Grey Literature
What is grey literature?
Grey Literature is defined as materials and research produced outside the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels.
Why is it valuable?
This information is valuable as it can contain recent data which may yet to be captured in journal articles or books that can take longer to get published. It is useful where the topic involves issues found in the media.
Examples of grey literature include:
- Conference proceedings
- Government documents
- Newsletters
- Technical reports
- Research reports
- Theses and dissertations
- Blogs
- Maps
- Professional guidelines
Grey literature can be a very important source in Education, but as with all sources, you need to evaluate what you find to ensure that it not only provides the information that you need, but that it is up to date and high quality.
Searching for grey literature an be more difficult than searching within databases - and it's possible that the information that you want is not available in a format or in a location that is accessible to you.
Some general search tips
- Be aware that searching will take time - there is no one perfect search string or strategy which will work in all sites or databases.
- Document your search terms and keep track where you have searched (and the results).
- Consider the context of the document or data that you are looking for as this will guide where and how to search. For example - who is most likely to have created the content? For what purpose? Is there likely to be regular versions and if so, how will you identify the most recent? Who is the most likely audience? Is it likely that discipline specific terminology or acronyms will be used?
Evaluating Grey Literature:
Use the guidance in the Evaluating information section of Achieve@Uni to think through some of the potential issues with the resources that you find. Another very useful tool is the University of Newcastle's Resource Evaluation page.
Referencing Grey Literature:
Use the Academic Referencing Tool (ART) guide to APA7 to find the template for the resource type that most closely matches the resource that you wish to reference. If you encounter difficulties, contact the library.
Sources
Federal Government Links
- Australian Government: Department of EducationThe Department provides strategic direction and national leadership of Australia’s education system – through early years, school, higher education and research.
- Australian Government departments and agenciesComprehensive listings of department and agency websites.
- Australian Parliamentary LibraryIncludes Bills digests, research papers and topic guides which have been written to make them easily understandable.
- Australian Parliamentary websiteStart with the advanced search & browse tool. This has useful Search options and limits, including Media sources and Publications as separate collections.
- My SchoolACARA provided nationally consistent school-level data about every school in Australia.
State and Territory Government links
Each State and Territory will have a Department responsible for Education (although the exact title changes with changes in government). Go to the relevant government portal such as sa.gov.au and then find the relevant Department link.
Victorian examples are given here.
- Victoria: Department of EducationVictorian government information about early childhood, primary and secondary school, and further education.
- Schools VictoriaInformation for schools - resources to support school staff by the Victorian Department of Education.
- Analysis and Policy ObservatoryAPO is a not-for-profit, open access and stable links to knowledge and evidence base to discover, share and manage public policy and practice resources. It is mostly contemporary but includes some policy history material.
- Curriculum policy archiveAccess digital copies of Australian state curriculum policies collected as part of the ARC funded project School Knowledge, Working Knowledge and the Knowing Subject: A review of state curriculum policies 1975-2005. It contains over 450 policy documents developed by Australian state education departments and curriculum authorities from the early 1970s to the mid 2000s.
Check the sites of individual schools as well as groupings of private schools. This could be an Australian body supporting specific religious schools or other independent schools. Some Victorian examples are given.
- Catholic Education Commission of Victoria LtdUse the School Directory search to find an individual School, or the Diocese grouping.
- Catholic Education VictoriaContains contact details for all schools, plus the contact details for the directorate of the Dioceses of Melbourne, Ballarat and Sandhurst.
- Lutheran Education VIC, NSW & TAS (LEVNT)Find contact details for Lutheran Schools in Vic, NSW or Tas.
- Independent Schools Victoria (ISV)Includes a range of faith based schools as well as Montessori and Steiner schools.
These can be a fantastic source for finding grey literature and they often include a link to the full text of the resource/report that is being launched. Check the 'usual' sources such as Government or school websites, but there are also databases that capture selected press releases (below).
- Capital MonitorProvides up to date parliamentary, political, legislative, regulatory and judicial news and information via monitoring briefs from a team located in the Press Gallery
Remember to think about the kind of resource that you are looking for, and bodies that it may have been created for or who may be a key stakeholder for the resource. See the policy tab for finding schools and school groupings.
Industry groups or special interest organisations could include teacher unions and Educational research or consulting firms.
- ACER - Australian Council for Educational ResearchACER undertakes high quality research on a range of Educational topics as well as creating assessments used in a range of fields.
- Australian Education Union (AEU): Victorian BranchThe AEU represent teachers, principals and support staff working in government schools, early childhood, TAFE, disability and adult education.
- Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL)"Developing expertise and empowering teachers and school leaders to create better education outcomes for Australian children."
Statistics are kept by a wide range of agencies, and maybe big picture or for a small subset (ie testing results). A selection of Australian and international bodies are linked to below.
Australian Agencies:
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) - EducationThis includes data on Australia wide student numbers, retention and participation in education, and higher education statistics.
- Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Statistics are contained in the research publications in the various collections on this page, which include: Early Childhood Education, Higher Education Research, The Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (LSAY), National and International Surveys.
- Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL)Australian Teacher Workforce Data (ATWD) - a national picture of the Australian teaching workforce
- Department of Education and Training Statistics for Victorian SchoolsA range of statistical information on the Victorian public school system, including class sizes, student achievement figures, and demographic information.
Additional information includes Teacher supply & demand and expulsions. - NAPLAN national resultsACARA provides the national results as a downloadable data set as well as a series of interactive displays and a downloadable national report.
International Agencies:
- UNICEF: Education dataIncludes data on attendance, completion, ICT skills and literacy rates.
- United Nations StatisticsInternational statistics from the United Nations Statistics Division.
- NAPLAN national resultsACARA provides the national results as a downloadable data set as well as a series of interactive displays and a downloadable national report.
Theses and dissertations can be a very valuable source of grey literature. The Library has an entire Guide dedicated to finding LTU, Australian & New Zealand, and International Theses. Two particularly useful sources are below:
- Australian theses (via Trove Research & Reports category)Learn how to access theses from across Australia. Add honours or masters as keywords to see examples of smaller scale theses than a PhD.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new windowOver 2 million citations from 1861 to now and over 1 million full text items.