Role of Asia-Pacific Middle Powers

Yesterday Professor Kim Richard Nossal from Queens University Canada talked on "Asia-Pacific middle powers: cooperation or conflict" at the 

Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, 

College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University in Canberra. 

Professor Nossal characterized Canada as a "middle power" and appeared frustrated that the current Canadian government had a lack of interest in the strategic situation in East Asia. He concluded we would have to look elsewhere for a middle power to have an impact on the Asia-Pacific (which appeared directed at Australia).

Dr Andrew Carr suggested we are moving to a neo-medieval or multiplex world order, without a few dominant superpowers. A a result smaller states do not have to pick one side or the other, as they did during the cold war. Interestingly Andrew suggests that military force is becoming less of an assurance of winning a war. He suggests that Asia's middle powers will matter, are strong and able to see to their own defense.

Professor High White suggested that military conflict is more likely while the new world order stabilizes. He pointed out that a lesser power doesn't have to win a war against a greater power, just threaten or cause enough damage for the latter to back off. Professor White asked what great powers would go to war over in Asia today. He suggested that Australia could assist by putting its independent views to the great powers, while building collations. He suggests that Australia could help the USA and China with order in Asia. More worryingly, he suggested that China is testing the USA's resolve in the South China Sea.

What to See in Vancouver in August?

Any suggestions as to what to do in Canada in August? I have visited Vancouver briefly before, arriving from Toronto by train and have seen the whales.

I will be University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 21 to 26 August 2014, to present a paper at the 9th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2014). Normally when speaking at a conference I also give a free public talk for government, professionals and academics, hosted by a local body. Anyone willing to host a talk please let me know.

My paper for the conference is "Chinese and Australian Students Learning to Work Together Online: Proposal to Expand the New Colombo Plan to the Online Environment". This has attracted some interest, as the conference is organised by the China Research Council on Computer Education in Colleges & Universities.

The Australian Government's "New Colombo Plan" provides $100m funding for Australian university students to undertake part of their studies at universities in the Indo-Pacific region, to foster greater cultural understanding, technical and business links between Australia and the region. The aims of the origins and aims of the original and new Colombo Plans are compared and the option of to teach Australian and Chinese students together on-line, to meet the plan's aims are explored.

Worthington, T. (2014, August 22-24 ). Chinese and Australian students learning to work together online. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE). Vancouver, Canada. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/11724

ps: I am a Distance Education Masters student at Athabasca University and so was thinking of dropping in to visit the campus, until I discovered Athabasca is 1,300 km from Vancouver. ;-)

NBN as a Critical Infrastructure

Professor Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University,  talked at "Converging on an NBN Future". She pointed out a difference between  Australia's NBN and North American provision of broadband is that the NBN can be a Critical Infrastructure. Broadband access is being provided in most countries as a "best effort" service with patchy provision. Even so Dr. Middleton points out that provision is either a monopoly or quasi monopoly in the USA. As NBN is one national engineered service it can be relied on for provision of essential public services. This is a reasonable argument, but it is not clear if the NBN has been engineered as a safety critical system which, for example, will continue to operate during power failures and will automatically give essential services priority.

Online Collaboration for Science in Canada

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the ANU, where Dr. Brian Corrie, Technical Director IRMACS, is talking on collaboration infrastructure in Canada. The Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Centre (IRMACS) provides rooms equipped with computer technology for people to work together remotely.

The IRMACS Centre is 2,300 square meters, with offices, meeting and conference rooms: 100 seat Presentation Studio, Boardroom, meeting rooms (10908, 10940, 10917.2) and breakout rooms. Also there is the "lab space" and visualization lab. In his presentation, Dr. Corrie emphasises the availability of support staff, to make sure the equipment works when needed. Support is also provided for administering research grants.

The IRMACS floor plan provides an interesting template for such a facility. While intended for research, not teaching, the rooms are also used for conferences and workshops, meetings, colloquiums, seminars (and social functions), as well as training, thesis defence and live performances.

Dr. Corrie has published research detailing how collaboration using technology works. He has found that even experienced users were not using the advanced technology to transmit gestures effectively. It occurred to me that what was needed was something like a large iPad. This is more than just an interactive whiteboard. The iPad has a surface which invites touch, whereas the average interactive whiteboard required the user to press. One way around this might be t provide a smaller more comfortable touch screen for the presenter and then relay that to a large non-interactive screen and remotely. We used something like this for the ACS Canberra 1995 Conference.

Dr. Corrie pointed out that as well as IRMACS being used for scientists to collaborate with each other it has been used for collaboration between scientists and government on policy. He also suggested colloboration between IRMACS and ANU. This might provide a useful model for a centre in Canberra to provide a place for public policy discussion, as envisaged by the Australia Forum and the ANU's Australian Centre for Dialogue.

Title: Collaboration in the Computational Sciences: Why, Where, What, and How

Abstract: Research, as an activity, is fundamentally collaborative in nature. Driven by the massive amounts of data that are produced by computational simulations and high resolution scientific sensors, data-driven collaboration is of particular importance in the
computational sciences. In this talk, I will discuss our experiences in designing, deploying, and operating a Canada wide advanced collaboration infrastructure in the support of the computational sciences. In particular, I will focus on the importance of data in such collaborations and discuss how current collaboration tools are sorely lacking in their support of data-centric collaboration.

