Saturday, April 30, 2011

Model Train and Car Auction in Sydney this Weekend

Hornby Monorail SetDinky (this looks like it is from a Gerry Anderson production, but no mention of what in the catalogue)HO Radio/Obversation Tower - Funk-und Fernsehturm - Eheim Esslinger ElektrospielwarenPassing the Annandale community centre, in Sydney's inner-west, this morning I noticed a van from "Trains, Planes and Automobiles" outside (who bill themselves as the best antique toy store in the world). They are having an auction of several hundred model trains and die cast cars this weekend. Some items which got my attention were a Lot 103 a Hornby Monorail Set in "good" condition ($40), Lot 286 - Dinky (this looks like it is from a Gerry Anderson production, but no mention of what in the catalogue) ($40), Lot 445 - HO Radio/Obversation Tower - Funk-und Fernsehturm - Eheim Esslinger Elektrospielwaren complete in box ($50).

Friday, April 29, 2011

Connecting a TV to the Internet Part 4: success

In "Connecting a Samsung TV to the Internet Part 3" I had decided to reconfigure a low cost wireless router, to be a repeater bridge using the open source DD-WRT software. This was so I could plug a TV into the Internet. I was able to get the TV to "ping" the gateway, but not communicate DNS service. I tried that of the router and of BigPond (the ISP being used), with no success. However, when I used the IP address of the gateway for the DNS, this worked (presumably this then is just relayed to the router).

The Samsung TV then downloaded some software updates and some default Apps. The apps included a news ticker service, which runs across the bottom of the TV screen, YouTube Videos and Twitter. The speed of download of video is reasonable, given that the signal is being relayed by WiFi. The image quality of the video is remarkably good. But after all the effort involved, it is a relief it works at all.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Lunch at former flying boat base in Perth

Lunching at the "Matilda Bay Restaurant " in Perth, I noticed there was a "Catalina" function room. A sign on the wall indicated this was a former US Navy flying boat base in World War 2. The restaurant is on the banks of the Swan River, across the road from the Nedlands campus of the Unviersity of Western Australia. This was also the original location for the Australian The Double Sunrise service operated between Austrlaian and Ceylon by the RAAF and QANTAS. Unfortunately a sign in the park commemorating this shows a photo of a biplane flying boat (not a Catalina).

Learning objects webinar

The Australian Flexible Learning Framework.will host a webinar on "e-Gems: Learning objects: Create, reuse and deploy for better teaching and learning online!", by Helen Lynch,Canberra Institute of Technology, 12.30pm, 11 May 2011.

e-Gems: Learning objects: Create, reuse and deploy for better teaching and learning online!

The 11 May e-Gems session will show practitioners how to create, reuse and deploy learning objects using the VET Reload Tool (open source software that can be used with Moodle, Blackboard, Connected Learning Community or Studywiz on a Mac or PC).

Learn how to assemble existing resources, eg word documents, digital photographs, html pages, video and PDF files, into a learning object.

Alternatively, find out how to add or remove pages from an existing learning object downloaded from an online repository such as LORN or the Toolbox Repository.

The session also looks at the importance of learning design in resource assembly.

It will be presented by Helen Lynch, who has worked as an educator and e-learning enthusiast in the vocational education and training and university sectors in NSW, carrying out flexible learning research and developing e-learning solutions for training organisations.

Currently the ACT Toolbox Champion, Helen is based at the Canberra Institute of Technology. Helen holds post graduate qualifications in educational management, online education and Indigenous education and is studying a doctorate at the University of Southern Queensland researching learning object reuse.

Details:
Date: Wednesday 11 May 2011
Time: 12.30pm – 1.30pm AEST
URL: http://tinyurl.com/egems11-reload

The e-Gems series of online seminars are presented by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Connecting a TV to the Internet Part 3

In "Connecting a Samsung TV to the Internet Part 2" I had decided to reconfigure a low cost wireless router, to be a repeater bridge using the open source DD-WRT software. This was so I could plug a TV into the Internet. I was stuck at the point of making the existing router an "Access Point". Also this seems to have upset the configuration of the Telstra BigPond cable modem, which now does not allow outgoing email via port 25.

The issue with Bigpond turned out to be a configuration problem with Microsoft Live Mail, unrelated to the router.

To avoid reconfiguring the router as an Access Points, I looked around for other options and found I could have the router allocate IP addresses, without setting the "AP" option. This allowed me to connect a PC to the Internet using a cable plugged into the bridge. The Samsung TV accepts a fixed IP address and the address of the bridge. This passes a Ping test, but fails to connect to the Samsung IP service. It may be the DNS address needed.

Another option to try is AutoAP which is a script to make the DD-WRT router act as a WiFi Ethernet interface.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Science on Wheels

Science Library at the Unviersity of Western AustraliaGreetings from the new Science Library at the Unviersity of Western Australia. The library has a relatively conservative interior design, blending a traditional library with that of a new learning commons. The colour pallet is muted, with blond wood panelling matching the cream coloured concrete, which reflects the tones of limestone blocks of the campus's traditional buildings. There is a small reserve collection of books on the ground floor, enclosed in floor to ceiling glass, to show books still have a place in libraries. There is also a selection of new books and journals on display. There are rows of computers and some small work-group booths with chest high partitions. What is not noticeable at first is that most of the furniture, including tables and bookcases, are on wheels, allowing them to be easily rearranged. Apart from the reserve collection, there are no fixed walls in the space.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Connecting a TV to the Internet Part 2

In "Connecting a Samsung TV to the Internet" I had decided to reconfigure a low cost wireless router, to be a repeater bridge using the open source DD-WRT software. This was so I could plug a TV into the Internet. DD-WRT turned out to be very easy to install. I downloaded the appropriate software and then uploaded it to the router. There was a moment's worry when I could not reconnect to the router, but this was because the IP address of the router had changed in the process. The DD WRT software has lots of options and is less consumer friendly than the software the low cost routers come with.

The problem which has stoped me is not to do with the new router, but the existing one it is connected to. This need to be made an "Access Point" but in the process I lost access to that router. Also this seems to have upset the configuratuion of the Telstra BigPond cable modem, which now does not allow outgoing email via port 25.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Connecting a Samsung TV to the Internet

A friend bought a Samsung LCD TV which has "Internet@TV". They asked me to connect it up so they could use the Internet from the lounge chair. The first problem what that I was not exactly sure what the TV did and what it was they thought they were going to get. The TV seemed to offer some Samsung provided news and other Apps, specifically for Samsung and also access to downloaded moveis and the like. The friend seemed to have the idea they could sit in the armchair with a wireless keyboard and surf the web and access their PC upstairs. It seemed unlikely the TV had a full web browser, nor any form of remote PC access. But as with many clients of technology it was difficult to get them to explain exactly what it was they wanted. So the simplest solution seemed to be to connect it up and see what it could do.

Already I had connected up a low cost wireless router, so I just needed a WiFi device for the TV. The TV has an Ethernet socket and two USB sockets, so there were plenty of options. There is a specific Samsung USB WiFi dongle for the TV, but a web search seemed to show that third party units could be used. So I got a D-Link DWA-125 N150 USB Adaptor. I should have read the online discussion of this more carefully, as it turned out that Using NoN-Samsung USB WiFi dongles, requires changing the software in the TV. I was not willing to risk breaking a new TV.

The next option was to use the Ethernet port of the TV. But as the TV is on a different floor to where the Internet wired connection is, running a cable would be complicated. The solution was to use a device which relayed the WiFi to an Ethernet socket which could then be plugged into the TV. No special software is then needed in the TV, which operates as if it has a direct connection to the Internet. The needed device is called a "bridge". After much searching of the web I found that the same DIR-600 I hag got for the WiFi could be reprogrammed to be a repeater bridge using the open source DD-WRT software.

DD-WRT is software developed to take advantage of the capabilities of low cost router hardware. The repeater bridge allows WiFi to be extended further. It also provides Etherenet sockets.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Copyright Reform for the Internet

The Australian Digital Alliance has released "Internet Intermediaries and Copyright: An Australian Agenda for Reform" (by Kimberlee Weatherall). This is a comprehensive 63 page study. Unfortunately it was released as a hard to read PDF file, so I have extracted the executive summary (appended). Also it is odd, given the subject matter, the report has no copyright notice:

Executive Summary

Digital Economy: the global network of economic and social activities that are enabled by platforms such as the Internet, mobile and sensor networks.1

Australia aims to be a place where innovation in the Digital Economy happens.2 Achieving this goal is essential to Australia"s future economic growth, productivity, and social well-being.3 It will require not just great digital infrastructure, and a population with the necessary skills and entrepreneurial spirit, but a legal environment conducive to investment in the technologies, products, and services that make up the Digital Economy.4

Copyright law is an important part of this legal framework. The goal of copyright law is to encourage the creation of artistic, intellectual, and scientific content, from books and datasets to movies, music, video games, software, and art, by granting to creators exclusive rights to exploit their creations. The creation of new content is an important part of a successful Digital Economy. But, as has been widely recognised, too much copyright protection (or too much intellectual property generally) "may discourage people from innovating because the pathways to discovery are blocked by other intellectual property owners".5

A critical set of actors in the Digital Economy who can be affected by over-broad copyright are the Internet Intermediaries. These are the companies that provide the basic infrastructure of the Internet, and that build and create the services and platforms of the Digital Economy. They include Internet Access Providers (IAPs), web hosts, the providers of online platforms for the creation and exchange of content (such as YouTube, WordPress, and Facebook) – and others perhaps not yet conceived. They are all "intermediaries" in the sense that they stand between customers or end-users, and originators of content or other material. They are not only direct participants in the Digital Economy, but enablers – they build the platforms and infrastructure that can enable other companies to innovate and to take advantages of the efficiencies of the online environment.

If Australia is to achieve its overall innovation goals, and fully realise the potential economic and social benefits of the National Broadband Network (NBN), it will need to ensure that its copyright law appropriately enables Internet Intermediaries to operate and to invest in creating Australia"s Digital Economy. It is difficult to determine in the abstract where the proper accommodation of competing interests in copyright lies. One guide is a comparison with similar countries – Australia"s competitors in the global Digital Economy.6 If Australia"s laws create a less conducive environment for a Digital Economy than the law of Australia"s competitors, this will put Australia at a disadvantage in attracting and retaining innovative digital companies.

Where Australia currently stands

Measured against other jurisdictions, Australia"s copyright law is both less coherent and less amenable to innovation in the Digital Economy. The present legal situation can be understood at a broad level using a basic "traffic light" metaphor: where RED means an activity involves a high risk of copyright infringement, ORANGE means the legal situation is unclear, and GREEN means a low or non-existent risk of copyright infringement (perhaps subject to the company fulfilling certain conditions, such as taking infringing material down on receiving notice).

Table 1: Summary Table: Risk of Copyright Infringement Activity

Table omitted

The legal reality in Australia is that fifteen years after the Altavista search engine was launched, a search engine can still not operate fully from Australia without facing a risk of copyright infringement. Five or six years after the launch of services like Facebook, YouTube and the WordPress blogging platform, the same applies to these Digital Economy companies and services. Current Australian law also creates an uneven playing field: carriage service providers face less overall legal risk than other Internet Intermediaries, even where they perform the same practical function.

