Last week, the Faculty of Art, Design and Communication at RMIT announced its decision to close CIRCIT. The Dean, Prof Robin Williams, told staff that the decision "had been a difficult one given the long standing relationships built with the research staff and CIRCIT's contributions to RMIT over many years.

However, the issues affecting this decision were that:

    * The environmental settings are such that industry's capacity to invest has diminished as a consequence of a down turn in the ICT industry

   * RMIT also has limited capacity to invest in growth scenarios that may not yield long term sustainability which is affecting our Teaching and Learning portfolio as much as our Research portfolio and

    * A number of institutions across Australia are also experiencing similar investment challenges where there is a prevailing trend that signals the difficulty in being able to sustain small, stand-alone research centres."

CIRCIT began in 1989, joining RMIT in 1998, and its staff, past and present, have contributed significantly to broadening public and academic knowledge and debate about how to get the best communications services for ALL Australians.

This essential research focus on design for effective use by all sectors of society, individuals, businesses, local communities and communities of interest, is becoming all too uncommon in many areas of Australian life.

Recently, Ross Kelso's work on educational access to broadband technologies, Supriya Singh's research on the effective use of corporate email, Claudia Slegers' involvement in the Deaf Australia Online project, Sarah Miller's investigations of use of the Internet in public spaces, Youngmi Choi's work in developing e-commerce initiatives in indigenous communities, and David Prater and Al Tegart's work on Email for All have all been testament to this long tradition.

Pam Seeney, the "public face" of CIRCIT,  Sandy Burgoyne, our online communications officer, Liz Harper, who has produced this Monitor, and Sharon Ruidderham, our business manager have all contributed enormously to the undertaking.

CIRCIT's work will be wound up through till the end of July, and CIRCITree will operate until late June.

We will be in touch with our corporate associates and other stakeholders directly to express our thanks for you support and encouragement, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff for their contribution, and all of you for your involvement.

Terry Laidler [Associate Professor and Director]