Sunday, June 22, 2008

Sustainable IT Courseware

The Natural Edge Project (TNEP) is developing a series of lectures on 'Sustainable Information Technology Solutions' which will be available online, under a Creative Commons license. Academics interested in IT education are invited to contribute content and review the material.

Also they are looking for people to pilot the content semester 2 of 2008. Hewlett Packard Australia have offered technical staff to deliver a free guest lecture, as part of the course (HP are funding the development of the course).

TNEP sent me an invitation, as I reviewed their previously produced Energy Transformed online textbook (supported by CSIRO).
'Sustainable Information Technology Solutions' - Lecture Series Overview

The content for 'Sustainable IT Solutions' will be a freely available, open-source resource, available on The Natural Edge Project (TNEP) website with due acknowledgement to partners and reviewers. It will follow a similar format to existing education modules (see the 'Curriculum and Course Notes' drop down on the TNEP Home Page).

For each lecture this includes an educational aim, a bullet-pointed set of learning notes, followed by a fully referenced 'brief background information' reading, and optional additional references for further learning or assignments. Each lecture will comprise 1-2 hours of content, depending on factors such as the level of prior student learning in the area, whether the students are undergraduate or postgraduate, and the type of learning environment used (e.g. tutorial style or powerpoint style).

The 5 lecturers will address the following content:

- Lecture 1: Drivers and Benefits of 'Sustainable IT Solutions'
This lecture outlines key drivers and benefits of Sustainable IT Solutions, particularly for the customer, across business, economic, environmental and legislative domains.

- Lecture 2: Product Service Systems and the Product Cycle
This lecture discusses product service systems, barriers and lessons from past implementations. It also presents opportunities to reduce energy and materials consumption in packaging and through end-of-life processing.

- Lecture 3: Client Equipment
This lecture overviews a 4-step process for reducing energy consumption, materials consumption and materials toxicity in client equipment.

- Lecture 4: Data Centres and HP Case Study
This lecture outlines a 7-step process to reducing energy consumption in data centres. It presents a Sustainable IT Solutions case study of IT vendor Hewlett Packard.

- Lecture 5: Roadmap and Success of 'Sustainable It Solutions'
This lecture discusses the strategies, activities and actions which customers and vendors should focus on, to successfully transition to, maintain and promote their sustainable IT solutions at the organisation and industry level.

Peter Stasinopoulos B.E. (Mechatronics), B.Ma&CompSci
Senior Support Officer and Associate Director
The Natural Edge Project
(Hosted in-kind by Griffith University and ANU)
www.naturaledgeproject.net

Office: +61 (0)7 3735 5062
See also:

1 comment:

Tom Worthington said...

The Sustainable IT Lecture Series is now available. They didn't do everything I suggested, but much of it.