Table 1 does not, however, give a full picture of the impact of copyright on innovation, for two reasons. First, it focuses on online activities that we already know about. Innovation is, by definition, doing new things. Doing what is now known – following on from existing, often foreign innovations – is not enough: Australia needs to generate new ideas that can take on the world. Creating the environment in which people can come up with these new ideas, and pursue them through to commercialisation, depends in part on ensuring the law provides some room to experiment.

Australian copyright law provides no such room. By contrast, US law provides two important flexibilities for Internet Intermediaries: the fair use exception, which allows for non- infringement based on a balancing of factors (like the impact of an activity on the market), and the ‘Sony doctrine" – the rule that a person who provides services or technology that has "substantial non-infringing uses" will generally not be held liable for its customers" infringements.

Solutions

To provide an appropriate legal environment to enable greater innovation in the Australian Digital Economy, two critical changes are needed.

Extend the Safe Harbours

First, Australia should extend its copyright Safe Harbours to benefit all online service providers.

Copyright and Internet Intermediaries: An Australian Agenda for Reform indeterminate legal risk. Extending the Safe Harbours would not, however, be sufficient to create a favourable environment for innovation, because entrepreneurs wanting to introduce new, unanticipated services and products would have little room to move.

Introduce a Flexible Exception into Copyright

Second, Australia should introduce a flexible exception into copyright, in order to promote innovation, create room for experimentation and move from a "permission to innovate" culture to one conducive to taking risks and trying new things, at least where the impact on copyright owners" economic interests is small. This could be done by:

  1. Introducing an exception for fair dealing for the purpose of "transformative use" (or some variation); or
  2. Introducing an open-ended fair dealing exception modelled on fair use as found in US copyright law; or
  3. Introducing a new s 200AB-style semi-flexible exception (or expanding the operation of the existing s 200AB): for example, specifying Internet Intermediaries as another kind of entity that gets the benefits of being allowed to do activities provided they do not contravene the "three step test" in international law.

Of these, using s 200AB is the least desirable option due to its complexity. Options 1 and 2 are similar. Both would help ensure that Australian law properly enables the key technical processes that underpin the operation of the Internet and common online services, as well as ensuring that Australian law provides room for appropriate innovation to spur a thriving Digital Economy.

If Australia chooses not to introduce a new flexible exception, at the very least, Australia should introduce one or more new specific exceptions to address problems identified in this Policy Paper to allow known activities that do not unjustifiably harm copyright owners. To address the gaps identified in this Policy Paper, specific exceptions would be needed to allow at least:

  1. Caching, including proxy and system-level caching;
  2. Web Hosting (including Cloud Computing);
  3. Hosting a User-Created Content Platform (with an exception to allow individuals to make user-generated content); and
  4. Operating a Search Engine.

Some reform to address these activities, currently not allowed under Australian law, would be better than nothing, to at least enable local versions of known services online. However this would do little to encourage future innovation in the Australian Digital Economy.

Contents

Executive Summary .. 1
Where Australia currently stands . 2
Solutions 4
Extend the Safe Harbours .. 4
Introduce a Flexible Exception into Copyright 5
1 Background Material . 7
1.1 Terminology: who are the Internet Intermediaries? . 7
1.2 Exceptions in context: the scope of exclusive rights and secondary liability 8
2 The impact of the copyright law on common online activities 11
2.1 Providing network access (internet access providers) . 11
2.2 Caching . 14
2.3 Hosting Content . 19
2.3.1 "Traditional" Web Hosting 20
2.3.2 Cloud Computing .. 22
2.3.3 Hosting a User-Created Content Site . 23
2.4 Search Engines: Web Crawling, Indexing and Display of Results . 25
And then there"s the future 28
2.5
3 Advancing the Digital Economy: What Australia Should Do .. 31
3.1 Extend the kinds of entities entitled to Safe Harbours to all online service providers .. 31
3.2 Introduce a flexible exception into Australian copyright law .. 31
3.2.1 Option 1: Fair dealing for the purposes of transformative use .. 33
3.2.2 Option 2: A Fair Use/Open-ended Exception 34
3.2.3 Option 3: Extending 200AB 35
3.2.4 Assessing the options . 37
3.3 Specific amendments 38
4 Conclusion .. 39
Appendix 1: Australia's Digital Exceptions Compared .. 40
Introduction and Summary . 40
Exceptions to liability for (temporary) reproductions .. 41
Liability for transmission (communication) and exceptions .. 46
Summary and commentary on the exceptions covering basic digital and network technology
50
Appendix 2: Australia's Safe Harbours Compared 51
Appendix 3: Australia's Exceptions for Creative Re-use and Personal Copying Compared . 57
Creative re-use .. 57
Private copying . 62

...


From:
Internet Intermediaries and Copyright: An Australian Agenda for Reform, Kimberlee Weatherall, Australian Digital Alliance, April 2011

Towards an Open Academic and Collaborative Environment

The AuSakai 2011 South West Pacific Conference is being hosted by the Australian National University, in Canberra, 13 - 14 September, 2011. Sakai is a Learning Management System which ANU uses for its Alliance system for some student and research discussions (this is separate from the main Moodle based system called "Wattle" used for the bulk of online teaching at ANU).

Keynote Speakers:

Key dates:

  • Call for Presentation Proposal due Friday 27 May 2011
  • Early Registration will open on Wednesday 1 June 2011 (ends 20 August)
  • Standard Registration (21 August - 13 September)
  • Networking Dinner for all participants on Tuesday 13 September 2011

Those registering from ANU are eligible for a 100% subsidy of their registration costs ...

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Low cost wireless router

Needing a low cost wireless router, I went into Dick Smith and picked up a D-Link DIR-600. These were around $100, but at the counter I found they were reduced to $64. I skipped the installation disk and instead plugged the unit in and used the on-board configuration wizard. This prompted me for a password for the router and then offered to generate a random access code for the WiFi. I decided to use an easy to remember (but less secure) one I entered myself. In under a minute the router was operating and providing WiFi access for a iPod Touch, iPad and a netbook.

The issue now is what to do with a Samsung LCD TV. This has some form of Internet access, but it is not clear if it is worth the trouble connecting. The TV will require a USB WiFi device. More than likely the Samsung unit is just one of the popular models. Might be less trouble and more use to get an "Agora Internet TV Portal".

ACS Business Skills Fourth Access

After selecting courses for theACS Business Skills On-Line Pilot Program, I thought I should start. But how do I start a course?

The online system has a list of the courses I selected. When I click on the first I see a brief description, a title "Lesson Objectives" (with nothing under it), a Course Overview, two "Job Aids", "Skill Briefs". There are links from the aids and briefs. But I don't see a link to the actual course content.

There was an icon for "download", which brought up a pop-up window saying "You must install the SkillSoft Course Manager before downloading course content. Click OK if you would like to start this installation.". When I clicked on that it opened a further window telling me to print out the instructions before installing the "SkillSoft Course Manager" (whatever that is).When I then started the download, my browser crashed.

The instructions provided were somewhat confusing, saying the SkillSoft Course Manager was optional. But I could not find any way into the course, apart from downloading it. There is mention of being able to "play" courses on the web server while connected to the network, which seems to suggest the courses are in the form of video (or something else playable). There is then mention of security, licences, proxies, Windows Vista / Internet Explorer 7.0 protected mode.

At this point I have got as far as I can without asking for assistance. Normally I would send a mail message or enter one in the online help forum. But there was a live help chat window offered, so I thought I would try that. It displayed Please wait, you are next in line." so I started my stopwatch and waited. After about a minute I got a text message to say the helper was retrieving my details and under that a Flash window. I then had a text box to type into. The helper told me to click on the "play the course" link. It turned out this was a triangle on the screen with the ALT text label of "Launch Course ...".

Unfortunately clicking the course launch button crashed my browser. I was then asked to do a browser test, which also crashed the browser. I was then taken through checking the configuration of the browser. Then I was asked to delete all the Java temporary files. After 22 minutes we were still working our way through the process. It got complicated when I had to open the Java console and make some entries for SkillSoft.

When I tried to play the course it again crashed the browser. Impressively I was able to reconnect to the online chat and the help person was waiting for me. They suggested I reinstall Java, but as the application requires JRE 1.6.0_21 and I already have JRE 1.6.0_24, that should not be a problem. By now it was 35 minutes since asking for help and I was thinking it might have been better to send a message.

At the last minute it occurred to me to ask if it made a difference that I was running Linux. The helper advised that Linux was not guaranteed to work. Given I had spend more than thirty minutes trying to get the course to play and it was not guaranteed to work anyway, I decided it was time to abandon the attempt.

ACS Business Skills Third Access

After seeing I could navigate the ACS Business Skills On-Line Pilot Program, I thought I should select some courses. One annoyance I have found is the log-on screen has an option for accessibility, but I have to click this each time I enter the site, the option does not appeared to be remembered in my learner profile.

Last time I got as far as finding there was noting in "My Plan", which I need to populate by selecting some courses. What is confusing is that I do not appear to be able to add courses from "My Plan" but have to instead navigate my way to the catalogue.

At the catalogue I was confronted with "Your current selection is My Assignment". It is always worrying for any student to be told that they have an assignment to do. My "Reflections of an Online Student" describes the worry caused by not knowing what I had to do in the last online course I tried. In this case I can't work out what "My Assignment" is, as when I click on it, nothing seems to happen.

Further down on the same screen I am offered: 1 Hour Courseware, Business Skills Curricula, IT Professional Curricula and Business Exploration Series. These appear to be selections of courses (with then sub-folders and sub-sub-folders with further categories of courses).

Judging by the first branch of this tree, there appear to be about 60 courses in total offered for the pilot. The problem with this is that there is too much choice and not enough information on which to make a decision. This contrasts with the UK's Open University, which provides fuller descriptions for its courses.

Also the descriptions do not appear to be accurate, as an example I selected "Emotional Intelligence Essentials" from the 1 Hour Course-ware, but found it was made up of two modules, each of one hour, making it a total of two hours (not one).

I clicked to add the course to my plan and was asked for a "Goal". At this point my goal was to add the course to my plan, but I assume this was intended to be a description of what I wanted from the course. But like any student, what I want to do is complete the course and at least pass. There was also a "due date" set to tomorrow (which seems reasonable for a two hour course). There is an option to send me a reminder, which I assume this is in the absence of a human tutor to remind me to do my work.

Then I added a second course on "soft skills", which also had the default completion date of tomorrow. This seems less reasonable, as it assumes I am going to do three hours of courses in one day.

I added several more courses. It is not clear to me what happens next. Am I promoted to start the courses? Is there some sort of introduction to how to do such courses first?

Architecture for New Education

Beehive Montessori School, stage 1 by Architects EHDOIn Perth, Western Australia, yesterday, I met up with Dimitri Kapetas, architect from practice EHDO, who told me about their design for the Beehive Montessori School at Mosman Park. This is described as a "village", with two phases of development. The first is a library and multi-purpose hall funded by the BER economic stimulus package. The second stage is to incrementally replace the existing buildings. incrementally until it is replaced.

What stuck me some time ago while reading about Montessori schools was that their educational philosophy is simialr to that now being applied for adult learners at unviersity and vocational institutions. Even those schools not professing the Montessori approach are building open flexible, multi-purpose spaces for student directed learning. The same designs for schools can also be applied to post secondary education.

What impressed me, perhaps even more than EHDO's architecture, was their web site. Architects usually have very poor web sites, produced with Flash, with numerous high resolution images and very little useful information. In contrast I found EHDO's worked on an iPhone and iPad, as well as a desktop browser. A W3C validation test, reported the home page was in HTML5, with no errors.

