have particular skills in analysing user needs and understanding how systems and services can be developed or adapted to meet those needs.

There is increasing demand for the kind of expertise offered by ITNR because of a growing realisation that the needs of users must be taken into account for the success of communication and telecommunication and services. User needs projects at present being developed or undertaken are in the fields of:

  • the baby boomers and the need for public libraries to be responsive to demographic change
  • the information use of secondary students in relation to plagiarism
  • the information-seeking behaviour of online investors
  • breast cancer knowledge online; online banking; training of public librarians in the use of online resources
  • the information needs and Internet use of social movement activists
  • investment advice in cyberspace
  • the information literacy of tertiary students
  • building archival systems for Indigenous memory
  • evaluation of the DEST major project, Building the Internet Workforce.

The Director of ITNR, Dr Kirsty Williamson, has worked principally as a researcher for many years. Together with colleagues from School of Information Management and Systems, Monash University, and School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, she has written a book on research methods, originally published in 2000 and now in its second edition (2002).  The book, which focusses on the fields of information management and information systems, has been in strong demand from a number of different countries apart from Australia (including Sweden, Canada, USA, Italy, South Africa) and from a diverse range of fields apart from information management and systems (including engineering, business and eco tourism). Recently there have been a number of favourable reviews, including in JASIST and Australian Universities Review. Also recently, there was an order for 120 copies from a scholarly book shop in Sweden and a request for the book to be translated into Swedish. This has been an excellent Monash/Charles Sturt University collaboration as the introduction to the book was written by Professor Ross Harvey of the School of Information Studies at CSU, and published by its Centre for Information Studies.