Join us for the official launch of the Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS) Open Educational Resource!

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Be part of the celebration as we introduce a new resource aimed at enabling all learners to build strong library research skills.
AIRS is an open educational resource (OER) designed to empower learners and researchers with the confidence and capability to navigate today’s complex information landscape. Whether you are a research student, supervisor, librarian, or research support professional, AIRS offers practical strategies and tools to help you, and those you support, develop advanced information skills that make a real difference in research success.
In this session we will showcase the AIRS OER and highlight practical ways it can support both students and educators.

:date: When: Thursday, 19 March at 12:00 pm (Brisbane, Australia AEST) or in your local time 2026-03-19T02:00:00Z→2026-03-19T03:00:00Z
:pen: Participate: Free online event
:link: Info: Register now via Humantix to receive the Zoom link prior to the session

This is an event offered by and for the open education community. If you are logged into OEG Connect, return to the main OE Events space where you can add your own event as a new topic

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Hello @QUTOpenTexts (Sal!) and thank you for joining this community and even more for sharing the Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS) OER.

This is beyond comprehensive as a resource for anyone working with research in advanced degree programs (or any research). I appreciate its thoughtful design and am always please to see some good use of H5P for self checking understanding.

We can see it as an ever evolving resource giving the newer chapter for evaluating outputs for GenAI (first time I have come across the ROBOT Test – Reliability, Objective, Bias, Ownership, and Type).

I am also impressed that AIRS has evolved over 35 years, it has a long history heavily supported by the QUT Library. What was the compelling reason to make it open in 2012?

Also, for someone who is always interested in the people behind this, I would be curious to know what its original creator Christine Bruce had in mind inc reating the first version and how she sees what has grown from it --I came across her again in 2024 for her co-authorship of Confident Supervisors which was recognized with one of our OE Awards for Excellence. We would be keen to organize an OEGlobal Voices podcast with her (and you) to share this story.

And this has me thinking that AIRS is an ideal candidate itself for the next round of awards, which opens in May this year. I hope you will consider entering a nomination for it via https://awards.oeglobal.org.

This now is a long message but a sincere thank you for sharing the launch of AIRS, and we encourage other readers to make an effort to be there for the announcement on March 19.

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@QUTOpenTexts I took the liberty of adding the AIRS launch as an Open Education Week event

Just in case anyone has gotten the memo, while the “week” has passed, we are stretching the calendar out to the end of April. There’s still a lot to tap into, see https://oeweek.oeglobal.org/activities/

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Hi @cogdog

Thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging message. It’s great to hear that you had the opportunity to look through the AIRS OER, and that the design, H5P components, and new GenAI evaluation chapter stood out. The ROBOT test is a recent addition, so we’re pleased to see the content sparking interest.

AIRS long history is something that QUT Library is very proud of, and the decision to make it open back in 2012 came from a commitment to sharing information literacy more widely as a critical part of research‑skills training, particularly to support those higher degree research students and research supervisors working and learning in locations and institutions where research support services are not as readily available. Christine brought a clear and student‑centred vision to the AIRS program in its beginnings, as a program of learning that aimed to support HDR students at QUT in building the information skills required for effective research. This has been carried throughout its evolution to today in which 400+ HDR students at QUT complete IFN006 AIRS, the mandatory unit delivered by QUT Library staff each year.

I love your idea for an OEGlobal Voices podcast, and I know that Lyndelle Gunton, one of the editors of the AIRS OER and the IFN006 Unit Coordinator (with which the AIRS OER aligns) would also be interested. Please do reach out so we can coordinate next steps.

Thank you again for your response to the AIRS OER launch, your message is sincerely appreciated.

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