Community Recovery from Disaster

Dr Rebecca Whittle from Lancaster University gave an entertaining and informative talk on "Flood Recovery in the UK" at University of Western Australia, yesterday. She described research into the June 2007 floods in Hull, England, where 8000 families were displaced. A longitudinal study using diaries and group discussion was carried out. As well as papers published (Whittle, Rebecca and Medd, William and Deeming, Hugh and Kashefi, E. and Mort, Maggie and Walker, Gordon and Watson, Nigel (2010) After the rain - learning the lessons from flood recovery in Hull. Final project report for 'Flood, Vulnerability and Urban Resilience: a real-time study of local recovery following the floods of June 2007 in Hull'. Project Report, Lancaster UK) and input to the UK Government Pitt Review into the flooding, a game to help policy and operations staff was created.

Also the event I picked up a copy of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility newsletter. Also at the event was Frank Yardley, Manager Climate Change Adaptation, RMIT.

The key point Dr Whittle made was that while the first response for the Hull floods was good, the community felt abandoned after the emergency workers left. The following period, of having to deal with insurance companies and builders was as stressful as the flood emergency itself, and for this there was little coordinated support. It occourred to me that the web could be used to provide some such support. This could be via individuals smart phones and other portable devices and also via community centres, particularly the local library.

However, in accordance with good ICT practice, before building a an online system, it is best to simplify the manual process first. The problem here is that while emergency response is coordinated by government, recovery is largely left to individuals to sort out with private companies.

In a major disaster, this is inefficient and stressful for those involved. That situation could be improved with standard terms in insurance contracts and standard processes, both on paper and online. Dealing with builders could similarly be standardised. This may need legislation to allow provide companies to coordinate their activities without fear of prosecution for collusion. It may also require some level of financial reward or compulsion for parties to comply. As an example, small builders would be reluctant to coordinate their activities.

Insurance and building staff would need training in how to use online systems to coordinate their work in an emergency. But this could have benefits in making their work practices more efficient even when there is not an emergency. This would reduce the customer frustration when they do not know when the person is going to arrive or what stage their work is up to.

Canberra International Music Festival and the Griffins

The 17th Canberra International Music Festival runs from, 11-22 May 2011. The program is emphasises Schubert. It also commemorates the work of Canberra's original architects: Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. The conference program features a series of remarkable graphics, overlaying the plan of Canberra, with mystical symbols.

The Griffins were invovled in anthroposophy . There have been some attempts to suggest that the plan for Canberra, with its triangles, circles and pyramids were embedded with secret religious symbolism.

Concerts large and small take us physically to iconic places - from the Great Hall at Parliament House to The Fitters’ workshop in Kingston. Join us on a enthralling and uplifting tour of our National Capital as you experience 34 concerts in 11 days: May 11th – 22nd, 2011. This year’s program features artists such as Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and his equally talented brother Jaakko Kuusisto, pianist Pascal Rogé, violinist Lara St John, conductors Brett Weymark, John Harding and Roland Peelman and the Song Company, the Danish String Quartet, and the Bowed Piano Ensemble. We are extending our Amazing Space series of concerts to include two on mountain tops – which we are calling the Amphitheatre of Hills series. The festival will triumphantly conclude with the world’s finest vocal ensemble – Finland’s Rajaton We will also present 45 World and Australian premieres including the Lost Gallipoli Sonata of Frederick Septimus Kelly which we recently found in Florence as well as commissioned works by Peter Sculthorpe, Elena Kats-Chernin and 2011 composer in residence Graeme Koehne. ...

Telecommunications in Australia Podcast

The 30 minute audio Podcast "Telecommunications in Australia", by Keri Phillips, ABC Radio National "Rear Vision" program, is available.

This puts the National Broadband Network a historical context: "Everything to do with communications in Australia has always been highly political; the National Broadband Network provides the latest evidence. Rear Vision looks at the story of communication in Australia and compares the evolution of the internet here with the rest of the world."

Speakers include: Professor Jock Given, Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University; Paul Budde, BuddeComm, Dr Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University (Toronto).

Catherine Middleton, is an Australian researching the NBN in comparison with Canadian and European networking initiatives (I handed her a medal for her work, some years ago).

ps: Keri Phillips did a weekly 10 minute talk "IT issues" with me on ABC Radio, Canberra, August 2001 to July 2002, before she moved to Radio National.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Perth, green ict, e-docs, e-learning and e-rooms

For the next two weeks I am in Perth, around the University of Western Australia. This is mostly a holiday, but I will be attending "Flood Recovery in the UK" at 4pm 19 April 2011. Happy to talk to people on green ICT, e-docs, e-learning and e-rooms while here. Particularly to my university, CSIRO and ACS colleagues.

ACS Business Skills Second Access

After making sure I could access the ACS Business Skills On-Line Pilot Program, I thought I should select some courses. Like any student the first thing I did was click on the first link on the web site "My Plan".

The welcome email message had an attachment ("Tips for E-learning"), but this was in hard to read PDF format so I had ignored it (as the average student would). But I went back and read it. It was difficult to get the document as when I click on the link in the message, it appears nothing happens, as the PDF downloads in the background (this document should be in the body of the message or on the web site, not an attachment). The tips were disappointing, being one A4 page, with thinks like "Make time for e-Learning".

So I went back to "My Plan" and found it said " You currently have no items in your plan.". It might be a god idea to provide an introductory course to get the students used to the system and provide help in setting up a plan. There was a link for help, so I pressed it and ended up in "SkillPort" (which I assume isn the name for the e-learning system), in another window, with a familiar looking help interface format. But these seemed to be instructions on how to work the interface, not help me select courses.

But that is all the time I have for the moment.

Monday, April 18, 2011

ACS Business Skills First Access

A few days after the Austrlaian Computer Society told me I was selected as one of the initial students for the pilot is running an ACS Business Skills On-Line Pilot Program. I received an email message with the user-id and password. It was a slight inconvenience that my ACS id and password were not used for course access (perhaps this will be fixed after the trial).

The initial log-on screen had a friendly introduction and an interesting box to tick for "Enable Web Accessibility" (which I ticked as I am interested in web accessibility ). I entered the given id and password, was prompted to change the password and was then in the training system.

I was worried the interface would be in Flash, but I was presented with a readable text based interface (with a few images) and three main options: "My Plan", "My Progress" and Catalogue. At that point I was called away to dinner (as is usual for part time students).

Use of the Skills Framework for the Information Age by Australian Governments

The "Whole-of-government ICT strategic workforce plan 2010-2013" from the Australian Public Service Commission The whole-of-government strategic ICT Workforce Plan was underpinned the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA originated in the UK and so, not surprisingly there are many more mentions of it on UK government web pages (97) than the USA (2). What is surprising is that there are even more on Austrlaian governments web pages (127). However, 90 of these are from the Queensland Government, 6 from the SA Government. Of the 6 federal government references, three are in APSC reports, one is the ACS Submission on Higher Education, and one an archived discussion if the UK's use of SFIA. There appears to be only one instance of the Austrlaian Government mentioning SFIA in a job related web page (by IP Australia). Link

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Flood Recovery in the UK

Dr Rebecca Whittle from Lancaster University will speak on "Flood Recovery in the UK" at University of Western Australia, in Perth, 4pm 19 April 2011.Link
In June 2007, the English city of Hull was devastated by flooding which displaced over 8000 families from their homes. A real-time longitudinal study was undertaken to document the long term experiences of flood recovery. The study used an action research model to document and understand the everyday experiences of individuals following the floods. The project has fed into policy in a number of ways. It provided evidence to the Pitt Review of the nationwide 2007 flooding. Staff from the UK Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies’ Secretariat were very involved in the project steering group, which led to the development of good working relationships between the Secretariat, research team and a number of the participants. Several of the project’s participants have since set up as independent flood consultants.

Dr Rebecca Whittle is a senior research associate in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University in the UK. She has spent the past four years studying natural disasters from a social science perspective. She is particularly interested in using ideas of resilience and vulnerability to explore adults’ and children’s experiences of longterm disaster recovery. Rebecca has also worked with CapHaz-Net, a European project on a range of natural disasters.

Dr Whittle’s presentation will be followed by comments on recovery in Australia and discussion.
Location: Robert Street Lecture Theatre
Contact: Bryan Boruff bboruff(a)cyllene.uwa.edu.au
Start: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:00
End: 18:00

ICT in the Australian Curriculum

The Australian Council for Computers in Education released an "ACCE Position Paper on ICT in the Australian Curriculum", 16 April 2011. The report argues that ICT will be required for students to be successful in their studies, as well as citizens and workers. ACCE therefore propose ICT appear in its own right in the national curriculum. I suggest the report could put the point more strongly that ICT is not just an enabling technology, but is also has deep theoretical underpinnings, which deserve academic study and is profoundly changing our view of the world. I urge ICT professionals and particularly members of the Australian Computer Society, to support the ACCE position.

The ACCE paper was released as a PDF file. HTML is more useful for online distribution (as discussed in my ANU course on e-document management) . So I have converted the document to by hand.

Also there was a web link missing from the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, which I have added. Unfortunately, I was not able to convert figure 1, which is an image of a table.

ACCE Position Paper on ICT in the Australian Curriculum April 2011

This paper was prepared for the Australian Council for Computers in Education and represents the views of that Council and its affiliates: CEGSA, ECAWA, ICTENSW, ICTEV, ITEANT, QSITE, TASITE, and The Australian Computer Society. It also represents the views of VITTA.

Consultation

ACCE would like to thank its member associations: CEGACT, CEGSA, ECAWA, ICTENSW, ICTEV, ITEANT, QSITE, TASITE, and The Australian Computer Society for their contribution to this paper. It also acknowledges the contribution of VITTA (The Victorian Information Technology Teachers’ Association). The position represented here is truly a national teachers’ association position on a very important issue.

ACCE would like to recognise the committee that coordinated the consultation and developed the paper on behalf of ACCE: Dr Nicholas Reynolds (chair), Paula Christophersen, Phil Callil and Helen Otway.

Current position

The Melbourne Declaration recognises the importance of ICT as being ‘central to Australia’s skilled economy (requiring) crucial pathways to post-­‐school success’ (MCEETYA, 2008). It specifies Information and Communication Technology and Design and Technology as one of the eight learning areas of the Australian curriculum. The Melbourne Declaration makes particular mention of the role of ICT in supporting learning in all curriculum areas.

The Australian Curriculum as presented by ACARA acknowledges the interdisciplinary role of ICT by defining its role as a General Capability (GC) and its specific role as a discipline by placing Information and Communication Technology into the ICT and Design and Technology Learning Area. This position paper argues that the current articulation of ICT as both a GC and as part of the so called ‘Technologies’ Learning Area does not support the development of digital literacy, does not provide enough rich ICT use to develop essential pathways and does not support the creation of a digitally productive, knowledge based society.

This paper argues that ICT needs to be its own learning area, either within the framework of the ICT and Design and Technology Learning Area, or as a new area. This notion is not alien to the spirit of the Melbourne Declaration. In that document the term ‘Humanities and social sciences (including history, geography, economics, business, civics and citizenship)’ is used to define one Learning Area, yet in the first phase of the Australian Curriculum, History is presented as a standalone Learning Area, as is Geography, a phase two learning area.

