e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 21 Progress

In October 2008 I was commissioned to design a twelve week course in "Green IT". This was first run in February 2009 by the ACS. It was then revised and run at ANU in July 2009. The course has been run several times since then by ACS (as well as offered by ACS through Open Universities Australia), and ANU. One of my students then adapted the course for Athabasca University, Canada in 2011, where it has been offered continuously. There is a formal published paper about the course "A Green computing professional education course online: Designing and delivering a course in ICT sustainability using Internet and eBooks" (Worthington, 2012) and presentation. The coruse is next offered by ANU in February 2013 as "COMP7310 ICT Sustainability". Here are blog postings about the development course from the time of commission:

1. Where to start, October 23, 2008
2. Learning Outcomes, October 28, 2008
3. Corrections and Frameworks, October 29, 2008
4. Online Social Networking Course Coordination, October 30, 2008
5. SFIA and learning objectives, October 30, 2008
6. Course Outline, October 30, 2008
7. Setting up in the LMS, November 05, 2008
8. Revised Outline, November 07, 2008
9. Books, November 09, 2008
10. The Content, December 05, 2008
11. Other Courses, December 11, 2008
12. Two Week 7s, December 16, 2008
13. More Pragmatism, January 02, 2009
14. Wikiversity version, January 07, 2009
15. Revision, June 16, 2010
16. Sustainability, July 19, 2011
17. Format, July 23, 2011
18. New Version, August 18, 2011
19. New Version on web, iPad, Kindle and print, October 10, 2011
20. Standardized Course Description, February 17, 2012

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 19 - New Version on web, iPad, Kindle and print

My book "ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future" was  in limited release (see Part 18), but is is now available a paperback and PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook formats, as well as free on the web.

ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future

Contents

• Introduction
• Sustainability Assessment
  1. The Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability
  2. The Global ICT Footprint
  3. Energy Saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
  4. Materials Use
  5. Compliance Audit
  6. Methods and Tools
• Sustainability Strategy
  7. Enabling ICT
  8. Business Process Improvement
  9. Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency
  10. Enterprise Architecture
  11. Procurement
  12. Energy Star Program and Quality Management
• Appendixes
  1. SMART 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy
  2. EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres
  3. National Carbon Offset Standard
  4. Assessment
  5. Glossary
  6. Bibliography
• Editions Available
  1. Paperback
  2. PDF eBook
  3. Web

About the Book

ICT Sustainability is about how to assess, and reduce, the carbon footprint and materials used with computers and telecommunications. These are the notes for an award winning course on strategies for reducing the environmental impact of computers and how to use the Internet to make business more energy efficient.
Title: ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future
Copyright © Tom Worthington, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4478-1454-2. (Paperback and PDF published by Lulu)
ISBN: 978-1-4478-6164-5. (ePub eBook published by LuLu and available via Apple iTunes)
ISBN: 978-0-9806201-9-1. (Kindle eBook published by Tomw Communications Pty, Limited)
These notes are used for the courses:

1. Green Technology Strategies: offered in the Computer Professional Education Program, Australian Computer Society (first run as "Green ICT Strategies" in February 2009),
   
2. Green Information Technology Strategies (COMP7310), in the Graduate Studies Select program, Australian National University (first run July 2009), and
   
3. Green ICT Strategies (ACS25): offered in the Postgraduate Program of Open Universities Australia from 2010,

A North American version of the course by Brian Stewart, Athabasca University (Canada) is also available: Green ICT Strategies (COMP 635).
The notes were first published in 2009 ("Green ICT") and updated 2010 ("Green Technology Strategies"). Students can download or print their own copy of the e-book from the course learning management system, which is likely to be more up to date.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 18 - New Version

After considering formats for the green IT course notes (see Part 17), they are now available as a book "ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future", in limited release as a paperback, with the content also available as a web site. I would welcome corrections and comments.

These are the revised notes for a course offered by the Australian National University (COMP7310), Australian Computer Society (GTS), and Open Universities Australia (ACS25).
The notes have been updated from "Green Technology Strategies: Using computers and telecommunications to reduce carbon emissions" (Worthington, 2009). Changes include:

1. Skills descriptions: Two SFIA sustainability skills have (SUST: Sustainability strategy and SUAS: Sustainability assessment) replaced the six ICT skills specified previously.
   
2. Structure: The course has been divided into two sections, each covering one of the two skills.
   
3. Assignment Titles: The descriptions of the two assignments have been changed to match the two skills.
   
4. Reference Changes: The number of links to external sources and also internal links (particularly to the Glossary) has been reduced, to avoid confusing the reader. The list of sources cited has been consolidated into one section at the back and Harvard style references used.
   
5. Title: ICT Sustainability has replaced Green ICT in the title, to match the skills descriptions used.
   

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 17 - Format

After looking at sustainability skills updates (Part 16), I started some updates of the Green Technology Strategies course using the Moodle Book module. However, this has only limited support for features such as Harvard style references. So I stopped to consider what other publishing software could be used. The course notes are used by the students on-line in Moodle, so Moodle is most convenient for the students to use (and for me to make quick corrections to the material). But Moodle also supports IMS Content packages, which can be created by other software.

AContent

The obvious choice for creating an ISM Content Package is AContent. This is a free open source product, like Moodle and creates IMS content packages. However, there does not appear to be any concept of a referecne (Harvard or otherwise) in the IMS format, not support for these in AContent. Also there is no support for e-book formats, such as EPub in AContent.

Sigil

Another open source e-book creation tool is Sigil . This is an editor for EPub format ebooks. I would be able to create the content with Sigil's XHTML editor and then copy the content to Moodle's Book module. However, I was surprised to find that Sigil (and the EPub format) does not support references either.

Calibre

Calibre is a free ebook management tool. While it can't create content on its own, it should prove useful for converting between formats.

Back to Moodle Book

After installing and trying Sigil and Calibre, I decided to continue with the Moodle Book module to author the content. If I was doing this with others, then AContent would be worth using, but Moodle will do for just me. I will then convert the HTML which Moodle produces to the XHTML EPUB format using Sigil and perhaps tidy up the metadata with Calibre.

