Vale Brenda Aynsley

Brenda Aynsley,
OAM FACS CP

Brenda Aynsley OAM FACS CP, a Past President of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), has passed away. As reported by Jan Whitaker:

"It's with deep sadness that I let the Link community know that our dear colleague and friend of many years, Brenda Aynsley, passed away quietly this morning in Adelaide, after a long illness. Many here will know Brenda from different paths in the IT community, and those of us who were lucky enough as a true friend. I will miss her more than I can tell. There is to be no funeral, but if I get word of other wishes, I will pass them along."

From: Sad news - Vale Brenda, Jan Whitaker, Link list on Australian network policy and communications, 12 August 2018, 12:49:51

As Brenda wrote on her LinkedIn entry, she was:

 "... totally absorbed by and committed to the Internet and technology, not because of the nature of the toys and tools, but because both provide the means of facilitating effective communication between citizens of the world. ..."

Her work was global, but I knew Brenda as a fellow member of many ACS committees, and one of my successors as ACS President. Brenda changed the direction of my professional work, as one of the team training myself, and others, to teach computer professionals (Lindley, Aynsley, Driver, Godfrey, Hart, Heinrich, Unhelkar & Wilkinson, 2013).

Brenda was most recently Chair on the ACS South Australia Branch, a relatively recent appointment from January 2018. She was also Convenor of the ACS SA PC Recycling Group, a position she had held for eighteen years. I visited her at the PC Recycling group and included this in my ICT Sustainability course.

Brenda Aynsley was as the first female President of the ACS, in 2013.

In 2015 Brenda gave evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security during an inquiry into metadata privacy 29 January 2015. She was also interviewed on the subject for the WSIS FORUM 2015.

Brenda was recognized for service to the information and communications technology sector in the 2014 Australia Day Honours list, with an Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). She was a Flinders University alumnus, being awarded a BA in 1982 and DipSocSc in 1984. 

Brenda held so many positions in the computer profession in Australia and internationally, it would be difficult to list them all. Here are a few:

• Chair,  International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3), International Federation for Information Processing.
• National Vice-President, Australian Computer Society, 2002-2003 and 2010-2011; Honorary Life Member, 2008.
• Chair, ACS National Community Engagement Board, 2009-2010.
• Chair, Ageism Task Force, 2010.
• Lead Tutor and Academic Program Coordinator, ACS Professional Year Program.
• Founding Member, Electronic Frontiers Australia, 1994.
• Honorary Secretary, South Australian Branch, Australian Computer Society; Chairman, 1999-2001, 2004-2006 and 2018; ACS Member, since 1989; Founder and Manager, ACS PC Recycling Group, since 2000.
• Chair, SA Committee, The Pearcey Foundation, 2006-2012.
• Opened South Australia's first Internet Café, 1995.
  Founding Member, South Australian Internet Association, 1995.
• Fellow, South Australian Branch, Australian Computer Society, 2003.

One of her more recent articles was on "Creating a Culture of Professionalism – the Board’s Role" (February 14, 2018).

Reference

Lindley, D., Aynsley, B., Driver, M., Godfrey, R., Hart, R., Heinrich, G., ... & Wilkinson, K. (2013). 11. Educating for professionalism in ICT: Is learning ethics professional development?. Professionalism in the information and communication technology industry, 211. URL http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p223541/html/ch11.xhtml?referer=37

Order of Australia for Brenda Aynsley, President of the Australian Computer Society

An Order of Australia (OAM) was was awarded to Brenda Aynsley, President of the Australian Computer Society today. This is a recognition well deserved.

No doubt many who know Brenda have stories to tell about her community work. One of mine is that 21 April 2009 I was standing at a tram stop in Adelaide on my way to the beach, after attending an ACS training session for on-line tutors (which I was one of). Brenda called to invite me to see the ACS PC Recycling SIG, which she said was near a tram stop (it was as if it was as if  she knew where I was and that I was skiving off). Brenda headed the group of volunteers refurbishing old computers donated by business for those in need. This is no slipshod operation with a tidy well run workshop, with a careful procedure to erase any data on old computers, test the hardware and then installing new licensed software.

The Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General
MEDAL (OAM) OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA IN THE GENERAL DIVISION

Ms Brenda AYNSLEY ... For service to the information and communications technology sector.

Current Chair, IP3, International Federation for Information Processing.
National Vice-President, Australian Computer Society, 2002-2003 and 2010-2011; Honorary Life Member, since 2008.
Chair, National Community Engagement Board, 2009-2010.
Chair, Ageism Task Force, 2010.
Lead Tutor and Academic Program Coordinator, Professional Year Program.
Founding Member, Electronic Frontiers Australia, 1994.
Honorary Secretary, South Australian Branch, Australian Computer Society; Chairman, 1999-2001 and 2004-2006; Member, since 1989; Founder and Manager, PC Recycling Group, since 2000.
Chair, SA Committee, The Pearcey Foundation, 2006-2012.
Opened South Australia's first Internet Café, 1995.
Founding Member, South Australian Internet Association, 1995.
Fellow, South Australian Branch, Australian Computer Society, since 2003.

From: Australia Day 2014 Honours Lists, Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia in the General Division (A-E), Sunday 26 Jan 2014.

ps: They left out "President of the Australian Computer Society, 2014". But that must have been after the nomination was submitted.

Assessment beyond the degree factory

Greetings from day two of the Faculty Board Meeting of ACS Education, the part of the Australian Computer Society which provides education to computer professionals. There are about 30 people around a table in the ACS South Australia Branch office.

Assessment

We started with a presentation on the role of assessment in academic integrity. What I found interesting about this was the idea that both the teacher and the student have mutual obligations and are partners in the education process. Both the teachers and students have obligations as well as rights. It is academic integrity, based on years of experience , as well as qualifications, which allows a teacher to say what grade a student gets, not some set of assessment rules.

Collegiality

Part of academic integrity is collegiality and peer review. That is the teachers are not just employees who do whatever the boss says. The staff work out jointly what is to be done and what is reasonable. Senior staff act as coordinators, rather than dictators. Contrary to popular wisdom, I have experienced this approach working in a military headquarters. Senior military officers are trained to take advice from their junior staff. They will listen to the debate, with even the most junior allowed to disagree with the most senior. The staff officers (much like executive assistants) judges what the consensus is and issues the formal orders in the name of the commanding officer. A similar process works in traditional universities.

Forms of Assessment

Assessment is usually divided into Formative and Summative. The formative assessment is to help he student learn, whereas the summative assessment measures what the student has learnt against some objectives. Bloom's Taxonomy, has three domains: Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor. Increasingly there are also social issues.

Learning Objectives

The modern fashion is to express what the course is trying to achieve explicitly in learning objectives for a course and to present these to the student. I have some doubts as to the value of this, as often these are expressed in such a complex way with educational jargon that the student can't understand it. Large multicoloured tables with pop-up boxes are, in my view, not useful.

Building the Course Design Workflow into the LMS

The obvious thing for IT professionals to do is to design courses with the same sort of systematic process they use to design software. IT based systems can also be used to support the development of courses and their peer review. In the past this would be done by a bespoke system specifically designed for entering course designs and then having a work-flow for review and approval. However, it occurred to me that the LMS could be used for this as rapid prototyping. Rather than filling out forms to detail what it is proposed to put in the course, the details would be entered directly into the LMS, creating the skeleton of the course. The discussion forums and assessment feature of the LMS would then be used for the peer review.

Skills Framework for the Information Age

The ACS uses the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) framework for designing courses. This is mostly done at SFIA Level 5, the level of a person who has done an undergraduate course, been working for a few years and aspires to advancement needs.