As a learning area, work is just beginning on determining ICT’s conceptual ‘home’ and its content. In December 2010, a group of experts representing areas (‘contexts’) such as ICT, design and technology, systems engineering, primary industries, food and technology and textiles met at ACARA to discuss what in essence comprises a technologies learning area. ACCE was represented at that meeting. One key issue raised at the meeting was the role of the ‘Design Process Framework’ in defining what constitutes Technology education. At that meeting significant emphasis was placed on the Technology Education Network’s 2010 draft position paper (TEN 2010). The design process framework is the underlying theoretical framework in that document and is now guiding curriculum development for ACARA in the ICT and Design and Technology Learning Area. That paper, while recognising that ICT is part of a broad learning area, devalues the importance of ICT by referring to 1 the learning area as the ‘Technologies’ learning area, rather than as Information and Communication Technologies and Design and Technology.

Another area of concern with the so called ‘Technologies’ Learning Area discussion, both in the TEN draft proposal and in ACARA working papers for the December meeting, is the extended use of the term ‘technacy’. This term is of little value to the debate and further enshrines the design process framework. The term limits the scope of ICT and fails to acknowledge its unique qualities and complexities. ACCE is strongly opposed to its use in any attempt to describe desired outcomes in ICT learning and application in schools and society.

Currently there is no published curriculum documentation for ICT competence as a GC. Rather its place in the Australian Curriculum is recognised within each of the four published learning areas, English, Mathematics, Science and History through embedding in content descriptions and/or achievement standards and through an introductory paragraph explaining the role of ICT in that learning area.

Concerns with current position

There are concerns relating to:

  • the curriculum articulation of ICT competence as a GC
  • the developmental pathways of ICT as a learning area
  • the relationship between both ICT competence and ICT as a learning area
  • removal of reference to ICT in the Technologies Learning Area – should be Information and Communication Technologies, and Design and Technology

Curriculum articulation of ICT competence

The term ‘competence’ is of interest. The European Qualification Framework (EQF, 2008) defines competence as ‘the proven ability to use knowledge, skills and personal, social and/ or methodological abilities, in work or study situations and in professional and personal development’. In the same context, knowledge is defined as ‘the outcome of the assimilation of information through learning’ and skill as ‘the ability to apply knowledge and use know-­‐how to complete tasks and solve problems’ (p. 11).

The understanding of competence in this way demonstrates that ICT competence is a significantly more important set of attributes than those articulated within the current General Capabilities documentation. True ICT competence will support the shift to a knowledge-­‐based society. It addresses the need for all students to acquire and apply a depth and breadth of ICT knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and ethics in order for them to be successful learners, workers and active citizens. True ICT competence will result in a digitally literate, digitally fluent and digitally productive society. This can only be achieved through clearly articulated and developmentally appropriate curriculum and standards.

International research is conclusive in stating that the curriculum must be clear about expectations by establishing standards. The conceptual basis on which all general capabilities are built is a continuum − there are no achievement standards, but rather broad statements of learning at varying year intervals. For ICT competence this is years 2, 6 and 10, however for Literacy and Numeracy they are at years 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. The audience for these continua was the writers of the learning areas for the purpose of determining how the GCs could be embedded, not for teachers implementing the curriculum. In English and Mathematics standards are articulated in year-­‐to-­‐year levels and in Science and History they are in two year bands.

2 Effective learning does not usually occur through osmosis; rather teachers must be clear about what students need to learn and what indicates success in learning. The content to be covered and the skills to be developed must be clearly stated so that developmentally progressive learning programs can be designed by schools. This in turn supports informed decision making about measuring and reporting student progress.

Most embedding instances of ICT in the learning areas are typically devoid of any standards, for example, Year 10 History achievement standard reads ‘They identify and locate both primary and secondary sources using information technologies ...’. This provides no indication of the ICT knowledge and skills required to find information that meets its purpose.

Developmental pathways of ICT as a learning area

There is a body of knowledge associated with ICT that is not covered in other learning areas. Typically this content focuses on the characteristics of data, people, procedures and electronic equipment and how they interact to create structured information. This knowledge and these skills form the educational and career pathways to supporting the digital economy. Developmental pathways, both from the compulsory to the post compulsory years, and beyond formal schooling need to be obvious in the curriculum. Australian education needs to reinvigorate ICT career pathways but at the same time strengthen the use and integration of ICT to support powerful learning and teaching.

From a curriculum perspective, design tools and design elements are usually covered in ‘dedicated’ ICT offerings, but the application of a ‘design process’ framework, as discussed at the December meeting at ACARA, is not a fundamental underpinning of ICT. While structural processes suit many ICT areas, a primary focus on the Design Process Framework can be limited and limiting for ICT. Being able to exploit the capabilities of ICT to engage in risk-­‐taking and tinkering are intrinsic qualities of ICT that appear incompatible with a structured problem-­‐solving approach.

This misalignment with a key criterion that defines the ‘Technologies’ Learning Area, together with the key role that ICT plays in learning and everyday life, makes ICT beyond a single context within the ‘Technologies’ Learning Area.

Relationship between both ICT competence (GC) and ICT as a learning area

By placing ICT as a context within the Technologies Learning Area and having it as a general capability, confusion is created about their relationships. When planning teaching and learning programs, teachers must be clear about the expectations of students. Is there a hierarchical order? When do they overlap? Teachers should not be expected to refer to two different curriculum documents with different constructs and status, draw connections and then plan a teaching and learning program. Currently a similar situation exists with Literacy; there is a literacy strand within English and a Literacy general capability, and it is understood that their content is very similar. ACARA is aware of the tensions regarding this relationship.

The Information and Communication Technology general capability currently embedded in the Australian Curriculum signals limited specific ICT capabilities appropriate to and within the range of disciplines developed to date.

The implementation of an Information and Communication Technology discipline within the Information and Communication Technology and Design and Technology Learning Area or as a 3 separate Learning Area must provide an authentic pathway of Information and Communication Technology capability development for students in F-­‐12.

Curriculum Terminology

The long and cumbersome title, Information and Communication Technologies and Design and Technology, has already shown itself to be unworkable. It could be argued that it is just a name, but this is not a valid argument. ICT has been effectively subsumed by the reference to the Information and Communication Technologies and Design and Technology Learning Area as ‘Technologies’. The devaluing of this key area in education and in national capacity building has significant implications for the effective teaching of and learning with ICT in all years of schooling.

Solution requirements

To service the needs of ICT being both a general capability and a learning area, the solution requires the following features:

  • Clear articulation of the content to be covered and achievement standards so that progress in learning can be measured and reported, whether as a general capability or as a discipline
  • ICT pathways that are obvious through curriculum content
  • Two-­‐year intervals of content and achievement standards that assist in mapping learning and progress, in line with Literacy and Numeracy.

Proposed solution

In order to meet the solution requirements, the following is proposed:

  • One learning area, provisionally titled ICT. This models the approach taken with History and Geography, which are separate learning areas under the conceptual banner of the Humanities. This learning area will comprise two strands:
    • ICT competence:
      • Standards are articulated within the Information and Communication Technologies Learning Area, but which map and support the ICT general capability.
      • Standards can be achieved and/or demonstrated through other learning areas
    • Digital Technologies (provisional title):
      • Maps specific ICT knowledge and skills relating to a deeper study of ICT. See figure 1: Construct of ICT Learning Area
  • The ICT competence strand to be articulated in two-­‐year intervals, with content descriptors and standards at Years 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. These support the acquisition and demonstration of knowledge and skills relating to a range of learning areas. These descriptors and standards will be accompanied by elaborations showing rich applications.
  • The Digital Technologies strand to be articulated in two-­‐year intervals with specific content descriptors and standards that deepen at Years 8 and 10. These will be accompanied by elaborations showing rich applications.

4

Content descriptors and achievement standards (increase in depth of content

represented by darkness of shading)

Key: Figure 1: Construct of ICT Learning Area [Omitted]

Advantages of this proposal

  • Articulation in one curriculum document facilitates the incorporation of ICT in all areas of curriculum planning. If ICT is incorporated as a context within the Technologies Learning Area as well as being documented as a General Capability, the curriculum design pathways would be very unclear, as would the difference in their status, namely that a learning area has content descriptors and achievement standards and a GC has nothing, except for isolated instances of embedding.
  • There will be a reference point for elaborating what is meant by instances of embedding in other learning areas. For example, for the Year 10 History achievement standard, teachers would know what ICT knowledge and skills are expected to be acquired and demonstrated at that level.

Conclusion

ICT is best documented as a single entity. This facilitates ease of use and consolidates its status. In today’s digital economy it is crucial to minimise the new digital divide, premised on the capacity of people to add value to the plethora of available information through the application of ICT knowledge and skills. A significant contribution to this would be the explicit statement of content and standards required for all students to be successful learners, active citizens, and digitally productive and versatile workers.

References

TEN (2010) The Information and Communication Technology and Design and Technology learning area discussion paper, Technology Education network February 2010. www.datta.vic.edu.au/resources/discussion_paper_tec2.pdf

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (2008) Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, Canberra.

(EQF) (2008) The European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-­‐learning-­‐policy/doc44_en.htm



ACCE Position Paper on ICT in the Australian Curriculum, Australian Council for Computers in Education, 14 April 2011 (Converted from PDF by Tom Worthington, 16 April 2011)

Friday, April 15, 2011

UN cash for green phone app

The United Nations telecommunications agency is offering $10,000 for the most innovative mobile phone application about climate change.

Authors digitally autographing e-books

According to the NY Times there is an App called "Autography" proposed for the iPad where a digital photo of the author with a fan is sent to an iPad, complete with message from the author written with an electronic stylus, ("Would You Sign My Kindle?" By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM, April 13, 2011).

That all sounds a bit complicated. I suspect that a busy author will
instead have an assistant type a message to the reader. That can be overlaid on a stock photo with autograph and sent to the reader's
device. One simple would be by generating a QR code on a screen, or
printed out. The fan would photograph that with their iPad, iPhone,
Android or other device. This would have the advantage that no complex electronic connection would be required.

I used a QR code on a conference poster last week and it worked well. People came up and photographed it for mode details. But no one asked for my autograph. ;-)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Agora 7" Tablet PC

Kogan have announced a "Agora 7" Tablet PC" for $189. The main feature is that it has a Capacitive Touchscreen.

Specifications
Model Number: KATBL07ANDAA
CPU Model:
Samsung Cortex A8
CPU Speed: 1.0 Ghz
Memory: 512MB DDR2
Storage: 4GB NAND
External Storage:
microSD card expansion up to 32GB
Operating System: Android 2.2
Bluetooth: Built-in
Touchscreen: 7" Capacitive Touchscreen
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 600
Wi-Fi Support: Wireless built-in (b/g Support)
G-Sensor:
Internal G-Sensor
Camera: 1.3M - Front Facing
Battery: 3600mAh
Inputs
microSD:
1
USB: 1
Outputs
Headphone Out:
1
HDMI®: 1
Dimensions: W:19.2cm x D:12.1cm x H:1.24cm
Weight: 390g
What's In The Box:

Kogan Agora 7" Tablet

Power Cable

USB Cable

Headphones

Link to User Manual

Agora 12" Ultra Portable Laptop Computer

Kogan have announced an "Agora PRO 12" Ultra Portable Laptop Computer" (which actually has a 11.6) for $389. This looks like a larger screen version of the 10 inch Linux netbook they sold previously (and was mostly good).

I have been using the smaller Kogan Netbook for a year and it has worked well. The power supply failed, but Kogan sent me a new one, no questions asked. The limitation with the Netbook was the small screen and keyboard, which the new model addresses, without making it too big to carry around.