Avoiding Complex Citations

I had assumed that the e-publishing formats and tools, particularly those for e-learning, would have referencing built in. That is I would be able to enter the details of a paper , or book and have a reference to it inserted into the boy of the text and the details entered in a bibliography, with the links between the two automatically maintained by the software. But the state of the art seems to be to manually enter the information and hypertext links.

After considering how students will use the e-book I decided to minimize the use of references. Previously I had the text peppered with hypertext links, on the assumption this would be useful for the students to be able to look up a term, or work. However, this created a problem for the students, who then did not know which links were worth clicking on and what they would otherwise miss. As a result I decided previously not to include links to the glossary. Taking this policy further, links to the bibliography do not appear to be worthwhile.

With a paper book, the reader can turn to a reference in the back of the book, to see what work is being referred to. However, almost all the references in my coruse notes are to on-line documents. It therefore makes little sense to have the reader click on a citation link, be taken to the back of the book, only to then have to click on another link to be taken to the actual work. It would be simpler to place a link directly to the work in the body of the text. The list of references can be retained at the back of the book, but mainly only as a resource for those reading an off-line copy.

Not including links to references coincidently makes the material easier to format, removing the need for so many links.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 16 - Sustainability

This is to request comments and suggestions for the revision of "Green Technology Strategies", used in courses run by the Australian National University (COMP7310), Australian Computer Society (GTS), and Open Universities Australia (ACS25). The course has been run successfully twice in the last year. However, changes are needed due to progress with sustainability skills standards and the Australian Government Carbon Emissions Strategy.

Sustainability Skills Standards

In Part 15 of this series I mentioned how the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) had introduced sustainability job skills, which I need to align the course with. Version 4 of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) introduced four sustainability skills for IT professionals. SFIA Version 5 is now in preparation, but there are no differences proposed for the sustainability skills:

1. SUST: Sustainability strategy
2. SUMI: Sustainability management for IT
3. SUAS: Sustainability assessment
4. SUEN: Sustainability engineering

Of these, SUST: Sustainability strategy and SUAS: Sustainability assessment fit most closely with the course's intent. The course splits naturally into two parts, with two assignments in the summative assessment:

1. Write a report on the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of your organization.
2. Write a report identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your organization.

It would therefore seem reasonable to align these with the corresponding skills:

1. Sustainability assessment: Write a report on the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of your organization (SUAS).
2. Sustainability strategy: Write a report identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your organization (SUST).

At the same time the weekly course modules could be rearranged to fit these headings. The current modules are designed to fit with the SFIA categories previously used. However, this results in audit being in the second half of the course, whereas the assignment on assessment (which covers audit) is in the first half, before the students have reached this material.

Here is a proposed restructure, linked to the current chapters:

1. Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability
   • Introduction
   • The Global ICT Footprint
2. Sustainability assessment
   • Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
   • Materials Use
   • Compliance audit
   • Methods and tools
3. Sustainability strategy
   
   • Enabling ICT
   • Business process improvement
   • Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency
   • Enterprise Architecture
   • Procurement
   • Energy Star Program and Quality Management

Australian Government Carbon Emissions Strategy

On 10 July 2011, the Australian Government released its "Clean Energy Future" strategy, including an initial carbon price of $23 per Tonne. The carbon price will only be levied on very large carbon emitters, with numerous exemptions and compensation for industry sectors and individuals. It is unlikely that any IT companies will be large enough emitters to be included in the scheme, but IT systems will be needed to assess and audit emissions and implement strategies for reductions.

The course currently uses a 2008 draft of the National Carbon Offset Standard. This was finalized and released in 1 July 2010. The Australian Government strategy says under "Accounting and audit issues":

"The accounting treatment of permits and auditing of carbon pollution will be determined in accordance with international standards, as adopted in Australia, to ensure that the cost of capital is minimised."

The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 provides for greenhouse and energy audits and appointment of Registered Greenhouse and Energy Auditors. , with requriements in the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (Audit) Determination 2009. There is a National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Audit Determination Handbook (Word 1MB) and Auditor requirements. I have asked the Australian Government if the carbon offset standard is to be used for this. The standard refers to "suitably qualified auditors" and I have asked the government to include any of the postgraduate qualifications which include the green IT course. In any case it would be appropriate to use the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Audit Determination Handbook as a guide for the student's work.

Assessment

The appendix on assessment will need to be generalized as the assessment procedures of ACS, ANU and OU have diverged since the material was drafted (as an example, ACS and ANU use different grading schemes) . However, the questions and overall scheme can be retained.

The format of having weekly discussion questions for formative assessment, plus a mid and end of course assignments for summative assessment worked well. Asking the students what is happening in their organization has worked well. Those students without an organization adopt one. In particular a scheme run with ANU Green, where students are assigned to work with an IT manager from part of the university has worked well.

The two assignment questions could be of value more generally in professional skills courses:

1. How is what is covered in this course done currently in your organization?
   
2. How do you suggest improving it in your organization?
   

Formatting and Reference Changes

While revising the content it would be worth also making some changes to the format of the material. The primary way the students use the material is as a Moodle Learning Management System "Book Module", essentially a web based e-Book.

The e-book within the Learning Management System has worked well and should be retained. However, one change would be to include the URLs (web addresses) of works referenced explicitly in the text. This assists where the student reads the material on paper (and thus cannot click on a link to see what it is). It also helps to show students how formal references should be done.

Other versions of the material were derived from the Moodle Book, including electronic editions as web pages, IMS content package, PDF, Kindle and iPad e-books and print editions: hardback, paperback and large print.

The printed versions of the book have not proved popular. It may be worth retaining the paperback edition, but drop the other print editions. Few are wiling to pay the extra cost for a hardback book and the electronic version is likely to be preferred to large print for those with limited eyesight.