Assessment for the Real World

The question then is how to assess if the student has achieved this. Because this is professional training, in my view this is conceptually very simple to assess: just get the students to demonstrate they can do whatever the professional has to do. As an example, I get Green ICT students to assess the greenhouse gas emissions form ICT in an organisation and to make recommendations on reducing them, as this is what they will be doing in the workplace. It will be more difficult for students to demonstrate the skills in other fields, such as project management. However, this can be done with simulations, just as airline pilots are mostly trained and assessed in a simulator, not a real aircraft.

As well as specific skills for specific jobs, SFIA has "generic levels", which can be used for defining core competences. Unfortunately there is a level of confusion with these sometimes being referred to as "generic skills". Here are SFIA "generic skills" defined at Level of Responsibility 5:

• Challenge range and variety of complex technical or professional work activities;
• Influences organisation, customers, suppliers, and peers within industry on contribution of specialisation;
• Work requires application of fundamental principles in a wide and often unpredictable range of contexts;
• Maintains awareness of developments in the industry;

From: Enterprise Architecture (Elective Subject), ACS Education, 2011

The SFIA generic levels of responsibility are listed in
"Framework reference SFIA version 4: Skill definitions in categories, subcategories and skills" (SFIA, 2008). However this is a large and difficult to read PDF document. The HTML version, designed by Text Matters is much more accessible:

Autonomy

Works under broad direction. Is fully accountable for own technical work and/or project/supervisory responsibilities. Receives assignments in the form of objectives. Establishes own milestones and team objectives, and delegates responsibilities. Work is often self-initiated.

Influence

Influences organisation, customers, suppliers and peers within industry on the contribution of own specialism. Has significant responsibility for the work of others and for the allocation of resources. Makes decisions which impact on the success of assigned projects i.e. results, deadlines and budget. Develops business relationships with customers.

Complexity

Performs a challenging range and variety of complex technical or professional work activities. Undertakes work which requires the application of fundamental principles in a wide and often unpredictable range of contexts. Understands the relationship between own specialism and wider customer/organisational requirements.

Business skills

Advises on the available standards, methods, tools and applications relevant to own specialism and can make correct choices from alternatives. Analyses, diagnoses, designs, plans, executes and evaluates work to time, cost and quality targets. Communicates effectively, formally and informally, with colleagues, subordinates and customers. Demonstrates leadership. Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who have diverse objectives. Understands the relevance of own area of responsibility/specialism to the employing organisation. Takes customer requirements into account when making proposals. Takes initiative to keep skills up to date. Mentors more junior colleagues. Maintains an awareness of developments in the industry. Analyses requirements and advises on scope and options for operational improvement. Demonstrates creativity and innovation in applying solutions for the benefit of the customer.

From: Levels of responsibility: Level 5, ensure, advise, SFIA Foundation, 2005

ACS and SFIA had room for improvement in settling on a clear and consistent title for this is. However, ACS and SIFA are far more consistent in their use of terminology than universities with "graduate attributes".

Graduate Attributes

The Graduate Attributes are an Austrlaian term, first required by the Austrlaian Government in 1998 for universities to include in the Quality Assurance and Improvement Plans submitted to government. In theory each unviersity defines its own attribuites, but as the Government says, most follow the same pattern:

• Knowledge attributes - in general, graduates are expected to have good literacy and numeracy skills, the ability to communicate and listen and appropriate discipline-specific knowledge.
• Thinking attributes - graduates are expected to have good conceptual and problem solving skills, the ability to question, be creative and to combine theory and practice.
• Practical attributes - emphasises the ability of graduates to use information technology and be proficient in any other technical skills appropriate to their discipline. The ability to initiate and respond to change is also considered an important attribute.
• Personal attributes and values - graduates are typically expected to have a commitment to learning, be flexible and able to work in a team, have leadership skills and understand the concepts of ethical action and social responsibility.