Learning, Location and Lucre

In "Degrees, Distance, and Dollars" Marina Krakovsky provides a down to earth analysis of experience with distance education for universities (Originally published in Communications of the ACM September 2010, then eLearn Magazine, 7 September 2010). Some of the points made: elite universities are not using online courses to admit more students; some lower ranking ones might use online to reduce costs. As well as the university, Krakovsky sees the online students being different, with those with jobs (particularly the military) and family commitments which preclude conventional education and this may help women get qualifications for management. Online courses are priced the same or higher than face-to-face courses, with students attracted by convenience and lower travel and living on campus costs (with a course costing US$14,000 a year). Also more individual attention from online tutors might be a factor. Ease of course entry is suggested as a factor, with students willing to pay more for entry without having to worry about prior qualifications willing to pay more. High fees also help retain students, which in turn helps with course accreditation. For the future Krakovsky suggests specialization suits online courses, with only a few students needed from a wide catchment needed to make a viable program.

The one major flaw in Krakovsky's analysis is that it does not address education outside the USA. It is as if there are no courses or universities, online or bricks and mortar, outside the USA. Online courses open up the possibility of US students studying at overseas universities. It also raises the possibility of overseas based staff of US universities teaching US students online. Already I have had a North American student (admittedly from Canada, not USA, in my Green ICT course). Australia and New Zealand have high quality universities, compatible education standards to the USA and a similar cultural outlook and good English skills. Australia and New Zealand also has sophisticated use of online education, being the origin of the Moodle Learning Management System and the Mahara e-Portfolio system. Perhaps the one thing stopping Australian universities addressing the US market is that they are busy with Chinese and Indian students.

India has shown how it could provide first basic telephone call centre services and then increasingly sophisticated accounting, software and engineering services online. It would seem a small step to providing courses for students around the world to English speaking students.

Green ICT Strategies Course for North America

Athabasca University (Canada) is now offering the course "Green ICT Strategies COMP 635". This is based on my Green Technology Strategies syllabus, adapted for North America.

Brian Stewart, Chief Information Officer, Athabasca University undertook the ANU e-learning version of my course "Green Information Technology Strategies COMP7310". He must have enjoyed it, as he then asked if it was okay for them to adapt it for Canada, which I was delighted to agree to:

Computer Science (COMP) 635
Green ICT Strategies

Method of Delivery:	Grouped Study Online
Credits:	3 - IS Elective
Prerequisite:	None
Centre:	School of Computing and Information Systems
Instructor:	Richard Huntrods and Brian Stewart

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Overview

This course will approach green ICT strategies from a professional perspective, providing instruction on how best to apply green ICT strategies in the working environment. COMP 635 takes an information literacy approach by using open resources to facilitate the development of a professional body of knowledge. This removes the need for a textbook and allows the student to build his or her knowledge on continually available sources.

Green ICT (Green IT or Green Computing) is the study and practice of using computers and telecommunications in a way that maximizes positive environmental benefit and minimizes the negative impact. The energy efficiency of operating equipment is a major concern of Green ICT. The embodied energy and lifecycle of the materials used in the design, manufacture, reuse, and recycling of equipment and components are also concerns. Green ICT seeks to inform accepted management practices to achieve efficient and effective business interaction.

The course covers topics such as networking and distributed systems. It builds on themes such as standards and open systems, and uses tools such as Integrated Development Environments. It provides historical and hardware/software/mathematics foundations for the subject, and develops research and report-writing skills to prepare a project report.

Green ICT strategies is an emerging discipline. This course is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors both in Canada and internationally. It introduces implementation methodologies and assessment tools that are currently being tested in the field.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, the student should be able to

• understand the role of ICTs as they impcact the global carbon footprint
• estimate the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of an organization,
• assess ways to reduce the carbon footprint of an organization, by changes to polices for procurement of ICT, changes to the ICT operations and revising business processes.

Outline

The course consists of four major topics (modules). Each module has three sub-topics, (one sub-topic per week), and a week at the end of the course is reserved for review.

1. Module 1: Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability
• Introduction to Green ICT Strategies
• The Global ICT Footprint
• Enabling ICT: Dematerialization, Smart Motor Systems, Logistics, Buildings and Grids
2. Module 2: Technical Strategy and Planning–Emerging Technology Monitoring
• Energy Saving: Data Centres and Client Equipment
• Materials Use
• Methods and Tools
3. Module 3: Business/IS Strategy and Planning
• Business Process Improvement
• Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency
• Enterprise Architecture
4. Module 4: Procurement & Management Support
• Procurement
• Energy Star Program and Quality Management
• Compliance Audit

Evaluation

To pass this course, students must achieve an average grade of at least 65% on each assignment.

To receive credit towards the Master of Science in IS, for Electives/Career track, students must achieve a course composite grade of at least C+ (67%). The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:

Assignment 1 (TME1)		40%
Assignment 2 (TME2)		40%
Discussion participation/contribution		20%
Total		100%

Course Materials: Online

COMP 635 is delivered through Athabasca University's learning management system (LMS), Moodle. All course activities and resources will be available through the course website. Course materials include discussion forums, learning materials, and assignments. Assignments will be submitted online. Readings are all accessed online through links from the site (there is no printed textbook).

Open Access

All learning materials for this course are freely available and have no copyright restrictions to access. This allows the course to be made available without restriction to anyone interested in studying the subject. In addition, all materials are accessible over the Internet and can be read onscreen.

Course Designer

Comp 635was originally written and developed by Tom Worthington, an independent ICT consultant and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University. Tom teaches website design, e-commerce, and professional ethics. He also 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. This course has been adapted under a Creative Commons license to reflect more Canadian content for delivery through Athabasca University....

From: Green ICT Strategies COMP 635, 03/31/2010