Of the electronic editions, the PDF version can be created as a byproduct of the print edition (which uses PDF for typesetting). The web pages, IMS content package, Kindle and iPad e-books are all easily created from the Moodle book module.

An improvement would be to provide the web version as one web page, rather than splitting the document into a web page per chapter. This would reduce the effort required to produce the material as Moodle can export the entire book as one web page. This would also allow the reader to easily save a copy of the whole document. At less than 1 Mbyte, the file will not be excessively large.

Course Title

Both the SFIA skills and the Australian government policy refer to "sustainability", so it may be worth replacing "green" in the course title with a title such as: "Sustainable Technology Assessment Strategies".

No Changes to Sustainable IT Skills

Version 4 of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) introduced four sustainability skills for IT professionals. SFIA Version 5 is now in preparation. So before I updated the learning objectives of my "Green Technology Strategies" course with these, I thought I should check what changes have been proposed from version 4 for version 5. I used the "compare document" feature of LibreOffice to compare the text of the skills descriptions, word by word and there are no differences:

1. SUST: Sustainability strategy
2. SUMI, Sustainability management for IT
3. SUAS, Sustainability assessment
4. SUEN, Sustainability engineering

Consolidating Data Centres Like Compacting Garbage

Greetings from Data Centre Strategics in Sydney, where I just talked on Green ICT. I was using the same notes as for my talk yesterday. But I got a little tired of hearing talks about the value of consolidating data centres and virtualising servers. So I strayed from my prepared talk and described consolidation of data centres and server vitalisation as being like using a garbage compactor.

If you have a large volume of garbage, you can use a compactor to make it smaller, but you still have the same amount of garbage, just in a smaller space. The material you have has not improved in value, it is still garbage. In a similar way server consolidation results in the same software and data running on a more compact computer system. Most of the software and data on the systems, in my experience, is garbage.

An organisation can be running dozens or hundreds of instances of web servers, mail servers, database applications and other software, when they really just need a few. Similarly most of the data in the systems is duplicated and in inefficient formats. As a result, perhaps 99% of the hardware capacity is wasted dealing with unnecessary software and data.g

The way to deal with garbage is to is sift it, retaining the small amount of valuable material and disposing of the rest. In a similar way IT people need to sift through the applications and data in their systems, to retain the small amount of value and disposing of the rest.

As an example, I pointed out that the Learning Management System used for my Green ICT course is outsourced to specialist companies. Rather than have the software run on a computer at the ANU which is running assorted other software, it is on a system dedicated to running this LMS and related software. This then allows the hardware and operating system, to be tuned to this application. Also the use of the LMS removes the need for many other specialised applications. The LMS needs a database server and a web server, but that is about all.

Similarly the course content has been carefully tuned to be efficient. I avoid using inefficient PDF documents, instead using HTML. This results in much smaller files (about one tenth the size). The LMS helps with this as it will format the web pages for printing, without the need to turn the content into PDF.

As a byproduct of this web design, the content can be displayed on smart phones and tablet computers as well as ordinary desktop computers. Along with other optimisations this results in a course which takes about 1% of the resources which would be typically required. This saves the university some money, but more importantly benefits the students, who can access the course from a remote location over a slow Internet link.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 15 - Revision

In Part 14 I considered incorporating the content for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. into the Wikiversity. That was in January 2009. Since then I have run the course twice for the Australian Computer Society, and once for the Australian National University. The course is also offered by Open Universities Australia and Athabasca University (Canada). The course was intended to align with Competencies based on Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). However in 2008 when I did this work, SFIA had no competences for sustainability. I joined a SFIA discussion list and floated the idea of adding sustainability job skills, but was told there were not IT specific roles and therefore would not be added to SFIA. So I used the most appropriate looking SFIA skills:

• Procurement & management support

  • Supply management

    • Procurement

  • Quality management

    • Compliance audit

• Strategy & planning

  • Business/IS strategy and planning

    • Business process improvement

    • Enterprise Architecture

  • Technical strategy and planning

    • Emerging technology monitoring

    • Methods and tools
      

I heard no more on the issue of sustainability for SFIA until May 2010, when a newsletter ("Sustainability skills for
Information Technology SFIA 4G", SFIA Foundation, May 2010) announced that SIFA Version 4 had added four new sustainability skills:

The four new skills are:

• SUST Sustainability strategy (in Strategy and architecture)
• SUMI Sustainability management for IT (in Strategy and architecture)
• SUAS Sustainability assessment (in Business change)
• SUEN Sustainability engineering (in Solution development and implementation)

These are under the category - subcategory of:

1. Strategy and architecture - Business/IT strategy and planning: Sustainability strategy SUST levels: 5 and 6
2. Strategy and architecture - Technical strategy and planning: Sustainability management for IT SUMI levels: 5 and 6
3. Business change - Business change management: Sustainability assessment SUAS levels: 4 5 6
4. Solution development and implementation - Systems development: Sustainability engineering SUEN levels 4 5 6

The SFIA Foundation have also made minor changes to the wording of other skills to take into account sustainability: STPL, BURM, EMRG, BUAN, DESN, ITMG, FMIT, CPMG, AVMT, SLMO, ITOP, NTOP, PROC, QUMG, CORE, TAUD, ASMG.

It is not clear at this stage how, to align the course to the new SFIA descriptions.

Global ICT Sustainability skills standard

Sustainability skills for Information Technology are being introduced into version 4G of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

In 2008 the Australian Computer Society commissioned me to wrote a professional e-learning course on green ICT. As this was part of an international program to improve the level of education of professionals, I was required to align my course with SFIA. This was difficult to do as there were no sustainability related job descriptions in SFIA. So I used the most relevant categoriese: Procurement & Management support and Strategy & planning. This worked well, the ACS program is now internationally accredited and the course has been run several times. The same course materials are used by Australian National University , Open Universities Australia, and Athabasca University (Canada).