Specifications
Model Number: KALTP12PROAA
Processor: Intel Celeron M ULV Processor (SU2300) - 1M Cache, 1.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Ram (support up to 4GB)
Operating System: Ubuntu 11.04
Hard Drive: 500GB SATA Hard Disk Drive
Video Card: Intel® GS40 integrated (Shared memory - 256MB)
Sound: HD Audio, Built-In 2 speakers and 1 Microphone
Monitor: 11.6" WXGA Widescreen HD LED Display
Resolution: 1366 x 768 (16:9)
Webcam: 1.3M
Wireless Card: 802.11 B/G/N
Bluetooth: Built in
Card Reader: 3-in-1 (SD/MMC/MS Pro)
Security: Kensington® Lock
Keyboard: 78 keys with 19.05mm key pitch and 2.0±0.5mm key stroke
Inputs

USB: 3
LAN: 1
Microphone: 1
Outputs
Headphone: 1
VGA: 1
HDMI®: 1
Battery

Capacity: 4 Cell, 4600mAh
Type: Polymer
Battery Life:
Approx 3.5 hours
AC:
AC 110~240V, DC 19V @ 65W AC Adapter
Weight & Dimensions

Dimensions of Laptop (approx): W:29.0cm x D:19.5cm x H:2.56cm
Weight of Laptop - Net (approx): 1.32kg
Weight of Laptop - Gross (approx): 1.52kg
What's In The Box:

Kogan Agora Laptop

Power Cable

Link to User Manual

Kogan Android Internet TV Portal

Kogan have announced the "Agora Internet TV Portal", a $200 box to provide a web service on a TV screen. This uses Internet software and may also be useful as a low cost thin client computer for web browsing. The unit has three USB ports as well as a TV type remote control. It may also be useful for digital signage. The hardware is more like that in a high end smart phone, than a desktop computer. It appears to have simialr specifications to the Agora 7" Tablet PC also announced. The processor is similar in power to that in an Apple TV, but as the Kogan device has the Android operating system it should be able to run a wider range of applications.

Specifications
Model Number: ITVZZANDAA
CPU Model:
Samsung Cortex A8
CPU Speed: 1.0 Ghz
Memory: 512MB DDR2
Storage: 2GB NAND
External Storage:
via SD Card or USB Hard Drive
Operating System: Android 2.2
Bluetooth: Built-in
Network

Wireless built-in (a/b/g Support)

Ethernet


Remote Control: 2.4G Wireless Optical Sensor Remote Control
Power: 5.0V DC (Adapter Provided)
Dimensions: W:17.0cm x D:11.1cm x H:3.0cm
Inputs

Ethernet:
1
USB: 3
SD Card: 1
Outputs
HDMI®: 1
What's In The Box:

Kogan Agora Internet TV Portal: Powered by Android

Power Cable

Kogan 2.4G Wireless Optical Sensor Remote Control

HDMI® Cable

Link to User Manual

Australian Government ICT Strategic Vision

The Australian Government has released a Draft 2011 ICT Strategic Vision for comment. The document is available in PDF, DOC and RTF formats. Unfortunately the document is not in an efficient and easy to read format. Here is a web conversion of the DOC version of the document (without the images):


DRAFT: Strategic Vision for the Australian Government's use of ICT

Australian Government Information Management Office

April 2011

Creative Commons

With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and where otherwise noted, this document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence.

The document should be attributed as Draft Strategic Vision for the Australian Government's use of ICT by the Department of Finance and Deregulation.

Use of the Coat of Arms

The terms under which the Coat of Arms can be used are detailed on the It's an Honour website.

Inquiries regarding the licence and any use of the document are welcome at:

Assistant Secretary

Governance and Policy Branch

Australian Government Information Management Office

Department of Finance and Deregulation

John Gorton Building

King Edward Terrace Parkes ACT 2600

Email: ICTStrategy@finance.gov.au

Table of Contents

Contents

Executive Summary - The ICT Strategic Vision

"ICT will increase public sector productivity by enabling the delivery of world leading government services for Australian people, communities and businesses, supporting open engagement to better inform decisions, and improving the operations of government."

Why do we need an ICT Strategic Vision?

Today, the machinery of government depends on ICT. ICT will continue to transform government business and services to meet people's expectations for better services, and to create a more open Government. Research points to the important role that ICT plays in driving productivity. ICT capital investment has contributed 17.5% of the total Australian productivity improvements since 19851 - it therefore warrants our close attention.

The Government's use of ICT is largely agency focussed. The ICT Reform Program and coordinated ICT procurement arrangements have achieved greater integration, cooperation, and transparency. However, more visibility of the ICT design and investment intentions between government agencies is desirable. Decisions to acquire or upgrade ICT systems should consider the broader implications for government, people and business.

Rapid changes in the technology landscape continue, including the increasing use by business of technology developed for personal use, social media, mobile services, broadband and cloud computing. These changes can profoundly influence government and industry choices for ICT investment and how services can be delivered. The Government needs to balance the potential gains from innovation in ICT with the need to provide stable and reliable operations and services.

How will the ICT Strategic Vision address these challenges?

The 2011 ICT Strategic Vision refocuses the Government's ICT priority to improving productivity by delivering better services to people, communities, and business, engaging openly and improving government operations. The Vision is for streamlined interaction within government and between Government, people and business. This builds on and extends the gains made through the ICT Reform Program that focussed on the efficiency of ICT operations and building agency capability.

The Government will deliver the Vision and increase productivity through three strategic priorities - Deliver better services, Engage openly, and Improve government operations. Two strategic actions support the implementation of each strategic priority.

Figure 1: The ICT Strategic Vision


A text description of this image is included at Appendix A.

Deliver Better Services

People expect high quality, easy to use government services. Implementing the vision will deliver on this expectation. We will build capability in government to better meet people's needs and deliver improved services. The Vision builds on the Government's investment in the National Broadband Network, to improve the delivery of services to all Australians.

The strategic actions to deliver better services are:

  • building capability across government to use ICT in order to achieve improved services, effectiveness and efficiencies;

  • enabling better services by using ICT to simplify and integrate government services to both people and business while maintaining necessary security and privacy.

Engage Openly

The Government is committed to the implementation of transparency reforms announced under the Declaration of Open Government and reforms to the Freedom of Information Act. Better access to and use of government information through services including data.gov.au will support policy analysis and improve government decision making. Government will use Web 2.0 and other tools to build new systems faster, improve collaboration internally and extend its reach outwards.

The strategic actions to engage openly are:

  • creating knowledge to share and manage information and knowledge to improve decision-making and drive economic growth;

  • collaborating effectively by building better partnerships to improve the effectiveness of government consultations and service delivery.

Improve Government Operations

Continuing fiscal constraint will require the Government to make the most effective use of existing and new ICT investments. Better understanding how policy implementation influences technology decisions will help achieve greater value. The Vision encourages greater innovation in government operations, to enable cost effective solutions.

The strategic actions to improve government operations are:

  • investing optimally to enable more effective implementation of policy by targeting ICT investments that deliver the greatest value ;

  • encouraging innovation so that government can harness the full potential of the digital economy and enhanced technology solutions to deliver services more efficiently and effectively.

I: The Need for Change

The technology landscape is characterised by continuous and rapid change. The internet has changed the way we access travel, banking, information, shopping and government services.

The change has been dramatic and occurred over a very short period of time. This pace of change is expected to continue if not accelerate. Smaller devices, increasingly mobile technologies, technology that predicts what you want based on your personal preferences, will influence delivery of government services.

The Australian Government will use new technologies to deliver better services and to improve government operations. The Government will be an early adopter of technology that will make it easier for people and businesses to access services while carefully considering the risks of new technologies to security and privacy.

Australians, our communities and businesses have incorporated technology solutions and the internet into their lives. Our society and economy depend on ICT for services such as banking, online purchasing, invoicing and payment, email and social networking. People and business2 expect good quality and highly available government services and measure government performance against private sector services such as banking and airline bookings. ICT is embedded in government operations and, without it, the delivery of government services would not be possible.

Continuing rapid changes to the technology landscape, and opportunities to improve Government operations and service delivery that build on the ICT Reform Program, highlight the need for a new strategic vision for ICT.

ICT has the potential to transform government business and services to improve productivity, meet people's expectations for better services, and create a more open Government. The 2011 ICT Strategic Vision provides the direction for ICT investment, capability development, and transformation to support and enhance government services and operations for the next five years.

The technology landscape

Rapid changes in the technology landscape, including the growth in the use by business of consumer technology, mobile services, broadband, and cloud computing are already influencing Government choices on how services can be delivered, and which ICT investments to make.

Consumer technology is in many ways driving the adoption of new tools by government and establishing a platform for innovation. People have high expectations that the services they receive from Government will be the equivalent of private sector offerings. Staff expect that the technology provided in their workplace will be no less capable than that which they use at home.

Broadband networks, fixed and mobile, have become critical enablers to the adoption of many consumer technologies3. This has led to the creation of new capabilities within Government, such as the Centrelink Bus. This mobile Centrelink office can support service delivery remotely and in times of crisis. Today, citizens are effectively always online and expect the same of government.

The current Government ICT environment

Since 2008, the Government has had a strong focus on improving the efficiency of its ICT operations and building the capability of Government agencies.

The ICT Reform Program delivered improved agency capability to manage large ICT enabled programs, $1 billion in efficiencies from agency ICT business as usual operations, and will avoid $1 billion in costs through a coordinated approach to data centres.

The Government continues to use its buying power to drive cost reductions and has already saved in excess of $50 million from whole of government coordinated procurements of Microsoft licenses and desktop hardware. The Government will consider new coordinated procurement arrangements to achieve more benefits in the future.

The Government will adopt new approaches, such as cloud computing, where appropriate and share technology capabilities across agencies to make better use of investments and deliver greater value for money.

The ICT Reform Program4 has implemented improved capability, focussed attention on ICT sustainability, accelerated a whole-of-government approach to data centres, and provided better information on agency ICT costs. Coordinated ICT procurement has delivered efficiencies in high volume, high cost areas such as Microsoft licensing, telecommunications, desktops and data centres.

Agencies are implementing the Portfolio Programme Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3)5 to measure their organisational capability to deliver ICT investments and using this information to plan improvements in capability where required. Large agency ICT enabled investments seeking Budget funding are scrutinised and further refined through the ICT Two-Pass Review Process6 and their progress monitored through Gateway Reviews. However, a significant portion of agency ICT investment and capability is not visible beyond individual agencies, which restricts opportunities to use existing investments to improve ICT operations.

Decisions about ICT are often focussed on individual agencies. Such technology decisions should fully appreciate the wider implications or opportunity costs and constraining technology options and capabilities. Similarly, decisions should consider exploring capability that exists elsewhere in government. There is a need to ensure that other decisions - where complex rules can make policy implementation, and the technology that supports it, difficult and expensive to deliver - consider the technology implications.

The review of the implementation of the ICT Reform Program conducted in 20107, found that the "...very substantial implementation effort has positioned the Government for the next phase in the evolution of ICT policy and practice. There has been very substantial effort invested across Government in putting the recommendations of the Gershon Report into practice. The challenge now is to leverage that effort to enable Government to deliver different and better services and to engage more closely with its citizens."

The Government will continue to closely monitor and manage its ICT skills through government-wide ICT workforce planning to ensure the delivery and support of Government programs.