From: Higher education report for the 2001 to 2003 triennium, DEST, 2008

An example are the ANU graduate attributes:

• have an in-depth knowledge base and comprehensive understanding of the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of their disciplines;
• are well acquainted with the broader contexts of higher learning;
• trained in computer based technology, and relevant discipline-based technical and methodological skills;
• are independent, critical and creative thinkers with analytical and problem solving skills;
• are competent in literary and oral communication;
• value intellectual rigour, creativity, curiosity, integrity and lifelong learning; and
• understand major issues facing Australia and the wider world

From: The Australian National University, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1999

While SFIA does not specify its attributes in great detail at least one standard set is provided unlike the Austrlaian unviersity system of a confusing and wasteful proliferation of non-standard terminology.

Short Courses

There were then two workshops, one for mentors on mentoring and one on teaching. I attended the teaching workshop on the topic of the human side of teaching. This reminded me of the issue of how to provide short professional development courses. The ACS is running an ACS Business Skills On-Line Pilot Program. I was unable to undertake a course due to technical problems but it struck me that the one on one for the course support was very good. Typically short online courses (of one to three hours) are solitary, with the one student reading prepared material, watching videos and doing multiple choice tests. One area I had difficulty with was selecting suitable courses and how these would form an overall plan.

The Open University short courses, differ from the typical audio slide-show course. These are more like shortened versions of the ACS CPEP modules. However, this requires a tutor and a a forum for the students to learn from each other. OU do provide a forum for each course, but not the tutor.

ACS might use the tutor, mentor and forum techniques from its longer courses and PPP for short courses. It is not feasible to set up the infrastructure used for a 13 week course for one lasting an hour. But ACS requires each 30 hours of professional development each year of its ACS Certified Professionals (CP). The ACS Computer Professional Education Program subjects each require 8-10 hours per week wrk from each student (as do typical tertiary courses). So the professional development each year requires the equivalent time to a three to four week course.

So my thought is to treat the annual requirement for development as a three to four week course undertaken over on year. The student would be assignment a tutor/mentor and be part of tutorial groups online. The student would get help planning what they needed to learn and selecting courses to do. The actual courses could be provided by ACS and by other providers. Where the courses lack their own tutor and forums, the ACS would provide this. The student would produce an e-Portfolio.

Tutors Needed for ACS Education

The last topic for the ACS Education Faculty Board meeting was about how to obtain the needed staff. To me the obvious source is previous students, who can be come first tutors and then course designers. Because the ACS CPEP uses a different approach to most tertiary level courses, the average teacher will not have the needed experience for these courses.

ps: The meeting got a little surreal, where at one point I was typing this blog post as it got a mention as an example of something a professional could claim professional development hours for. ;-)

Reinventing Professional Education in the Internet Age

Greetings from the Faculty Board Meeting of ACS Education, the part of the Australian Computer Society which provides education to computer professionals. There are about 30 people around a table in the ACS South Australia Branch office. Each person has a laptop connected to the Internet to get the "papers" for the meeting from a Moodle web site. This is the same web site used for online teaching. While there is much hi-tech, the topics are as old as education: how do we make students partners in the education process, how do we make it relevant to the real world, how do we get useful feedback on student experience without lots of bureaucratic forms. Unique to these professional programs are how to balance the needs of professionals with the somewhat abstract academic requirements for tertiary institutions.

Professional Practice

Apart from e-learning courses using Moodle, which I help with the ACS proved a Professional Practice (PP) year. PP uses the Mahara e-Portfolio software. Students learning about "reflective learning" while filling in their online journal. This can be very difficult for students, as it requires the student to direct their learning and also reflect on what they do, rather than just answer questions from a teacher. There is a mentor for each student to help them, but like a Zen master, the tutor is not there to tell the student what to do.

The PP outcomes for a student are:

• Understand and appreciates the importance of career planning and continuing professional development;
• Completes an ePortfolio consisting of skill assessment and career plan used for personal development and career advancement.

From: Professional Practice (Core Subject), ACS, 2010

PP is a process I don't have experience of and would, like many students, feel lost with. One change propose is to give students some marks. Currently the students just complete, or not complete at the end. Also it is proposed to give the students more detailed training on reflective learning.

