Designing for Dialogue

Lyn Stephens, Director of the Australian Centre for Dialogue Project dropped in on Friday. The project's aim is to provide facilities people to discuss issues of public interest. Lyn wanted to see how technology could help foster discussion, both in real and virtual spaces, so visited me at the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Purple Pickle

First stop was the Purple Pickle Cafe. Located in the sports building opposite the engineering building, this provides an informal place for people to meet and discuss ideas. The Cafe is serviced by the university wireless network, so hand held computers can be used. But this is primarily a place for people to people communication. The lack of walls allows people to have seemingly chance encounters which would not be feasible in offices or meeting rooms. A similar function is carried out by Aussies Café in Parliament House.

N101

Next stop was the famous room N101, the seminar room shared by the Research School of Computer Science and the CSIRO ICT centre. This is in the purpose designed Computer Science and Information Technology Building. Room N101 has been the location for numerious seminars, some of which have changed the direction of the computer industry, the Austrlaian government and society. Some events were Senator Lundy's Public Sphere #1 – High Bandwidth for Australia, and BarCamp Canberra 2010.

The room is shaped like a wedge of lemon, with the point cut off. There is floor to ceiling glass around the curve and doors allowing events to flow out into the gardens. For formal presentations, chairs are arranged in curved rows focusing on the front wall.

The front wall was previously painted white, with three video projectors forming a wall to wall floor to ceiling high resolution Access Grid node. However, the access grid proved inflexible for general use and has been replaced. At the same time a small platform at the front of the room has been removed, making a completely flat floor.

N101 is now equipped with a standard unviersity computer console and screen. This provides a computer linked to a video projector which can be used to present and to also record a podcast (using ANU's bespoke Digital Lecture Delivery System). There are microphones on the ceiling to record audio, along with whatever is projected.

The built-in computer can also access the ANU's Wattle Learning System, allowing the same materials which students use individually on their own computers to be displayed to a group. This includes the Moodle Learning Management System used for providing content and hosting text based forums. There is also access for webinars (web based video and audio real time conferences).

One important aspect of N101's setup is that the same software used for education can also be used for a conference, or for a dialogue. This removes the need to find, install, learn and maintain special software. The same technical support staff who look after the software for the learning system can also support seminars, conferences and dialogue sessions.

On the day Lyn visited a software engineering workshop was taking place, so the furniture was arranged seemingly randomly, with groups of students clustered around wireless laptops, while some used the main screen to rehearse a group presentation. The most important technology in the room is invisible: the wireless networking.

CIST Common Room

Next stop was the CIST staff room. This is a wedge shaped room, the mirror image of N101, on the opposite side of the building. It is usual for the catering for an event in N101 to be provided in the common room. This provides a break from the formality of the seminar room.

A quirk of the design is that there are two septate doors next to each other labelled "ANU" and "CSIRO", but with both doors leading into the same room. The room is mirrored with the CSIRO kitchen on one side and ANU on the other and no physical barrier between. This allows the two organisations to have their own "space", but to literally meet in the middle. A similar subtle form of zoning is now used in learning commons at universities to mark areas for different purposes, without using walls.

Ian Ross Building

Next to the CIST Building and linked by a bridge is the Ian Ross building, which is notable for its passive cooling and movable wall partitions. The ground floor has a space which can be divided in different ways as required, although the new trend is to divide spaces with glass, rather than opaque partitions. The building also holds a Graduate Teaching Room, with the same computer console as N101 and modular tables. The tables can be arranged in rows like a classroom, but are usually arranged cabaret style, for groups of six students.

Engineering Building

Across another link bridge and last stop on the tour was the Engineering Building. This has a lecture theatre equipped with a power point for each seat, along with the same type of wireless network and computer console as N101.

Floors for the Future

Also I showed Lyn a sample of Cable Management Flooring. While wireless data communications can now be mostly used for data, there is still a need for cables for power in a room. Instead of having fixed locations for wires, these can be run anywhere under the raised floor panels. The panels can also be laid over an existing floor, allowing old buildings to be refurbished.