The Vision focuses the Government's use of ICT on increasing productivity by improving service delivery, improving government operations, exploring innovative approaches and novel applications to better meet the needs of citizens, communities and business.

The Government regularly reviews ICT skills levels and monitors the potential impact on the delivery of government services.

Demand for skilled ICT workers is growing while ICT student numbers in tertiary institutions are falling. The Australian Government recognises that a skilled ICT workforce is a critical enabler to improving government operations and enabling better delivery of government services to the community.

The Government is managing its ICT skills with government-wide skills-based programs aimed at attracting, recruiting and retaining skilled ICT staff in the APS. These initiatives include ICT entry-level programs for apprentices and cadets, mentoring programs and an ICT teleworking policy.

II: The Vision

"ICT will increase public sector productivity by enabling the delivery of world leading government services for Australian people, communities and businesses, supporting open engagement to better inform decisions, and improving the operations of government."

The 2011 ICT Strategic Vision provides the direction for the Government's use of ICT for the next five years. It signals a shift of emphasis from ICT efficiency to improved productivity. The Government will use ICT to deliver better services and improve operations and processes aligned with Government policy. More targeted consultation and collaboration, increased availability and use of government information and a stronger understanding of ICT capability will inform Government policy development.

"By 2016, a newer generation of government leaders will measure their IT leaders by the productivity IT brings to the public sector service delivery rather than just the efficiency of IT."

Peter Sondergaard, SVP, Research, Gartner (16 Nov 2010)

ICT and Productivity

Improvements in government operations and services have a significant effect on the productivity of the nation. The Government's use of ICT provides an opportunity to improve our national productivity by making government more efficient and streamlining government processes and people's interactions with government. Fewer and simpler interactions with government will allow people and businesses to increase their productivity, and as a consequence, that of the nation. This aligns with the efforts of Government to reduce "red tape" in order to streamline government and business operations and service delivery.

ICT is an important driver of productivity. The Productivity Commission8 has identified that investment in ICT capital results in improved labour productivity as well as directly enabling innovation. The OECD has found that ICT capital investment in Australia contributed to 17.5% of total Australian GDP growth between 1985 and 20069,10 an annual average of 0.57%. This effect is supported by various reports and research, including:

  • The 2009 Access Economics reports Revitalising Australia's Productivity Growth11 and The economic benefits of intelligent technologies, which both identify improvements in productivity arising from the use of intelligent technologies in the electricity, irrigation, health, transport and broadband sectors;

  • The Telstra Productivity Indicator Report12, which provides evidence that ICT has improved productivity in the majority of the top 300 Australian companies; and

  • The vast majority of witness statements and evidence provided to the Parliamentary Inquiry into raising the productivity growth rate in the Australian economy13.

The Council of Australian Governments' National Partnership Agreement identified 27 deregulation priorities14 to increase national productivity. This demonstrates COAG's commitment to the reforms necessary to boost productivity and workforce participation, and improve delivery of services to the community. ICT is core to achieving these aims. The Standard Business Reporting15 program is an example of government helping business to reduce regulatory costs. It offers streamlined lodgement of reports and avoids the costs of duplicate reporting to improve the productivity of business and the broader economy.

Strategic Actions

The Vision has three strategic priorities and six strategic actions to support the primary objective of increased productivity. The graphic below shows how these elements align:

Figure 2: Alignment of the Strategic Priorities and Strategic Actions


A text description of this image is included at Appendix A.

Government will deliver better services to support productivity growth through more effective use of the Government's ICT capability. ICT will enable services that are streamlined and easy for people and business to use and will deliver greater productivity.

Government will use Web 2.0 tools as part of its consultation processes to deliver better services by engaging more effectively with internal and external stakeholders, and making better use of the information arising from interactions.

Government will improve its operations by actively encouraging innovation and making better use of existing and new ICT capability investments. It will improve the way it identifies how to get the most value from its investments. This will include guiding and helping to shape policy choices to better use existing capabilities, speed delivery, avoid unnecessary duplication and complexity, and make best use of new and emerging technologies.

Figure 1 (repeated): The ICT Strategic Vision


A text description of this image is included at Appendix A.

III: Deliver Better Services

The 2011 ICT Strategic Vision promotes simpler, easier to access and use government services where and when people want them, whenever possible. Government will make better use of ICT investments in order to better meet the expectations and needs of people and business, as well as those working in government agencies. The Vision also supports Government priorities, such as the National Broadband Network, by encouraging the improvement and delivery of government services online. This is consistent with the expectations of people and business, and the recent Gov 2.0 and APS reforms. The strategic actions to deliver better, more convenient and easier to use services focus on building and using ICT capability.

Expectations

People and business expect high quality government services that are convenient and simple to use. Our services are frequently judged and measured against those of the private sector, especially banks, airlines and hotels. This means that in developing new policies, Government will work with a broad range of interest groups using a range of targeted consultation approaches, including Web 2.0 tools, to gather views on how policy will best be delivered. Complex policies are often difficult to deliver simply - this is why ICT needs to be considered as an integral part of policy reform, capability development and investment planning.

The Government can use ICT to deliver integrated services to people by enabling a range of "self-service" channels. This includes giving people options to link services across agencies, assisting people to find information and services offered by government, and reducing the "Ëœred tape' and compliance burden. Reducing the regulatory burden on people, non-profit organisations and businesses supports increased productivity.

The use of ICT provides opportunities to continue to improve service delivery by moving to a "tell us once" approach. This provides people the option - entirely within the control of citizens - to access government services through a secure logon to government, and joined up government services across Australian, State and Territory, and Local government jurisdictions.

National Broadband Network

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is the largest single investment in infrastructure undertaken in Australia. The Australian Government's commitment to its construction mirrors the importance Government places on ICT for our future prosperity. The NBN provides a critical enabling platform for further improving the delivery of both current and future government services.

Australian Public Service Reform

The 2009 review of the Australian Public Service (APS) proposed a comprehensive reform agenda in its report "Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration"16. The recommendations, all of which have been accepted by the Government, build the capability and productivity of the APS through increased collaboration and innovation. These improvements will increase the quality of advice to government on and government service delivery.

We will know we have succeeded when

Online services will be easier to access and use, personalised and consistent across government agencies. Agency boundaries will increasingly cease to be visible to people and business. People will increasingly access government online services for the majority of their day-to-day engagements with Government. People's use of government online services and their satisfaction level with services will increase.

Strategic Action One: Building capability

Government will build capability to use ICT in order to achieve improved services, productivity, and efficiencies.

Government ICT capability is critical to the successful delivery of services and achieving improvements in public sector productivity. A significant amount of this ICT capability is either duplicated or under-utilised. The Vision is to increase the utilisation and effectiveness of this capability, with a greater emphasis on meeting the expectations and needs of people and business.

Strong governance drives the strategic direction and coordinated use of government ICT assets. The Secretaries ICT Governance Board (SIGB) will continue to support the Government and agencies on whole-of-government ICT priorities, investments, and arrangements. The Department of Finance and Deregulation will continue to play a leadership role in identifying, and building whole-of-government ICT capability.

Where Government has invested in an ICT capability, this capability will be made available to other agencies to avoid duplication and re-work. Strong governance will be applied to common ICT capabilities to reduce fragmentation and duplication. Cloud computing will be used where appropriate, consistent with privacy and security considerations, to add new capability and capacity, as well as drive down costs.

Demographic and social trends point to future technology skills shortages. Since 2007, the Government has had an extensive program in place to address these skills shortages, and this will continue. Where agencies have developed key areas of skill and expertise Government will consider how they can share these skills and expertise across government and with other agencies.

Cloud computing uses internet technologies to deliver computing as a service. Cloud computing is not a new technology. Cloud computing provides a method of accessing software, hardware and storage solutions in a convenient, on-demand and flexible way.

Australian Government agencies may use cloud computing where it provides greater value for money than the alternatives, and is appropriately secure.

While the potential for flexible and cost-efficient computing solutions offered by cloud computing is attractive, the Australian Government will not compromise the security of its operations or the privacy of people and businesses.

Action program

The actions to implement the objectives of the building capability program are set out below:

1.1

Improve utilisation of existing technology capability

  • Use a lead agency model to develop new technology capability where there are gaps and share technology capabilities across agencies.

  • Reuse and share investments by increasing awareness and use of existing technology capabilities across agencies.

  • Simplify and make consistent business processes for common activities across agencies to enable improved and more standardised approaches to service delivery and ICT capability.

1.2

Technology and Policy integration and delivery

  • Build the consideration of ICT capability into policy development and implementation to ensure that policy decisions are delivered in the most effective and timely way and opportunity costs are recognised.

1.3

Improve Government program delivery capability

  • Build capability across Government and its partners to manage and deliver ICT enabled programs and projects

1.4

Develop ICT workforce skills and utilisation

  • Build on existing ICT workforce planning approaches to make better use of the ICT skilled workforce across government.

Strategic Action Two: Enabling better services

Government will enable better services by using ICT to simplify government services to people, communities and business while maintaining necessary security and privacy.

The Government is committed to improving the delivery of services. The Vision is for simple, easy to use services that deliver coordinated transactions to people independent of the structure of government. These services will be available through fewer websites, with australia.gov.au a primary online entry point. People will be able to consent to agencies sharing data, within security and privacy constraints, to enable a "tell us once" approach. This will involve seamless service delivery across Australian, State and Territory, and Local government jurisdictions, over time.

Online services will be simpler and easier to use under appropriate security and privacy constraints. People will be able to complete transactions, when and how best meets their needs, to the extent that technology allows. The NBN, in particular, will make possible the delivery of new online services to people and businesses throughout Australia, including those in rural and remote areas.

People will be able to access services across agencies through a single logon should they wish to link their dealings with various government agencies. Where possible, and based on consent, information and services will be delivered and supported by automated processes.

Australian businesses will have online access to a range of government transactions using published standards and protocols to simplify their dealings with Government.

Action program

To enable better services the following actions will be undertaken:

2.1

Deliver simple and easy to use online services

  • Deliver automated online services that allow people to tell government once of a change in circumstance such as address, and new government service directories to help people find the services they need.

  • Build on the current australia.gov.au homepage to simplify people's access to government online services.

  • Provide people and business with a logon that allows them to consent to sharing information so that government can provide better, integrated services.

2.2

Deliver more personalised services

  • Build services to capture, understand, and deliver people's preferences when dealing with government.

2.3

Simplify government websites

  • Reduce the number of websites and exploit online services via the australia.gov.au account.

  • Create a common look and feel to all government websites that is accessible to all Australians.

2.4

Increase the automation of services

  • Automate processes to improve the interactions between people, business and government.

IV: Engage Openly

The Government is committed to the implementation of transparency reforms announced under the Declaration of Open Government and the Freedom of Information Act. More open, transparent engagement and improved access and availability of government information, as well as being an important goal in its own right, will stimulate more effective consultation and collaboration informing service design. The strategic actions necessary for open and transparent engagement include the greater availability and use of ICT to enable information and knowledge creation, sharing and management.

Openness and Transparency

The Australian Government's Declaration of Open Government17 requires agencies to reduce barriers to online engagement, undertake social networking and online collaboration projects and support online engagement by employees, in accordance with the Australian Public Service Commission Guidelines.

The Gov 2.0 agenda, lead by the Department of Finance and Deregulation, champions the value of data, transparency, and targeted consultation processes using web tools to support policy development. The Government has created an Australian Office of the Information Commissioner, appointed its first Information Commissioner, and updated the Freedom of Information Act, in part, to meet these aims.