Another part is to provide an interactive tool for structuring their work using the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is a complex categorisation of skills in the IT area. I had to come to terms with it in designing courses and it must be very difficult for students to understand the complexity of it.

One daunting aspect of PP, is that it is something which few traditional tertiary institutions worked out how to do. By their nature, programs tend to break up into individual units and students concentrate on passing each unit separately. There is little time to think holistically about how all they are learning fits together. However, this creates difficulties for the students and mentors, in terms of motivation and resources.

Another interesting issue discussed was having student assignments submitted to their employer. The courses I design have assessment items written from the point of view of professionals preparing advice for their client. In some cases the students write official reports for their organisation and submit them. I get reports which have the organisation logo and file reference numbers on them. However, this is not possible for all students.

New Courses

The meeting then turned to proposals for new courses. This is an interesting challenge as the courses have to be useful and academically sound. One aspect which works well is using the SFIA framework for defining the skills for new courses. SFIA provides standard definitions of what IT professionals need to be able to do. These therefore become a very useful way to define what the students will learning (the "learning outcomes"). Rather than make something up, the course designer can use an agreed definition. What also is interesting is the depth of experience of the ACS course designers, with decades of experience working in the fields they are teaching, they re not just getting it out of some textbook.

Textbooks still help for courses and it is handy that these are now available in electronic as well as paper format. During discussion of a new course I was able to find and search through an electronic copy of the book. There also seems to be a trend for new e-books to be avialable at a lower price than the paper copies, which should help students.

An issue for students is the amount of work they have to do for a course. This particularly the case for those who have not done formal tertiary studies recently (or at all). There recent experience of courses will be short hour, half day or day slide show sessions. The students are shocked to find they really have to do ten hours work for the course each and every week, regardless of holidays and whatever is happening in their life. The students are also surprised that the tutors prompt them, instead of waiting to the end of the course.

The next topic was an induction process for students not familiar with study, particularly online study. The problem is how detailed to make such an induction process, without overdoing it.

The issue of keeping online courses up to date came up. It is very useful to be able to reference online and up to date materials online in a course. However, links change frequently and some materials are now being protected and require some form of registration or payment.

LinkedIn

ACS Education has set up a LinkedIn Group for Alumni. It will be interesting to see how this works. The group for the Australian National University Group has been in existence since 2007 and now as more than 1,000 members.

Assessment

The meeting took on the elements of Zen, with a discussion of the meaning of zero. The ACS Education assessment generally use two elements: a mark for weekly contributions to forums (usually worth 20% of the overall mark), and two assignments worth 80%. Using the educational jargon, the weekly assessment is formative and the assignments summative. The contentious issues were the limited scale used for the weekly assessment which is a mark of 0, 1 or 2 and the level of contribution needed at each level.

As an example of the scale used, this is the one for the ACS Information Security (Elective Subject):

0 = no contribution

1 = standard below expectation, and

2 = standard at or greater than expectation.

So each week, a student gets a mark of 0, 1, or 2. What does a student have to do for that mark? Are only three levels sufficient? This is a topic which created a lively debate. I had some initial doubts about this system, but found it worked very well in practice: A small mark each week helps encourage e-learning students to keep working. This is also an effective way for the tutor to give feedback, as that feedback comes with a mark which counts to the final result. The limited scale is appropriate as this does not count much to the final mark.

After these heavy academic issues, we changed to talking about course marketing. This is a major issue for e-learning courses. There is a need to explain the mode as well as the quality of the results. ACS has created a short Vodcast on ACS Computer Professional Education Program.

Improvements to the Software

The ACS' LMS provider Brightcookie, then described the upgrade of the ACS e-learning system from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.0. There is not much change in the way the system looks to the student, but the software has been rewritten to allow better access to external resources. This allows extra pieces of software are being used with Moodle.