I requested SFIA create some new sustainability course categories and this is now being done in SFIA Version 4G:

Sustainability – today’s challenge
Sustainability is now a serious part of IT. The use of energy, carbon and sensitive materials requires careful management. The many organisations using SFIA expect those needs to be reflected in the skills framework. SFIA’s comprehensive nature means that its operational and detailed skills can easily be seen to cover sustainability requirements and issues. However, in the management of sustainability the inclusion of four new skills will help incorporate sustainability thinking into the mainstream.
The four new skills are:

• SUST Sustainability strategy (in Strategy and architecture)
• SUMI Sustainability management for IT (in Strategy and architecture)
• SUAS Sustainability assessment (in Business change)
• SUEN Sustainability engineering (in Solution development and implementation)

... SFIA is owned by The SFIA Foundation, a not-for-profit body. Licence terms apply and are available on the SFIA website (www.sfia.org.uk).

From: Sustainability skills for Information Technology, SFIA Foundation, 2010

Seminar on training green technologists online with ebooks, Adelaide, 19 - 20 May 2010

This is to offer a seminar on green technology, professional e-learning and e-books, Monday 19 or Tuesday 20 May in Adelaide.

I am an Adjunct Lecturer at the Australian National University (ANU) and a course designer for the Australian Computer Society (ACS). I will be in Adelaide for a meeting of ACS educators at University of Adelaide. So I thought I should offer a free seminar for anyone interested, assuming someone will provide a venue (ideally at or near Adelaide University).

My "Green Technology Strategies" e-learning course is offered to
University of South Australia postgraduate students as part of the 'Hubs and Spokes' Project with ANU.

The course was originally commissioned by the ACS for their globally accredited Computer Professional Education Program (first run February 2009) and is offered in the Postgraduate Program of Open Universities Australia from second semester 2010.

The textbook is available free online in the National Library of
Australia PANDORA Archive, as well as a print-on-demand book and Amazon Kindle e-Book.

The content of the course, as well as the techniques for preparing it to be part of a globally accredited program and converting the content of the Learning Management System into into a book, may be of interest.

Some recent talks:

• Mentored and Collaborative e-Learning for Postgraduate Professional Education
• Making e-Books for e-Learning on i-Pads

ps: The environment and technology do not necessarily mix. On a previous visit to an Adelaide technology park, I could not see the buildings for the trees and got lost. ;-)

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 14 - Wikiversity version

In Part 13 I prepared the remaining content for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The Wikiversity, an educational equivalent to the Wikipedia, has an Information Technology school, so I added and entery for "Green IT" and "Introduction to Green IT" based on the material I prepared for the ACS course. I am unclear as to exacltly how the Wikiversioty functions, if it does function at all, but thought it might be worth making a contrbution.

The Wikiversity does not seem to have reached the point at which there is enough content to attract people to add more. Many of the entries are only stubs: with just a heading waiting for someone to fill in the details. Also there seems to be a lack of integration with the Wikipedia. You can use the same user-id for updating the Wikipedia and Wikiversity, but you have to add an external reference from the Wikiversity to the Wikipedia. The result is that it is difficult to use the Wikipedia content to build the Wikiversity.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 13 - More Pragmatism

In Part 12 I discovered I had scheduled two week sevens as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. Having merged some of the topics so I had the required number of weeks for the course I got on with preparing the remaining content. This became progressively more difficult as I got to the more esoteric topics, such as quality management and auditing.

Also I asked my colleagues at the ANU to check the course details, which they proceeded to do in forensic detail. They found several errors in the first sentence. By the time they got to the end of the first paragraph I started to regret asking for comment, but these were all useful suggestions.

One frustration was that some of the standards used for ICT and environmental purposes are formal ISO ones. As a result the text of the standards are not freely available, ISO and its national counterparts, such as Standards Australia, sell copies of the standards. These standards are therefore not freely available online. There are many references to the standards, but little of use for students trying to understand them.

Another frustration continues to be material which is freely available, but in large PDF files. The Australian Government has provided the full text of a proposed Draft National Carbon Offset Standard, but it is tacked on the end of a discussion document in a PDF file.

However, hopefully many of those frustrations are now behind me. The revised Green ICT Strategies Course Outline is done, along with twelve weeks of content, two assignments and readings.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 12 Two Week 7s

In Part 11 I looked at courses were being offered around the world as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. That showed what I was doing was consistent with the limited other courses available. So I continued on preparing the material for each week of the course (I have a Christmas deadline to have it finished). But at week seven (out of 13) I discovered a problem: I had scheduled two week sevens.

The course is thirteen weeks long. It was suggested I leave the last week for revision, giving twelve weeks. These were then divided into four topics, each with three weekly topics. I started with an introduction in week one and then went on setting down the topics for each week. But I forgot to count week one, thus ending up with an extra topic.

So now I had to work out what to do. This may seem a careless mistake which should have been caught earlier on, which it is. One reason for the mistake taking so long to find is the online preparation of the material. On my small screen, with a big font (to make it readable) only one topic can be displayed at a time. Thus I never saw the two "week 7" titles on the screen at the same time. Had I printed the document out, this would have been easier to spot.

When I went back and reread the advice I had been originally given by David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education, I realised that the problem was not that bad. He suggested 4 major topics each of three weeks, with each week is a new sub-topic, which is what I did. But I got a little confused and wrote the introduction as a separate week. So all I had to do was merge the introduction into week one.

At this point I thought I should do some more checks of the material. I found a number of spelling mistakes. There seems to be a conflict between the Firefox add-on spell checker and the Moodle web based HTML editor, resulting in the spell checker not working some of the time (the same happens with the Blogger editor). Just to make sure, I used the grammar and spell checker extension for OpenOffice.org. This found a few repeated words, blank spaces, uses of "can not" instead of "cannot" and the like.

One problem I found was that one of the semianr topics (week 6) seems to be un-editable. I suspect there was some invalid HTML code which is causing problems for the Moodle editor. Running the code through HTML Tidy, fixed the problem.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 11 Other Courses

In Part 10 I reported on some Australian green ICT events I had attended as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. That showed what I was proposing for the course was consistent with the approach others in Australia were taking with Green ICT. However, I tought I should look more widely and see what other courses were being offered around the world.

