The 2014 VALA Student Award for a student at Monash University goes to Greg Rolan.
Following a 30-year career in IT, Greg returned to Monash to study community informatics and qualified as a librarian. He then went on to complete his Master of Business information Systems (Honours) degree in the archives stream. During this time, Greg was a recipient of the Dean’s Achievement Award for postgraduate study, the Australian Society of Archivists Mander Jones award for the ‘best academic work on archives or recordkeeping produced by a student in any Australian university course’, and the Penny Fisher Memorial Prize for the ‘most outstanding masters thesis in archives and records’. Greg also participated in research regarding the Australian Government’s Digital Hub programme in a public library setting, and presented the resulting paper at VALA 2014.
Greg is now a doctoral candidate, investigating archival systems interoperability. His research comprises design-science investigations of systems interoperability; conceptual modelling in information informatics; metadata standards-setting; and organisational/social factors in information systems design and implementation. As well as studying, Greg works as a Teaching Associate and Research Assistant at Monash University in the Faculty of Information Technology in the Centre for Organisational and Community Informatics.
Congratulations, Greg, and good luck!