Web Folksonomy 2.0

Elly Liang will talk on "User profiling based on folksonomy information in Web 2.0 for personalized recommender systems" at IR and Friends, in the CSIRO ICT Centre Seminar Room, 4pm, Monday 19 March 2012, CIST Building, at the ANU in Canberra.

"This thesis proposed novel approaches to use the emerging user information in Web 2.0 to help users solve the information overload issue. The user created content description and classification information-Folksonomy was used to find users' interests. Based on users' interest profiles, personalized recommendations can be generated for each user.
This thesis contributes to effectively use the wisdom of crowds to provide more accurate user profiling and recommendation approaches."

Opening Access to Government in Canberra

Greetings from the National Library of Australia where Professor Anne Fitzgerald from QUT has just opened "Creative Commons for You, and for Government". There are about 100 people here, many of whom have Commonwealth Government lanyards around their necks.

The QUT Creative Commons people ave been going around Australia talking about how the Australian versions of these open access licenses can be used to provide better access to information for business, education, government and the community. They left Canberra to last, as there considerable knowledge of this in the federal public service and universities already.

The most important point about CC is that it is based on copyright. Normally the emphasis with Copyright is on stopping people doing things with material, but CC emphasizes what you can do.

Stuart Corner wrote yesterday about "Ericsson calls for consumer-friendly, market-promoting copyright reform" (iTWire, 3 November 2011 13:30). Ericsson's "Guiding Principles to Copyright Enforcement in a Networked Society" (by RENE SUMMER, Ericsson Group and Dr Nicolas Suzor,
Queensland University of Technology). Unfortunately the report was not well formatted and so is hard to read on-line. Here is an excerpt:

A one sided approach which enforces copyright at the expense of all other stakeholders and the digital competitiveness of nations is not the cure for the problem nor a treatment of the symptoms. Economic history has already taught us well that a monocausal explanation of complex processes and hence one-sided solutions will not work. ..

While looking for open access material on-line I also came ac cross the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework (AusGOAL). This government website provides guidance on open access licenses. AusGOAL appears to be recommending the use of the Creative Commons Australian licence for government as the preferred option. However, I am not sure as I could not get their License Chooser to work (I got as far as "About the Licensing Review" and then got stuck).

It is not clear who has endorsed and is using AusGOAL. While it has a national Australian government domain name (gov.au) and is written as if it is providing official advice for federal government, the domain name is registered to the Queensland Department of Public Works.

There is a need for clear authoritative advice on how to implement open access in Government. Unfortunately the current initiatives, including those by QUT and AusGOAL are not doing that effectively. This partly because they do not take into account the way government makes decisions in practice, at the level where devisions on web publishing are made.

In the mid 1990s I was part of the group which introduced the web to the Australian Government. Contrary to the official histories, this was a confused, messy process which involved considerable conflict. What got the federal government on the web was a loose alliance of public servants, academics, political staff and industry. What was needed was to show that it would work and was palatable to all concerned. A similar loose alliance is needed to advance open access.

From bitter first hand experience I found that simply writing and issuing government policy does not result in that policy being implemented. What is needed is to explain to those who have to implement the policy why it is in their individual interest, as well as in the public interest. They also have to see that people like them use and support it. They also need the education and support to implement the policy.

To help with open access I designed and run the ANU course COMP7420 with a set of notes available: Electronic Document and Records Management.

Data Citation

An interesting topic to emerge from the Creative Commons workshop today was Data Citation. While finished papers are important for researchers, the data they collect is also of value. This creates some difficult logistical issues. Some scientific instruments will generate millions of sets of data per second and issuing unique IDs for each set would be difficult. There will be a Building a culture of research data citation Workshop at the.eResearch Australasia 2011 Conference in November 2011.

Creative Commons to save the planet

Greetings from the Australian National Unviersity in Canberra, where I am taking part in a workshop organized with the Queensland Unviersity of Technology on Creative Commons for research. Neale Hooper is setting the scene at the moment. I will then talk about "Creative Commons to save the planet: Using open access for a postgraduate course in sustainability". This is about how I used CC in my course and book "ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future".

Creative Commons in the Australian Government

Professor Anne Fitzgerald, Neale Hooper and Cheryl Foong from QUT will speak at "Creative Commons for You, and for Government", National Library of Australia, in Canberra, 4 November 2011.

Creative Commons (CC) is a new way of managing copyright in the digital environment. It is gaining widespread acceptance and use by creators, educators, cultural institutions, researchers, government officers and the general community.

If you are interested in finding out about the CC licences, looking for an update on recent developments, or wanting to know how CC licences are being used by others, register now! ...

About the presenters:

Professor Anne Fitzgerald is a Brisbane-based intellectual property and e-commerce lawyer. She is a Professor in Law Research at QUT Law Faculty where she has been involved in several projects including Access to Public Sector Information, Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law and Creative Commons Australia. Anne has a JSD degree from Columbia University, New York (2002) a LLM degree from Columbia University (1992) and a LLM (International Business Law) from the University of London (1989). She is a member of the Queensland Bar and has also been admitted to legal practice in Victoria and Tasmania. She graduated in law from the University of Tasmania (LLB(Hons), 1984). Anne has an extensive background in the areas of intellectual property law, internet and e-commerce law, international trade law and natural resources law. She is a pioneer of the study of law relating to the internet, digital technologies and e-commerce in Australia, having been an initiator of the landmark Going Digital series of seminars (in 1997 and 1998) and co-author of one of the earliest books in this area worldwide, Going Digital: Legal Issues for Electronic Commerce, Multimedia and the Internet (1998). Her latest book (with Professor Brian Fitzgerald and others) is Internet and E-commerce Law, Business and Policy (Thomson Reuters, Sydney, 2011).