Margaret Ross, Southampton Solent University, UK and Bob Crooks, DEFRA gave an "Overview of Green ICT" to the BCS Academics Forum, 14 November 2008. This included many of the same information on the extent of carbon emissions from ICT as other presentations and ways to deal with it, but it also has a few slides on courses:

We need

• Students and staff to
  • understand the issues, be aware and skilled in tackling them, promote green behaviours
  • use their own and Estab’s ICT in greener ways
• Educational establishments to see Green as
enhancing reputation and attraction for students
• reducing costs (less Carbon = Less energy => less cost)
• Courses to provide
Accreditation of Green skills and knowledge
• Green dimensions

...
Assignments and Projects

Assessment:

* Case history or evaluation of an organisation
* Survey, eg of local SMEs
* Audits
* Learning Activities, eg multi-choice questions


Identifying for an organisation

* Benefits and risks
* “Road map” with priorities justified,
* Budget, time scale
* Business case

And the Curriculum...

* BCS initiatives
o ISEB module
o SME awareness
o Branch forum/mash ups

...

Leeds Metropolitan University is offering a MSc Green Computing. The part-time course modules are delivered as workshops, with self study and distance learning support. Assessment is typically by reports related to the student's work and so appears similar in concept to the ACS course:

Core Modules
ICT and the Environment: Assesses and measures the current environmental impact of ICT within a corporate context.

Green Computing Technologies: Investigates existing and emerging green computing technologies and systems.

Sustainable Computing: Considers the whole life cycle from procurement to disposal with a sustainable objective.

Responsibly Green: Analyses the legal and ethical issues from a Corporate 'Green' perspective.

Green ICT strategies: Develop, formulate and evaluate Green ICT strategies for practical implementation.

Research Methods: Research, methods, skills and practice for masters level dissertations.

Brian Henderson-Sellers, UTS, has set a Green ICT Project, OO Modelling Project Report, UTS, 2008:

Case Study for Project Work & Deliverables

STATEMENT TO BE MODIFIED BY STUDENT GROUPS…

1. Green ICT (GICT)

... Note: Following are the requirements for a system called GREEN ICT (GICT). GICT is a system developed to provide systems support for businesses implementing Environmentally Responsible Business Strategies (ERBS). This is an example of how in practical real-life projects, information is initially provided as a set of descriptive pages: usually half-baked, hardly complete and at times confusing. The requirements below are more organized than that, but still the students are encouraged to delve deeper into these requirements to identify what the user wants out of the system. The students will be able to appreciate how they can further correctly, completely and consistently model and document these requirements and their designs using the UML. These requirements also describe the business situation that is so important in understanding the context in which the project exists. Understanding the context of the project is a crucial ingredient of the quality process. ...

2. Background information on the Project

GICT is a software system to be designed to support businesses implementing Environmentally Responsible Business Strategies (ERBS). Therefore, GICT is not software that is specific to a particular industry. In fact, GICT must be able to be used by various types of industry categories, including both product and service industries. ...

3. Players

There are number of players (also called stakeholders) in the GICT system. ...

4. Organizational Portal (OP)

The GICT is made up of two major parts – the Organizational Portal (OP) and the regulatory standards portal (described next). ...

5. Regulatory Standards Portal (RSP)

Regulatory Standards Portal (RSP) is a large portal, maintained by the government of the country (take, for example, Australia) ...

Green ICT Workshop, UNI Strategic Pte Ltd, December 4–5, 2008, Singapore:

Participants will Learn About

• What is “green”, what is “sustainable”, and what is “greenwash”
• How to assess their organization’s current ICT eco-footprint and create objective standards for measurement and performance.
• How to create a systematic and strategic plan for reducing the cost and eco-footprint of ICT assets and operations.
• How to estimate, document, and realize cost savings of greening IT.
• How to estimate, document, and realize the environmental benefits of greening IT.
• How to present and justify green ICT initiatives to technical, financial, environmental, and Social Responsibility stakeholders.

Kent Connects ran a one-day "Green ICT Workshop", Jul 14, 2008:

... Socitm Consulting experts will help you and your colleagues move this agenda forward:

• Understand the carbon footprint of your current ICT and customer service operations
• Learn about successful initiatives in the UK and elsewhere to reduce the environmental impact of delivering services to citizens
• Discover how green awareness and more flexible working methods can save your authority money
• Lay the foundations of an effective and realistic Green ICT action plan
• Find out how to monitor progress using Green ICT key performance indicators

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 10 The Content

In Part 9 I looked at some books for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. I didn't find any books worth using as a text and so decided to proceed using online readings only. As a way to get some relevant material and to check that I was on the right track with the course I organised a symposium in Canberra on Green ICT and talked at a Sustainable ICT Symposium at University of Melbourne. Also I talked to the people preparing Green ICT courses for TAFE.

I found that I was proposing to include in the course was consistent with what others said at the various events I attended. Also the management level course I was preparing should fit in well with the hands-on TAFE courses. Some of the materials from the symposia would be directly usable by the students in the course. One frustration was that many of the documents which had good content were very difficult to access as they were in the form of very large PDF documents. Also some videos could not be used as they did not have any accompanying text.

The ACS approved the draft of my course outline (one minor glitch had top be fixed when all my links to the SFIA web site turned out to be incorrect). A few days later the course was open for enrollments and students started applying. This then put pressure on me to complete the detailed, week by week, content for the course. To do this I continued to use the existing IT Service Management course as a template. I used the same titles and sequence for course content items, with each week having:

1. Readme 1st
2. Work Notes
3. Seminar
   
4. Discussion Questions
   
5. Friday Message

I used similar wording for these documents as the IT Service Management course, but changed the format of the documents from PDF to HTML. This makes the process of creating the content much easier. Instead of having to create the document with an external word processor, then convert into PDF and then transfer the file to the Moodle system, I am able to use the internal Moodle web editor to create and save the document in one operation. This should also make it easier for the students to read the documents online directly in the web browser, without needing to use a PDF viewer. The documents will not look as pretty when printed, but will still be very readable.