Flat Floors and Straight Walls Work

The engineering buildings at ANU do not look as exciting as some meeting venues, such as the interactive and multimedia environment used at Greenbuild 2010. Susan S. Szenasy in "Luminous Buildings, Sleepy Rooms" describes this as a "theatre-in-the-round" with visuals projected on a cube hanging from the ceiling. However, Sean Penrith pointed out some flaws in this design in "Greenbuild 2010: EPS Goes TED", with the presenters having to walk and turn to face the audience completely surrounding them, while on a narrow raised platform. They also have to pass one hand held remote control for the projection system between multiple presenters. Rooms such as ANU's N101 provide a practical flexible space. The flat floor, a wedge shape and a well equipped multimedia console, provide for traditional presentations and group interaction.

ps: Build a Library

One aim of the Australian Centre for Dialogue Project is to build a landmark building beside Lake Burley Griffin, near Questacon and the National Library. This is the same location proposed by the Australia Forum for a meeting centre. The two projects are seeing how they can achieve common aims and incorporate online technology to provide meeting facilities beyond a building in Canberra.

One aspect of the proposed location which neither project seems to have incorporated is the adjacent National Library of Australia (NLA). This is one of the world's leading centres in the use of computer based systems for interacting with the public. The NLA was key to the implementation of web sites for the Australian Government, hosting the first government "home page". The library runs regular computer enhanced events and also interacts with the public directly online.

The library is also seen to be at arms length from the Parliament and so could host public discussions, free from the perception of government interference. This is a traditional role for libraries, as dramatically demonstrated by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which played a part in the recent overthrow of the Egyptian government.

Redesigning the Australian Government Online

On Saturday, March 28, 2009 I attended Bar Camp Canberra 2 in the famous Room N101 at ANU. This event was broadly about Internet, web and open source software, but being in Canberra, the theme evolved into using the technology to improve government processes. This free event was far better run and useful than most of the professionally run conferences I attend.

BarCamp is a series of user generated conferences, also described as "un-conferences". The venue and broad theme is set by the organisers, but the speakers and topics are volunteered by the attendees on the day. After getting a name tag, which you adorn with your blog or twitter tags, you can write a proposed topic on a post it note and stick it in a slot on the timetable on the wall. The early slots tend to fill up first, so a tip seems to be to get in early. There were two streams in two rooms and the primary room (N101) filled up first.

The organisers provide a minimum of structure to keep things moving, cutting off discussion to keep to time and making some rearrangements to the timetable. The audience is encouraged to interrupt the speaker at any point and there is a lively discussion at the end of most presentations.

About a quarter of the people seems to have a laptop or some sort of hand held device and be engaged in some sort of discussion of the presentations. There is a twitter tag for the event (#bcc2) and the list of these comments was put up on screen between speaker presentations. Also several people seemed to be preparing or modifying there presentations during the day. I only decided to speak after I got to the event and then prepared my talk in the next hour or so.

The quality of the presentations was mostly very high, with good slides. At some points I had difficulty understanding some of the twiteresq jargon used. One presentation from another ANU lecturer on Internet marketing was so full of unfamiliar terminology I had no idea what the presentation was about. Perhaps I will need to purchase their forthcoming book on the subject to find out what it was about. ;-)

I had a feeling of déjà vu when several speakers discussed how to get the Australian Government to adopt new ways of working using Internet based technology. This was very much the geeks saying: "this is so obvious why don't they get it, do it or get out of our way and let us do it". I recall taking part in such discussions about introducing Internet, email and the web to government, starting about 13 years ago. What was a little disappointing is that this batch of young Turks have not learnt from history and have not looked at how we managed to get Internet, email and the web into government a decade ago. A more subtle strategy is needed than just telling people to do something.

In 1995 at the AUUG Sixth Annual Canberra Conference in a presentation of Internet in Government I proposed a strategy for introducing the Internet into the Australian Government. This was essentially that we implement it at the working level and then, once proven successful, allow our executive and Ministers to take credit for it retrospectively. This strategy proved so successful that few realised what happened.

The "Internet conspiracy" was not exactly a secret, with a loose coalition of public servants, company employees and academics discussing the issue online and at computer conferences. Some later phases got more controversial, such as resistance to the regulation of the Internet. However even here the cabal was reasonably open, as document by Peter Chen in his PHD thesis "Australia's online censorship regime : the advocacy coalition framework and governance compared". Also I talked about it on ABC radio in "Filtering Porn on the Internet: Imperfect by Necessity".

