The Curated University

Curating information and turning it into knowledge is the fundamental task of universities. Why then, is there so little discussion about it? When I began investigating how to best curate material for teaching and lifelong learning, I thought there would be systems in place and a community of practice. I expected extensive discussion in scholarly journals. Apart from some rare examples, I was wrong.

I see three layers of curation in tertiary education.

First, libraries play an important role as collectors and collators of information. Here, curation involves finding and keeping material, but not converting it into knowledge. Libraries are a repository (glad I got that one right) of knowledge. Some library services develop sites that bring knowledge together on a specific topic (e.g. QUT’s Library Subject Guides). However, this only reduces one step in the data gathering process rather than curating that data into knowledge. That is the task of lecturers.

Second, lecturers review knowledge on a topic and curate it in a way that allows their students to engage with it and learn from it. Lecturers also distribute knowledge to the general public. Queensland is currently in the middle of a state government crackdown on motorcycle gangs. As an expert on organised crime, I have been interviewed more than a dozen times in the last two weeks on bikies.  I gather information on bikies, convert it into accessible knowledge and pass that knowledge on to the public. This, in turn, helps the public form reasoned and rational opinions about government policy.

Third, as lifelong learners, graduates also curate material, continuously updating and expanding their knowledge. Online curation sites play an important role here, gathering publications and snippets of information. However, their filtering programs are not sophisticated and often provide little more than a data dump. Academics can carry out this filtering role, locating new developments, assessing them and providing informed appraisal. In the process, we become facilitators of lifelong learning and remain connected to our graduates.

Keeping up with knowledge produced in our disciplines is extremely difficult. We can't read all the journal articles or attend every conference. So, we have two alternatives. First, we can narrow our fields of interest so the information flow becomes manageable. Life is far too interesting for that.  Second, we can build curation networks that enable us to control the information flow. 

We all use filtering tools such as Google Scholar to direct our attention to professionally relevant issues. However, perhaps groups of content curators supporting each other would be more beneficial. We have writing groups, why not curation groups? Students are natural content curators – when studying, they share the workload and combine notes. Good research teams curate content when they plan projects. Why can't we build networks that share the curation load on a topic and allow members to pass on knowledge rather than simply data?

Dr Mark Lauchs – Transformational Teaching Fellow / Senior Lecturer, School of Justice Studies