The documents used resemble those for a face-to-face course. Each document is the equivalent of between one half and two pages of text, with simple formatting of one column of text with headings, bold and italics (no colour or images used). The readme 1st gives the students an overall sense of where they should be up to that week.The seminar takes the place of lecture notes. The discussion questions are the equivalent of tutorial questions to be answered in the online discussion forum. The assignments and instructions about readings are much the same as they would be for a face to face course.

While the formatting is relatively simple and the documents short, considerable effort is still involved. It has taken me about two to three hours to prepare the documents for one week of the course. This is for a subject I am familiar with and without allowing for testing of the content, for example by trying the exercises or including preparing the marking schemes required. I expect that about five to seven hours will be required overall to prepare each week of material. This might be less if prepared texts and exercises were available, or more if I have to prepare content from scratch, rather than adapt material I have already written.

A major problem I have is the lack of a text book means I have to try and provide a coherent narrative from disparate sources. This is made more difficult as there is no accepted body of knowledge for the Green ICT field. Essentially I am having to make that up as I go along. Hopefully some of the students of this course will go on to define the field more clearly.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 9 Books

In Part 8 I revised the outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. While I have found some online references to use in the course there appear to be few books on "Green ICT". So far I have found four. Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line (by Toby Velte) I have managed to buy a copy of. Green IT For Dummies, by Carol Baroudi, does not appear to be available until early 2009. The other two books, Green Computing and Green IT Best Practices (Jason Harris) and Green IT in Practice (Gary Hirdare) are both from 2008, but I can't find out much about them.

To see how useful Velte's book was, I looked for reference to Australia.There three useful ones. The first, on page 33 says that at the time of writing (the book was published 2008-09-08), there were no government mandated rules for the management of e-waste (which is still the case). On the next page is gives a reasonable description of the Byteback program. The next reference is to CD and DVD recycling programs. This all seems reasonable enough.

But I will have to wait until I have actually read the book for a full assessment (I am writing this in the State Library of NSW). While in Sydney, I visited the Apple store and checked the Green ICT Strategies e-Learning course web site worked okay on an Apple iPhone. You obviously have to zoom in to read the text, but the web based course interface of Moodle works fine on the iPhone. This would allow students to do m-Learning. In reality you will want a larger screen to read on, but even that is possible, with the i-Phone (and i-Pod Touch having the capability of plugging in an external large screen).

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 8 Revised Outline

In Part 7 I loaded the draft course outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. into the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). The outline then needed some further work on the weekly schedule of work.

David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education, had originally suggested dividing the course up into four modules, with three topics in each, followed by a revision, to make 13 week. I had neglected to do this and had weekly topics following no particular order. So I have spent a few hours attempting to group modules under the SFIA topics. This proved extremely difficult to do.

With some structure to the weekly topics, I then tried to find some more content for each week. Most useful for this were the online open source course-ware on sustainability from the Natural Edge Project (NEP). One frustration with this is that the NEP's web site is not well formatted, making it difficult to read the materials and when I copied references to it I ended up with poorly formatted HTML in my document.

Green ICT Strategies

Prepared by Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Version 0.2, 7 November 2008. Draft for comment. Not Approved for delivery of a Course.

Welcome to our elective subject Green ICT Strategies (GICTS) within the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society.
When preparing this subject, as with all the subjects in the Computer Professional Education Program, we have assumed that you and your fellow students are over-achievers; self-motivated, disciplined, and determined to succeed. You have extensive prior knowledge and experience relevant to your study; you are open-minded about sharing your work and educational experiences; and you accept critical thinking as part of the learning process. Further, you are comfortable with, and competent in, written communications; and you recognise that effective learning can occur outside a traditional classroom. Most importantly, you want to control how, when, and where you learn.
Critical to your success in this subject is a regular and disciplined study routine. Only through consistency will you keep up-to-date. Every week there will be specific tasks to complete and, if you fall behind, it will be difficult to catch up.
Also important is that you correspond; at least twice every week; with your fellow students and tutor. Your correspondence must be intelligent and investigative. You will answer questions posed by your tutors, and then debate your answers with your classmates.

Learning Outcomes

Green ICT Strategies is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. Qualification schemes and accreditation are yet to be established and it is possible those completing this subject may be involved in that development.
The ACS course on Green ICT Strategies is based on:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008
2. Professor Garnaut's "Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report, 2008
3. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.
   
4. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007
   

Competencies based on Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information & Communications Technology (ICT).
Green ICT Strategies will target SIFA Level 5 competencies: "ensure, advise: Broad direction, supervisory, objective setting responsibility. Influences organisation. Challenging and unpredictable work. Self sufficient in business skills". With the following skills:

Category/Subcategory/Skill

At the completion of this subject the student can:

• Strategy & planning
  • Technical strategy and planning
    • Emerging technology monitoring: Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse.
    • Methods and tools: Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.
  • Business/IS strategy and planning
    • Business process improvement: Recommend alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches.
    • Enterprise Architecture: Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits.
• Procurement & management support
  • Supply management
    • Procurement: Write green ICT requirement documents for to products and services.
  • Quality management
    • Compliance audit: Assess the conformity of systems to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

Pre-requisites, Co-requisites

Business, Legal and Ethical Issues should be completed prior to undertaking this subject.

Content

Week1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies

Objective: Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries.

1. Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability

   Investigate the principles of environmental sustainability and the science of climate change. Objective: You are asked to reduce the ecological footprint of an ICT organization. This organization could be the one you are currently working with or any other organization. How would you go about measuring the ICT system's demand on the Earth's ecosystems and developing a plan (strategy) to reduce the impact?
   
   1. Week 2: Professor Garnaut's "Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report"
   2. Week 3: Introduction to Sustainable Development for Engineering and Built Environment Professionals, Natural Edge Project, 2008
   3. week 4: Sustainable Engineering: Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program Whole Systems Design Suite, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. Technical strategy and planning

   Emerging technology monitoring

   Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse.
   