We will know we have succeeded when

The use of web tools to undertake targeted consultations between people and government will be the normal way to support the development of new policies and services. Government will have developed capacity and skills to manage open engagement processes supporting by a range of standard approaches, including Web 2.0 tools. People will have access to high quality data from government and other sources to support this and to help identify new, more productive ways to deliver services.

The Declaration of Open Government, made in July 2010 formally marked the beginning of the implementation by the Australian Government of its response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce. Working with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, agencies are beginning to release more data online at sites like data.australia.gov.au. Agencies are also increasingly using Gov 2.0 techniques to inform and consult with citizens on a range of policy related matters. Early take up has been strong. In early 2011, the blog platform govspace.gov.au supports over 20 agency sites with as many again in development. Other social networking tools have also been used by agencies such as Centrelink and the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to provide information to their stakeholders in both routine and more urgent matters.

While much of the implementation is ahead, some lessons have already been learnt:

  1. Focussed consultative periods produce better results than open-ended activities.

  2. The online community, while growing quickly, represents only part of the community as a whole and consultation cannot be restricted to one channel.

  3. Social networks are generally self-regulating over time but vocal, even strident, commentators can sometimes dominate conversations in the short term. Management of these conversations, including effective moderation, is a key skill.

  4. The immediacy of the online platform, while accelerating timelines, cannot be allowed to overwhelm other work. Expected response timings and methods need to be clearly outlined at the outset.

The Vision reflects these lessons in outlining how the Government will use Gov 2.0 to improve engagement with Australian people, communities, and businesses.

Strategic Action Three: Creating knowledge

Creating, sharing and managing information and knowledge to improve decision-making and drive economic growth.

Government manages extensive information and knowledge resources that are critical to policy development and decision making enabling government services to be targeted based on need. As recognised by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce18, this data also has additional economic value that can only be realised when it is made available to those that can benefit from it. This view of the additional value that can be generated by greater access and availability to information and knowledge resources can also be applied to Government itself. Government will in future make better use of its information and knowledge resources (within necessary security and policy constraints) to inform policy decisions and improve service delivery and the operations of government.

Government will capture and publish data using agreed standards and build skills both internally and externally to interpret information and knowledge resources to improve policy and services.

Government will continue to make data available to people and business through data.gov.au to drive greater openness and transparency in support of the goals expressed in the Declaration of Open Government. Increased availability of government data will optimise its economic and social value and enable third parties to use information and knowledge resources to innovate and create additional value.

The Government will also make greater use of location-based information to inform policy development and service delivery.

Respecting and protecting the privacy and information security of Australian people, community and business is fundamental to government operations and service delivery.

As part of the Government's broader initiatives to improve online security, agencies will continue to work with the Australian Information Commissioner and relevant security agencies to protect personal and sensitive information.

The Government will continue to enhance the security of government systems to build Australians' trust and confidence in government operations and service delivery.

Action program

To create the proposed knowledge based environment the following actions will be undertaken:

3.1

Build business intelligence

  • With regard for privacy and security, create a holistic view of customer needs within government to improve targeting and delivery of services.

3.2

Use location based information

  • Develop standards and a whole-of-government direction for the use of location based information across agencies.

3.3

Develop tools and platforms to analyse data

  • Create capability within government to capture, share as appropriate, and analyse customer information so that trends can be identified and used to better inform policy development.

3.4

Release public sector information

  • Continue the Gov 2.0 release of government data publicly for wider use to share information and knowledge resources and unlock economic and social value.

Strategic Action Four: Collaborating effectively

Government will build better partnerships and use Web 2.0 tools to undertake targeted consultations to improve policy decisions, service delivery, and ICT investment outcomes .

The Government will build on existing partnerships and approaches to collaboration both within and external to government. Government will conduct targeted consultations with people, communities and businesses using tools such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites and micro blogging. Government will use this information as one of several methods to identify existing needs and future trends to improve services and policies, and drive innovation.

Web 2.0 tools enable communities of interest to develop rapidly and to find people with local knowledge or technical expertise to build understanding of issues and solve problems as they emerge. They enable communities to filter information on the internet and identify the most useful information to meet their needs. They also enable people to find the most knowledgeable and valuable contributors in any given subject area, from those with international professional and academic reputations to those who possess significant local and community subject matter knowledge and expertise19.

Government will use Web 2.0 tools to engage in a targeted way with business, academic, and other expert groups to address service delivery challenges. Government will promote the development of these engagements through the targeted use of social networking tools and the technology demonstrator programs. Policies will be informed by new and emerging ICT capability and innovation.

Action program

The following actions will be undertaken to improve the effectiveness of government collaboration:

4.1

Strengthen external collaboration networks

  • Use Web 2.0 and other tools in a targeted way to engage with people and business to improve policy development and service delivery.

  • Actively participate in external blogging forums to promote wide community engagement.

4.2

Build collaboration capability across government sector

  • Create online communities of expertise based around common business processes to develop and share standardised approaches.

4.3

Build the channels needed for government to collaborate

  • Explore partnerships with industry, academics, the community and third sector, and with agents and brokers to inform policy and deliver services.

V: Improve Government Operations

The Vision focuses on improving the productivity of government operations through more targeted ICT investment enabling more efficient and effective business processes. Continuing fiscal constraint will place pressure on Government, at least in the medium term, to make better use of ICT capability and investments. The strategic actions necessary to improve government operations involve better targeting ICT investment to drive greater efficiency and productivity in government operations and encouraging innovation by government and third parties. This will result in:

  • better-informed executives, managers and governance bodies,

  • well analysed and soundly developed investment proposals,

  • awareness and understanding of alternative approaches and solutions, and

  • better awareness of the cost implications of decisions on other parties and policies, especially where ICT choices impose costs elsewhere or reduce the flexibility or value that can be delivered.

ICT coordinated procurements establish whole-of-government arrangements for the purchasing of commonly used ICT goods and services.

Existing Australian Government ICT coordinated procurement arrangements for desktop computing, telecommunications, data centre services and software have delivered savings to agencies of up to 30 per cent on previous costs.

The Australian Government remains committed to deliver efficiencies and savings in ICT costs where possible, to increase the standardisation of government technology purchasing, and to simplify the process for suppliers and vendors.

In consultation with the Australian Information Industry Association and the Australian Industry Group, the Government has also developed a set of Principles of Engagement on ICT to help improve the operation of the government ICT marketplace.

Fiscal constraint

As a result of the Global Financial Crisis most OECD countries are applying significant fiscal restraint as they attempt to recover from the downturn in the global economy. The Global Financial Crisis coincided with the Government's ICT Reform Program that included a strong focus on the efficient use of ICT in business as usual activities and coordinated procurement of ICT. The Government's medium term fiscal strategy20 requires continued strong fiscal discipline, and the need to maximise the return from existing ICT capability and future investments.

Innovation

The 2009 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research publication Powering Ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century21 sets out a ten-year vision to strengthen innovation and increase productivity. It identifies the importance of ICT and business management to innovation. The Management Advisory Committee's report Empowering Change22 suggests options for how the Australian Public Sector can use innovation to improve the quality of policy and service delivery outputs. Research conducted by the OECD23, supported by local organisations24,25, demonstrates that ICT has a significant impact on both product and process innovation.

The efficiency and effectiveness of government operations.

Better decisions when investing in ICT can reduce the costs of administration and delivering services. Accordingly, good Government policy and service design must be informed by ICT capability. This includes opportunities to ensure implementation options, cost, user value, and experience, and desired program outcomes are properly considered.

Better, more informed, decisions when investing in ICT can significantly reduce the costs of administration, service delivery and enterprise debt.

We will know we have succeeded when

Government ICT investments are targeted based on need and value. Policy development will recognise the opportunity cost to government, people and business. ICT capabilities will be used by multiple agencies under agreed governance arrangements. Government will use new and innovative approaches based on technologies that improve operations and services. Government ICT performance measured through annual ICT benchmarking reports will reflect consistent, efficient operations.

Strategic Action Five: Investing optimally

Government will invest optimally by targeting ICT investment to the areas that deliver the greatest value and enable a better, more effective implementation of policy decisions.

Government has rigorous ICT investment processes that include benchmarking, and the ICT Two-Pass Review Process. The Vision builds on this through greater coordination of ICT investment planning while maintaining the balance between a distributed and central approach - balancing the need for innovation with the need for greater commonality, efficiency, and re-use.

To achieve this balance there will be more transparency around the Government's ICT activities, investments and plans, especially for common or generic systems such as human resource and financial management. Annual ICT benchmarking will be refined to provide detailed information on agency ICT activities, investments and plans. Greater transparency of agency ICT activities and plans will lead to better strategic investments focussing on, in order of preference, re-using existing capability, modifying existing capability or buying or building new capability for use across multiple agencies. This will include consideration of how best to deliver ICT capability to smaller agencies.

Greater transparency of existing ICT activities and investments will also better inform policy decisions. Government needs to understand the true cost and implications of policy options and the consequences that might arise from decisions when they are implemented in ICT systems.

The use of commodity hardware, off-the-shelf software, virtualisation, and cloud computing, for example, will drive increased capability and efficiency through reduced customisation and integration costs. Extending the coordinated approach to ICT procurement will allow for greater efficiencies during product procurement and refresh. Government will continue to use its advantage as a large-scale purchaser of ICT to reduce the duplication of agency procurement effort and simplify suppliers' involvement in procurement.

Action program

The actions to achieve the objectives of the proposed investment program are set out below:

5.1

Better Investment governance and information

  • Increase the visibility of agency ICT activities, investments and plans to reduce duplication.

  • Improve ICT investment by considering alternate approaches, and greater acceptance of risk on the ability to deliver effective value for money solutions.

5.2

Portfolio ICT investment

  • Develop a portfolio approach to strategic ICT investments.

  • Target ICT investments to develop and use whole-of-government capabilities.

5.3

Extend coordinated ICT procurement

  • Target new areas for coordinated ICT procurement to reduce costs and remove duplication while delivering current initiatives such as the data centre strategy.

5.4

Share computing resources and services

  • Consider cloud computing to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government's ICT operations.

  • Explore opportunities for shared back-office corporate IT operations and ICT services.

Strategic Action Six: Encouraging innovation

Government will encourage innovation to harness the full potential of the digital economy and technology innovation.

The Government has a significant program of work underway to foster innovation. The Departments of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and National ICT Australia (NICTA) all contribute to the development of innovative ICT solutions for government and the broader economy.

The Government will use information about people's expectations and preferences to identify and inform the development of new services, and improve existing services. New business models enabled by technologies such as cloud computing and the NBN, will be used to build efficient, flexible, and responsive systems to deliver innovative services to people, communities and business.

Government, in partnership with the ICT industry, will use technology demonstrator hubs to build and trial innovative services and processes to address the complex service delivery challenges that it faces. Government, where appropriate, will test these innovations through a concept viability program with industry before going to market to tender for solutions. Government will also seek innovative options from its strategic partners in the ICT and related industries.

The growth in public sector information available on data.gov.au will allow third parties to develop innovative applications and services to complement government services. Engaging with people using Gov 2.0 and other contemporary engagement and communication approaches when developing policies and services will encourage innovation. Having people participate in this way will generate a whole range of ideas and possibilities for application in the public sector.

Action program

To achieve the innovation aims the actions below will be initiated:

6.1

Open ICT development to foster innovation

  • Generate ideas through challenges and competitions, such as GovHack and MashupAustralia, to create opportunities for external and internal ICT innovation.