Neale Hooper LLM, LLB, BA (Qld) was the principal lawyer for the Queensland Government’s Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) Project and has led the project’s legal work since its inception in 2005. The objective of the GILF project is the development of a legal framework to facilitate increased online access to, and reuse of, public sector information, in a legally effective manner, including by the use of standardized open content licences, particularly Creative Commons (CC) licences. Neale is a leading IP and ICT lawyer with over 20 years experience with Queensland Crown Law, providing specialist law services in these areas. Since 2004 Neale has been seconded sequentially to several Queensland departments – Queensland Treasury, Natural Resources and Water (now DERM), and most recently to Public Works, on GILF focussed work. Presently he is on secondment to the Queensland University of Technology, Law Faculty, researching CC licence implementation in the scientific research and other publicly funded sectors. For 3 years, 2007-2010 Neale was a lead researcher on the CRC-Spatial Information Project ‘Enabling Real-Time Information Access in Both Urban and Regional Areas’ (a collaboration between QUT, Law Faculty, and the Queensland Government). Neale has a Master of Laws from University of Queensland, and has been an adjunct lecturer at QUT law school since 2003.

Cheryl Foong LLB (Hons I) (QUT) is a researcher at the QUT Law Faculty. Cheryl has researched on CC business models, CC licensing and the risk of tort liability for government, and co-authored the CC & Government Guide with Anne and Neale. Her publications on these topics are available at .

Learning Spaces in Brisbane

After visiting Brisbane city library at Brisbane Square I took the Free Loop downtown bus service. to Queensland University of Technology, located beside the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens. Gordon Howell, Manager Learning Environments Support at QUT showed me some of their innovations.

One clever item are large flat screen displays (Plasma or LCD) on a mobile carts. Attached to the back of the carts is one of the university's standard PCs. Above the screen is a video conference camera and microphone. There is a tray with a wireless keyboard and mouse beneath the screen. There is a wireless broadband antenna on top of the unit. This makes a mobile presentation and video conferencing system. Some units can be checked out by staff for use in teaching rooms, saving having to equip each of the smaller rooms with equipment. Other units are permanently tethered in the library for use by student groups.Another development was a "network in a box" this is a weatherproof case containing a 3G wireless device and WiFi. The idea is that one such unit can be set up to provide broadband access to wireless devices in the vicinity. Gordon is also looking at equipment similar to my Portable learning centre and even the deployable classroom.

QUT have taken the approach with their learning commons of providing flexibility for students to arrange the furniture and equipment as described in "Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Positive Outcomes by Design". The Lab 2.0 looked a little chaotic to me, but perhaps that was just a sign of enthusiastic and heavy use by students. Gordon described how at the beginning of the year, the students separated the furniture for solitary work, but as groups formed for projects, they pushed the furniture together so they could work together. The screens on wheels were generally pushed up to one end of a bench, with students down two sides. In some cases mobile white boards have been used as partitions to form team rooms.

Other areas of the learning commons had rows of PCs. The university is looking at the use of thin clients to replace some desktop PCs. One suggestion I made was not to segregate the laptop users from the desktop PC users, perhaps leaving a space free between every few desktop computers for a laptop user.

Then I crossed the Brisbane River via the Goodwill Bridge to visit Southbank Institute of Technology Library. Heather Burrell, Library Manager showed me around their learning commons. The library provides computer literacy training, using computer based courses, for students across the Institute. Students can do self paced courses in the library, with a tutor on duty to assist. They can then do computer based tests with staff supervising. This seems a logical and cost effective way to deliver what is the 21st century version of literacy: being able to communicate using a computer.

It is good to see the library retains an extensive collection of paper books, as well as being equipped with computers and space for laptops. There is less emphasis on flexible movable furniture than QUT and I noticed a much quieter more atmosphere at SIT. One innovation were "diner" style booths around the wall, which seated four students, two on each side of a bench, with a chest high wall separating them from the next booth.

There were several training rooms, each holding about 18 students, with movable walls which could be opened out to the common area and removable partitions between the rooms. This arrangement allows the room to be opened out when not needed for a class.

There were fewer laptops evident at SIT, than QUT's library and less equipment.

Learning Spaces in Higher Education

I wrote Thursday, May 28, 2009: "I am planning visit to Brisbane, May 30 to June 2 to look at flexible learning and green ICT. Who should I talk to?". One of those who responded was Gordon Howell, Manager Learning Environments Support at QUT. He pointed out the proceedings of a 2008 colloquium: "Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Positive Outcomes by Design". I hope to get along to see QUT's work on Lab 2.0 and see if it lives up to the claims made. I am sceptical of the value for learning spaces with movable furniture:

Lab 2.0 is an experimental learning space designed for students to be able to alter their physical environment to suit their learning needs. Students are encouraged to "make the space work for them"
with new non-traditional forms of movable furniture and related technology. The space is enhanced with technology and collaboration software that enables students to share project work, documents and artefacts in real-time with other group members.

The Lab 2.0 space has been developed in a vacant space within the Library building on the Gardens Point campus. It sits adjacent to more formal computer labs and is seen as a complementary addition to the more structured University computing facilities. The space covers approximately 350 square metres and was redeveloped with a focus on flexibility, simplicity and reuse resulting in a total development cost of slightly less than $90,000 including all furniture, technology, power and data fittings. Based on traditional figures for space redevelopment within the University, the space was redeveloped for between a third and a fifth of the normal costs associated with space redevelopment. ...

From: Lab 2.0, by Geoff Mitchell, Greg Winslett, Gordon Howell, Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Positive Outcomes by Design, NGLS 2008 Colloquium, University of Queensland, 2009