   1. Week 5: Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment

      Objective: Computers and telecommunications equipment contributes about 2% to greenhouse gas emissions. Look at how data centres and client equipment can be made more efficient. Reference: The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

   2. Week 6: Materials Use

      Objective: Energy reduction is only part of making a Green ICT system, there is also the issue of use of materials and hazardous substances. How does the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) deal with material use? Reference: E-Waste Education Courses, Natural Edge Project, 2008

   3. Week 7: Methods and tools

      Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

3. Business/IS strategy and planning

   1. Week 7: Business process improvement

      Recommend alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches.
      Objective: ICT has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones. How do you analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches?

   2. Week 8: Business of Government

      The review of government ICT provides a useful example of where Green ICT Principles can be applied. How would you implement the Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology by Sir Peter Gershon, October 2008.

   3. Week 9: Enterprise Architecture

      Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits.
      Objective: The business of business is business, so any environmental goals have to fit into the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. How do you incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits?

4. Procurement & management support

   1. Week 10: Procurement

      Write green ICT requirement documents for to products and services.
      Objective: Much of the environmental benefits come about by selecting the right products and services. How do you ensure that your hardware, software and services suppliers provide green products?

   2. Week 11: Quality management

   3. Week 12: Compliance audit: Assess the conformity of systems to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

Week 13: Revision and discussion for assignment 2

Objective: Let us revisit the Service Life Cycle. Let us discuss about the specific process you are going to improve in your organization through the assignment 2.


Workload

To complete the subject you will need to spend 8-10 hours each week reading, communicating with colleagues and tutors, and preparing assignments.


Review/Evaluation Methods

There are 2 areas of assessment in the subject;

• Contributions to the 13 weekly discussion forums, worth 20% of your total assessment.
  
• 2 assignments, worth 40% each.
  
To pass the subject overall, it is necessary to pass in both areas of assessment.


Teaching Strategies

By distance education through online learning methods plus one text book. Online learning is the main delivery method, moderated and supported by a tutor, mentor, student discussion forums and weekly feedback through ACS Education. Students are grouped in cohorts of 20. The students are also supported by the Registrar with email, phone, and fax contact.


Specialist Features or Equipment

The subject is supported by a website ACS Education hosted by Moodle where the online learning takes place. All learning materials plus discussion forums are available through this site, apart from the text book.


Course Designer

Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University, where he teaches the design of web sites, e-commerce and professional ethics. In addition, he has an interest in environmental design, and is the founding chair of the ACS Green ICT Group. In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a past president, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.


References

There is no set text for this course. Online references will be used, including:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008
   
2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.
   
3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007
   
4. ACS Policy Statement for Green ICT, Australian Computer Society, 16 August 2007
   
5. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008.
   
6. ROI Analysis: Reducing 856,000 Pounds of CO2 Emissions through Remote Services and Off-Hours Power Management, Government Case Study: Power Management and CO2 Reduction, Intel, 2008
   


Green ICT Strategies Course Outline by Tom Worthington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 7 Setting up in the LMS

In Part 6 I prepared a draft course outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The next step is to prepare detailed material for each week of the course: "Green ICT Strategies".

It happens that I have my own copy of Moodle installed on my web site and this is the same Learning Management System (LMS) used by the ACS for e-learning (the ANU is currently selecting a new LMS for use in 2009). As I am familiar with Moodle, I decided to skip a step and compose the course using the LMS, rather than prepare documents for an educational technician to create the course from.

Creating a course using a web based LMS is much like setting up a web site, or a blog, but with a few extra steps. It is daunting the first few times and helps to have an example to work from. You start by giving the name, abbreviation and course code for the course, a short description of the course, when it is and how people enrol. The new course is then created. Remember to switch off the option which allows people to enrol, until the course design is completed and approved, or everyone will get confused (many courses don't use Moodle's in-built enrolment process anyway). Normally a course would be restricted to enrolled students in the same group, but I will make my draft design public, so the details are available for comment.

As I did with the course outline, I used the ACS Service Management subject, created by Murali Ramakrishnan, as a template. While the ACS subjects are in e-learning format, they are still semester based with a fixed starting date and weekly work schedule. This is so the student is not on their own, but progressing through the work with a "cohort" of fellow students at the same level. A "Weekly outline" format is used for the course structure in the LMS. Given the starting date and the number of weeks, the LMS creates a skeleton of the course with space for each week's material.

As well as the weekly material, there is a Chatroom Forum for students to discuss issues online (created with Moodle's chat facility), Terminology List (using Moodle's Glossary) and a Introductory Overview (a linked document). Features such as chatrooms and glossaries make the LMS particularly useful for education. Not only do they allow contributions from the students but have features to allow the teacher to assess the student's contribution.

Moodle allows documents to be placed in its own repository or external web documents to be linked. Normally the course notes will be stored in the LMS, with links to external reference material. Many course documents are in PDF, but I will attempt to do them as web page,as I find this easier to read on screen.

With the weekly topics set I now need to create for each:

1. Readme 1st
2. Work Notes
3. Seminar
4. Weekly Discussion Forum
5. end of Week Message
6. Discussion question
   
7. Assignments and notes

As always, comments, contributions and corrections are welcome.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 6 Course Outline

In part five I selected SIFA Level 5 competencies for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The next step was to relate the competencies to learning outcomes and then schedule the weekly content to help the students achieve them. Here is the first draft of the course description (comments and suggestions welcome):

Green ICT Strategies

Prepared by Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Version 0.1, 30 October 2008. Draft for comment. Not Approved for delivery of a Course.

Welcome to our elective subject Green ICT Strategies (GICTS) within the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society.