The new ACS Education "Landing Page" will be provided with Webpress. To provide a way to share materials between Moodle courses, Alfresco will be used as the repository. There will be a better interface to Mahara, allowing the student's e-Portfolio contributions there to be visible in Moodle.

Conditional activities will allow the tutor to require the student to have completed some part of the course before they can move on to the next. Cohorts will allow groups of students to be defined across courses.

One feature I welcome is that Alfresco provides facilities to convert documents from word processing to HTML formats automatically. What I would like to be able to do is have a hierarchy of folders with WP documents in them which are converted into a Moodle book. The book is much easier for students to manage, rather than many separate documents and is more efficient in the use of system resources.

Some future possibilities worth exploring later with Moodle 2 are interfaces to other open source software, such as OJS (for students accessing academic papers) and AContent.

Learning in the Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct

Dr Diana Quinn, from the University of South Australia Learning and Teaching Unit (LTU) gave me a quick tour of their City West Campus, at the western end of the Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct. This nicely bookends the terrace, which has the state library, museum and art gallery in the middle and the Unviersity of Adelaide a the other end. I sat in on a presentation about the UniSA new $95 million City West student learning centre. The exterior design of the building has been largely finalised, but I discussed some of the options for design of the teaching rooms with Professor Margaret Hicks, Director of Learning and Teaching.

Libraryhack at State Library of South Australia

Greetings from the Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct. I am in town for a meeting for the ACS Education faculty, but thought I would spend some time at the Libraryhack at State Library of South Australia, this evening. Similar Library Hack events are being held around Australia, during Net Traveller: Information Awareness Month.

Event Type: Launch
Age Group(s): Young Adult, General
Date: 6/05/2011
Start Time: 5:30 PM
End Time: 7:30 PM

Description:

Learn about creating digital media by listening to our special guest speaker, acclaimed digital media artist Cindi Drennan. Bring your own laptop and use the free wi-fi to experiment with datasets. Seize the opportunity to share ideas, explore the possibilities and collaborate with experts in the field. Be inspired to create your own amazing Libraryhack entry to win a great prize in the national competition

Location: Treasures Wall Spence Wing first floor

Other Information:

Free. No need to book, just turn up!

Contact: Cate Parkinson / Jo Hocking
Contact Number: 8207 7292
Presenter: Cindi Drennan

Education and the Digital Economy Forum

The Austrlaian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) is holding a "Digital Economy Stakeholder Forum –Education Sector" in Adelaide, 12 noon, 23 November 2010. There is also free video-conference participation in the event available for a limited number of participants:

Digital Economy Stakeholder Forum – Education Sector

Adelaide

Tuesday 23rd November 2010, 12 noon for 12.30pm – 3 pm

Video Conferencing Classroom, Adelaide TAFE Campus 120 Currie Street, Adelaide

Lunch will be served

Forum Overview

Australia’s move to an effective Digital Economy means changes for many sectors in the economy. Plans will be needed to support the transition of business, government and consumers to new models of service delivery and commercial transactions.

ATUG is hosting a series of conversations with experts in a number of different sectors to identify the impacts and issues, the opportunities and obstacles that need to be identified and resolved for that sector and its customers to
“Shift Gear” to the Digital Economy.

Forum Program – Education

12.30pm - 3pm

1. Overview - Forum Chair: Evan Arthur - Group Manager, National Schools and Youth Partnerships Group, Dept of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
2. Anne Dening - Senior Educational Manager - Innovations, Teaching & Learning, TAFE SA Regional
3. Peta Pash - Project Manager MEGA
4. Open Forum

Forum Registration

SPECIAL INVITATION to join ATUG’s DIGITAL ECONOMY FORUM on Education

ATUG Education Seminar: can't make it? Read below

Today, many students cannot attend class with their lecturer.

TAFE SA is offering a glimpse of how they reach their students to the first few participants to the seminar.

TAFE offers options for their students to:

• connect from a room videoconferencing unit (you may be able to access one of them)
• connect from a pc and webcam with a special login from TAFE (if you have access to good broadband - probably not from your organization , due to firewall restrictions , you may be able to " borrow " a login for the event)
• dial in from a telephone.