6.2

Deliver new and better ICT enabled services

  • Use the NBN to make more government services available online.

6.3

Increase awareness and early take-up of new ICT

  • Use Technology Demonstration Hubs, in partnership with industry, to seek and share information about new technologies.

6.4

Examine and adopt new and emerging technologies more rapidly

  • Quickly adopt new ICT models through a risk-based approach that balances issues of performance, usability, security, privacy and investment.

  • Promote the use of flexible development methodologies, and agency based innovation communities of practice so that new technologies and ideas can be deployed rapidly and assessed for their business use.

VI: Implementing the ICT Vision

The Implementation Road Map

Strategic Priority: Deliver Better Services; Strategic Action: Building Capability

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

1.1

Improve utilisation of existing technology capability

Use a lead agency model to develop new technology capability where there are gaps and share technology capabilities across agencies.

2012 onwards



Reuse and share investments by increasing awareness and use of existing technology capabilities across agencies.

2012 onwards



Simplify and make consistent business processes for common activities across agencies to enable improved and more standardised approaches to service delivery and ICT capability.

2013 onwards

1.2

Technology and Policy integration and delivery

Build the consideration of ICT capability into policy development and implementation to ensure that policy decisions are delivered in the most effective and timely way and opportunity costs are recognised.

2012

1.3

Improve Government program delivery capability

Build capability across government and its partners to manage and deliver ICT enabled programs and projects

2011 onwards

1.4

Develop ICT workforce skills and utilisation

Build on existing ICT workforce planning approaches to make better use of the ICT skilled workforce across government.

2011 onwards

Strategic Priority: Deliver Better Services; Strategic Action: Enabling better services

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

2.1

Deliver simple and easy to use online services

Deliver automated online services that allow people to tell government once of a change in circumstance such as address, and new government service directories to help people find the services they need.

2012 onwards



Build on the current australia.gov.au homepage to simplify people's access to government online services

2011 onwards



Provide people and business with a logon that allows them to consent to sharing information so that government can provide better, integrated services.

2012

2.2

Deliver more personalised services to people

Build services to capture, understand, and deliver people's preferences when dealing with government.

2012 onwards

2.3

Simplify Government websites

Reduce the number of websites and exploit online services via the australia.gov.au account.

2013



Create a common look and feel to all government websites that is accessible to all Australians.

2013

2.4

Increase the automation of services

Automate processes to improve the interactions between people, business and government.

2011 onwards

Strategic Priority: Engage Openly; Strategic Action: Creating knowledge

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

3.1

Build business intelligence

With regard for privacy and security, create a holistic view of customer needs within government to improve targeting and delivery of services.

2013 onwards

3.2

Use location information

Develop standards and a whole-of-government direction for the use of location based information across agencies.

2012 onwards

3.3

Develop tools and platforms to analyse data

Create capability within government to capture, share as appropriate, and analyse customer information so that trends can be identified and used to better inform policy development.

2013 onwards

3.4

Release public sector information

Continue the Gov 2.0 release of government data publicly for wider use to share information and knowledge resources and unlock economic and social value.

2011 onwards

Strategic Priority: Engage Openly; Strategic Action: Collaborating Effectively

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

4.1

Strengthen external collaboration networks

Use Web 2.0 and other tools in a targeted way to engage with people and business to improve policy development and service delivery.

2011 onwards



Actively participate in external blogging forums to promote wide community engagement.

2011 onwards

4.2

Build collaboration capability across government sector

Create online communities of expertise based around common business processes to develop and share standardised approaches.

2011 onwards

4.3

Build the channels needed for government to collaborate

Explore partnerships with industry, academics, the community and third sector, and with agents and brokers to inform policy and deliver services.

2011 onwards

Strategic Priority: Improve Government Operations; Strategic Action: Investing Optimally

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

5.1

Better Investment governance and information

Increase the visibility of agency ICT activities, investments and plans to reduce duplication.

2011 onwards



Improve ICT investment by considering alternate approaches, and greater acceptance of risk on the ability to deliver effective value for money solutions.

2012 onwards

5.2

Portfolio ICT investment

Develop a portfolio approach to strategic ICT investments. Target ICT investments to develop and use whole-of-government capabilities.

2012 onwards

5.3

Extend coordinated ICT procurement

Target new areas for coordinated ICT procurement to reduce costs and remove duplication while delivering current initiatives such as the data centre strategy.

2011 onwards

5.4

Share computing resources and services

Consider cloud computing to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government's ICT operations.

2011 onwards



Explore opportunities for shared back-office corporate IT operations and ICT services.

2012 onwards

Strategic Priority: Improve Government Operations; Strategic Action: Encouraging Innovation

Serial

Actions

Activities

Timeline

6.1

Open ICT development to foster innovation

Generate ideas through challenges and competitions, such as GovHack and MashupAustralia, to create opportunities for external and internal ICT innovation.

2011 onwards

6.2

Deliver new and better ICT enabled services

Use the NBN to make more government services available online.

2012 onwards

6.3

Increase awareness and early take-up of new ICT

Use Technology Demonstration Hubs, in partnership with industry, to seek and share information about new technologies.

2013 onwards

6.4

Examine and adopt new and emerging technologies more rapidly

Quickly adopt new ICT models through a risk-based approach that balances issues of performance, usability, security, privacy and investment.

2012 onwards



Promote the use of flexible development methodologies, and agency based innovation communities of practice so that new technologies and ideas can be deployed rapidly and assessed for their business use.

2012 onwards

Implementation Governance

The 2011 ICT Strategic Vision provides the Government's vision and direction for the use of ICT for the next five years.

Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) agencies will implement the Vision and the Government's ICT work program. Defence and Australian intelligence community agencies will implement the strategic actions of the Vision that are relevant to them in respect of their administrative, financial, personnel and other non-specialist and non-defence capability ICT systems.

The Secretaries' ICT Governance Board (SIGB) will continue to support the Government and agencies on whole-of-government ICT priorities, investments, and arrangements. The SIGB will oversight the implementation of the 2011 ICT Strategic Vision and the Government's ICT work program. The SIGB has a close link with the Secretaries Committee on Service Delivery, particularly for ICT enabled improvements to government services.

The Chief Information Officer Committee (CIOC) reports to SIGB. CIOC considers ICT matters including technical, operational and business related issues and provides advice and guidance to SIGB. Groups of agency senior executives will also bring a greater business focus to specific matters when required.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), in the Department of Finance and Deregulation plays a key role in driving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government's use of ICT. AGIMO has a significant role in implementing specific reforms including coordinated ICT procurement, the Gov 2.0 agenda, data centre consolidation and ICT investment management. Building on its lead agency role, including for the adoption of Gov 2.0 across government, AGIMO will collect and analyse information to assist the Government and SIGB in setting future directions.

AGIMO will work with agencies to develop detailed implementation approaches that deliver the strategic priorities and improve productivity. AGIMO will advocate strategies to SIGB and the Government for endorsement.

AGIMO will work closely with stakeholders within and external to government to implement the Vision, including with agency CIOs, the National Security CIO and the Australian Government security community, the Australian Information Commissioner, ICT vendors and ICT industry representative groups, and the third sector.

A small, dedicated program management office in AGIMO will assist SIGB to govern the implementation of the 2011 ICT Strategic Vision. AGIMO will play a critical role in working with agencies and governance boards to ensure that the Vision is delivered.

Appendix: Text descriptions of images

Figure 1: The ICT Strategic Vision

This figure is a visual representation of how the ICT Strategic Vision describes Government use of ICT to improve public sector productivity by:

  • enabling the delivery of world-leading services for Australian people, communities and businesses;

  • supporting open engagement to better inform decisions; and

  • improving the operations of Government.

There are three strategic priorities and six strategic actions outlined in the Vision.

The first strategic priority is to Deliver better services.

  • The external drivers influencing the strategic priority to Deliver better services include increased use of broadband, development of the National Broadband Network, the growing digital economy and changing customer expectations.

  • The strategic actions supporting the strategic priority to Deliver better services are Building capability and Enabling better services.

The second strategic priority is to Engage openly.

  • The external drivers influencing the strategic priority to Engage openly include the Declaration of Open Government, collaborative decision making and increased expectations of government transparency.

  • The strategic actions supporting the strategic priority to Engage openly are Collaborating effectively and Creating knowledge.

The third strategic priority is to Improve Government operations.

  • The external drivers influencing the strategic priority to Improve Government operations include fiscal management requirements, expectations of innovation and the need to ensure efficient, effective and economical use of ICT in government.

  • The strategic actions supporting the strategic priority to Improve Government operations are Investing optimally and Encouraging innovation.

Part VI - Implementing the ICT Vision outlines specific agency and whole-of-government activities and projects that will deliver the Vision.

Figure 2: Alignment of the Strategic Priorities and Strategic Actions

This figure show how the three strategic priorities and six strategic actions of the vision align to support the objective of increased public sector productivity.

  1. The strategic actions aligned to the strategic priority "Deliver better services" are "Building capability" and "Enabling better services".

  2. The strategic actions aligned to the strategic priority "Engage openly" are "Collaborating effectively" and "Creating knowledge".

The strategic actions aligned to the strategic priority "Improve Government operations" are "Investing optimally" and "Encouraging innovation".

1 http://www.oecd.org/document/5/0,3343,en_2649_29964795_35954629_1_1_1_1,00.html (Graph, page 23, Contributions to growth of GDP, 1985-20061 and 2001-2006)

2 References to business include not-for-profit and community organisations

3 http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_312017

4 http://www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/ict-reform-program.html

5 http://www.p3m3-officialsite.com/home/home.asp

6 http://www.finance.gov.au/budget/ict-investment-framework/two-pass-review.html

7 http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/review-implementation-ict-reform-program/index.html

8 Productivity Commission (2004), ICT use and Productivity: A Synthesis from Studies of Australian Firms. Productivity Commission Research Paper, Canberra

9 http://www.oecd.org/document/5/0,3343,en_2649_29964795_35954629_1_1_1_1,00.html (Graph, page 23, Contributions to growth of GDP, 1985-20061 and 2001-2006)

10 http://www.oecd.org/document/5/0,3343,en_2649_29964795_35954629_1_1_1_1,00.html (Graph, page 23, Contributions to growth of GDP, 1985-20061 and 2001-2006)

11 http://www.accesseconomics.com.au/

12 http://www.telstraenterprise.com/researchinsights/Pages/TelstraProductivityIndicator.aspx

13 http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/economics/Productivity/Report/Final%20Report.pdf

14 http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2010-09-10/implementation_deregulation_priorities.pdf

15 www.sbr.gov.au

16 http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/aga_reform/aga_reform_blueprint/blueprint.cfm

17 http://www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/gov2/declaration-of-open-government.html

18 http://gov2.net.au/

19 http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/summary.htm

20 http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/myefo/html/index.htm (page 24)

21 http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/documents/poweringideas_fullreport.pdf

22 http://www.apsc.gov.au/mac/empoweringchange.htm

23 http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/ISG/modelling/documents/Brussels29.09.10MeasuringtheImpactofICT.pdf

24 http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/future_directions_of_the_digital_economy/australias_digital_economy_future_directions/final_report/australias_digital_economy

25 http://www.aiia.com.au/docs/AIIA%20and%20the%20ICT%20Industry/Green%20IT%20White%20Paper/AIIA%20Low%20Carbon%20Economy.pdf (see page 4)