When preparing this subject, as with all the subjects in the Computer Professional Education Program, we have assumed that you and your fellow students are over-achievers; self-motivated, disciplined, and determined to succeed. You have extensive prior knowledge and experience relevant to your study; you are open-minded about sharing your work and educational experiences; and you accept critical thinking as part of the learning process. Further, you are comfortable with, and competent in, written communications; and you recognise that effective learning can occur outside a traditional classroom. Most importantly, you want to control how, when, and where you learn.

Critical to your success in this subject is a regular and disciplined study routine. Only through consistency will you keep up-to-date. Every week there will be specific tasks to complete and, if you fall behind, it will be difficult to catch up.

Also important is that you correspond; at least twice every week; with your fellow students and tutor. Your correspondence must be intelligent and investigative. You will answer questions posed by your tutors, and then debate your answers with your classmates.

Learning Outcomes

Green ICT Strategies is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. Qualification schemes and accreditation are yet to be established and it is possible those completing this subject may be involved in that development.

The ACS course on Green ICT Strategies is based on:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

At the completion of this subject the student can:

• Describe need for Green ICT Strategies and its relevance to business and the community

• Articulate the benefits of implementing Green ICT, in financial and environmental terms

• Apply the Green ICT Strategies practices in their organisation

• Explain the environmental context and the technical developments shaping contemporary Green ICT Strategies;

• Explain the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on Green ICT Strategies processes;

• Explain the need to address Green ICT in the marketing, commercial, operational and technical viability of projects throughout their lives;

• Apply specific Green ICT Strategies techniques such as impact analysis, estimation techniques, energy and material life cycle analysis;

Competencies based on Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information & Communications Technology (ICT).

Green ICT Strategies will target SIFA Level 5 competencies: "ensure, advise: Broad direction, supervisory, objective setting responsibility. Influences organisation. Challenging and unpredictable work. Self sufficient in business skills". With the following skills:

Category/Subcategory/Skill

• Procurement & management support

  • Supply management

    • Procurement: Clarify sustainability specifications for products and services. Investigates the technical and commercial options, including possible sources of supply, and agrees the preferred options and potential suppliers with the business. Ensures that suppliers are approved in accordance with company procedures. Manages the tender, evaluation and acquisition process with expert assistance as required. Negotiates with preferred suppliers, drafts contracts and technical schedules, develops acceptance procedures and criteria. Places contracts. Implements, maintains and disseminates procurement strategy, policy, standards, methods and processes.

  • Quality management

    • Compliance audit: Assess the conformity to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

• Strategy & planning

  • Business/IS strategy and planning

    • Business process improvement: Analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches. Contribute to evaluating the environmental impact of alternative strategies. Help establish requirements for the implementation of changes in the business process.

    • Enterprise Architecture: Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits. Takes responsibility for investigative work to determine requirements and specify effective business processes, through improvements in information systems, data management, practices, procedures, organisation and equipment.

  • Technical strategy and planning

    • Emerging technology monitoring: Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse. Products, methods and techniques and the assessment of their relevance and potential value to the organisation. The promotion of sustainable technology awareness among staff and business management.

    • Methods and tools: Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

Pre-requisites, Co-requisites

Business, Legal and Ethical Issues should be completed prior to undertaking this subject.

Content

Week 1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies

Objective: Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries.

Week 2, 3: Methods and tools

Objective: You are asked to reduce the ecological footprint of an ICT organization. This organization could be the one you are currently working with or any other organization. How would you go about measuring the ICT system's demand on the Earth's ecosystems and developing a plan (strategy) to reduce the impact?

Week 4: Energy saving

Objective: Computers and telecommunications equipment contributes about 2% to greenhouse gas emissions. How can energy ratings programs be used to guide procurement and reduce energy use. Explore the benefits and some of the limitations of the US EPA's Energy Star Program.

Week 5: Materials Use

Objective: Energy reduction is only part of making a Green ICT system, there is also the issue of use of materials and hazardous substances. How does the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) deal with material use?

Week 6: Environmental Auditing

Objective: Environmental standards, such as the ISO 14000 series, include processes for certifying and auditing organisations to environmental standards. In this module we will explore how to engage environmental auditors .

Week 7, 8: Procurement

Objective: Much of the environmental benefits come about by selecting the right products and services. How do you ensure that your hardware, software and services suppliers provide green products?

Week 9, 10: Business Process Improvement

Objective: ICT has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones. How do you analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches?

Week 11, 12: Enterprise Architecture

Objective: The business of business is business, so any environmental goals have to fit into the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. How do you incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits?

Week 13: Revision and discussion for assignment 2

Objective: Let us revisit the Service Life Cycle. Let us discuss about the specific process you are going to improve in your organization through the assignment 2.

Workload

To complete the subject you will need to spend 8-10 hours each week reading, communicating with colleagues and tutors, and preparing assignments.

Review/Evaluation Methods

There are 2 areas of assessment in the subject;

• Contributions to the 13 weekly discussion forums, worth 20% of your total assessment.

• 2 assignments, worth 40% each.

To pass the subject overall, it is necessary to pass in both areas of assessment.

Teaching Strategies

By distance education through online learning methods plus one text book. Online learning is the main delivery method, moderated and supported by a tutor, mentor, student discussion forums and weekly feedback through ACS Education. Students are grouped in cohorts of 20. The students are also supported by the Registrar with email, phone, and fax contact.

Specialist Features or Equipment

The subject is supported by a website ACS Education hosted by Moodle where the online learning takes place. All learning materials plus discussion forums are available through this site, apart from the text book.

Course Designer

Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University, where he teaches the design of web sites, e-commerce and professional ethics. In addition, he has an interest in environmental design, and is the founding chair of the ACS Green ICT Group. In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a past president, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

References

There is no set text for this course. Online references will be used, including:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

4. ACS Policy Statement for Green ICT, Australian Computer Society, 16 August 2007

5. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008.

6. ROI Analysis: Reducing 856,000 Pounds of CO2 Emissions through Remote Services and Off-Hours Power Management, Government Case Study: Power Management and CO2 Reduction, Intel, 2008

Green ICT Strategies Course Outline by Tom Worthington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.