To book a connection, you will need to contact Tele-Learning Connections by 3:30 pm TODAY to book their connection and for TLC to check whether the room or webcam software is appropriate. (TLC can make available a limited number of sets of desktop software available).

TLC can be contacted on either 08 8207 8446, or tlc (a)sa.gov.au

Many thanks TAFE SA and Tele - Learning Connections!

ATUG would be interested feedback on your Digital Economy Experience after the event – email rosemary.sinclair(a)atug.org.au

Ultrasonic Wine Barrel Cleaner

One of the more specalised Australian hi-tech exports is the "Cavitus Wine Barrel Cleaner". This uses sounds waves to remove deposits from used wine barrels and kill microorganisms in the wood. They also produce an "Ultrasonic Defoaming System" to allow beer cans to be filled more quickly by suppressing the head. R&D for this is carried out at University of South Australia.

Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct

My last day in South Australia I spent in the Adelaide North Terrace Cultural Precinct. North Terrace runs east west on the northern edge of the Adelaide central business district, next to the Torrens River. Within a kilometer along the terrace are campuses of the Universities of Adelaide and South Australia, the State Library, Museum and Art Gallery.

I stayed in the Hotel Richmond, which is located in an arcade between the main shopping precinct (Rundle Mall) at the front and North Terrace behind.

On the next corner is the Centre for Defence Communications & Information Networking (DSIC), where I met the director, Dr Bruce Northcote who was giving a talk that evening to the ACS. The previous evening I had given a talk on how the IT industry could help defence. The building housing DSIC has a learning commons on the ground floor, with informal computer equipped meeting spaces for students.

As befits a high technology university building, the one housing DSIC had the most complicated lift buttons I have ever seen: to call am lift, rather than pressing a button for "up", you enter the floor you wish to go to. Presumably the lift control system then optimises the traffic.

I walked through the Adelaide University grounds to the banks of the Torrens Rive, where there are kilometres of cycling and walking tracks. A short walk up the river and around the corner was the State Library of South Australia. In the cafe I happened across Dr Genevieve Bell , Intel Fellow, Digital Home Group Director, User Experience Group, Intel Corporation, who talked in Canberra last week.

Engineering Education Hubs and Spokes Project

The ‘Hubs and Spokes’ Project is a Australian National University and University of South Australia collaboration for teaching engineering in a blended mode. My course about solving climate change with ICT features on the new web site for the project.

Consortium of Indian Universities in Adelaide

A consortium of Indian universities is to establish a campus in Adelaide. Students will spend a year at the new institution in Adelaide and then move to a South Australian University:

The Icfai University has entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state of South Australia to set up its campus at Adelaide.

Initially, the university is planning to launch postgraduate management programmes in a leased space in Adelaide this year before setting up a full-fledged campus with other courses over a period.

The MoU was signed by the visiting South Australia premier Mike Rann and Icfai University chairman Subhash Sarnikar here on Saturday. ...

.... The students would spend a year in the Icfai campus in Adelaide and the second year at an existing university.

In the process, they get degrees or diplomas from both the universities ...

From: Icfai to set up campus in South Australia, BS Reporter, Business Standard Ltd, Hyderabad, March 17, 2008

According to its web site, ICFAI University is made up of separate universities sponsored by the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. These are located in Uttarakhand, Tripura, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Jharkhand and each is a separate university under Indian law. This could make the administration of students in Adelaide quite complex.

ICFAI University offer Flexible Learning Programs, up to the Masters level, inlcuding in new areas, such as Cyber Law. Flexible Learning could offer an interesting challenge to Australian universities with traditional modes of teaching and traditional course content.

The web sites for the Nagaland and Jharkhand universities do not appear to have been established yet.

According to the Wikipedia there is a legal dispute in India and USA involving ICFAI over the use the term Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).