While I was worried about speaking at BarCamp on as serious a topic as web for bushfire emergencies, I found I was not the first such speaker. One of the Google staff talked about the mapping system they provided for the Victorian fires. It would appear there is sufficient interest, expertise and resources to build a coordinated Internet based emergency system for Australia. This could be done be the web community, with the government needing to provide little more than endorsement of the finished product.

My advocacy of the use of email, mailing lists and Web 1.0 in government probably seems very quaint and old fashioned to the twitter users a decade later. I look forward to attending more BarCamps and learning new ways to do old things, if not new ways to do new things. ;-)

Blended Learning in China

Ms. Chen WANG of Beihang University (Beijing), will speak on "Blended Learning in China" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 3:30pm, 20 September 2011 in the famous room N101:

ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science

Blended Learning in China

Ms. Chen WANG (Beihang University in Beijing, China)

EDUCATION INNOVATION SERIES

DATE: 2011-09-20
TIME: 15:30:00 - 16:30:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101, Computer Science & Information Technology Building
CONTACT: kim.blackmore@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
This seminar describes the development of blended learning in China, also including the impact of Chinese culture and information technology development in Chinese higher education.

Blended learning is attracting a lot of attention in the English speaking world and some Asian countries, but there is less information about the use of blended learning in China. Most education research and open education resources are published in Chinese so it is difficult for English speakers to learn about current state of the system. In this talk we will give an overview of some government initiatives in blended learning as well as highlight some of the key players in education research and innovation in China. We will also introduce some successful stories from different point of view.

BIO:
Ms. Chen WANG is a PHD student whose specialty is Education Technology. She majored in information management as an undergraduate and software engineering as Master degree. She worked in a university in Beijing and then found her interests in applying information and communication technology in higher education, so she decided to quit her job and become a full-time PHD student. Ms. Chen WANG was also a United Nations Volunteer to upgrade an online platform of Beijing volunteering management.

Ms. Chen WANG is interested in blended learning, so has come to ANU or three months to learn more from the Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project. Her supervisor is Dr. Kim Blackmore.

Liquid Journals: Rethinking knowledge dissemination

Fabio Casati, University of Trento, will give a free seminar on "Rethinking knowledge dissemination: Liquid Knowledge, Science Mashups, and other Research Trends", hosted by the CSIRO ICT Centre, in the famous Room N101, Computer Science and Information Technology Building at the Australian National University in Canberra, 11am, 22 November 2010:

Seminar Announcement

ICT Centre, Acton
CSIRO

Date: Monday, 22 November 2010
Time: 1100--1200
Venue: Room N101, CSIT Building [Building 108]

Speaker: Fabio Casati

Title: Rethinking knowledge dissemination: Liquid Knowledge, Science Mashups, and other Research Trends at the University of Trento

Abstract:

The way scientific knowledge is created, disseminated, searched, consumed, and evaluated has been essentially the same for centuries, largely oblivious to the Web revolution. Despite technology, today it is very hard to find knowledge of interest - harder than it is to find interesting web pages - despite a HUGE effort done by the community in filtering it (e.g., via peer review) and in evaluating it (via metrics of dubious effectiveness, such as citation count). The growing community of researchers and exploding number of publication venues makes it even more difficult to navigate the sea of information.

This talk will describe Liquid Journals, which are a way to find, consume, create, and share interesting and relevant scientific knowledge.

They are based on a few key intuitions. The first is that scientific knowledge is not communicated (only) via isolated scientific papers, linked to each other via citations. Rather, it is exists in different kinds (data, experiments, ideas,...), it is communicated in different forms (papers, talks, blogs), it evolves almost continuously over time, and it is connected in a knowledge network (papers describe experiments that are built over datasets, all based on ideas inspired from other talks or blogs). The second intuition is that the network which would be so useful to navigate in the sea of scientific knowledge is not objective, but is rather subjective. Whether a paper is inspired from another, or whether a person contributed to a paper may be proven facts or may be opinions, which may also take different forms. The third intuition is that we can use the power of the community as editors to help us select knowledge among a sea of information, rather than leaving this role to a selected few. The fourth intuition is that editors and the community of readers can create knowledge. This is a huge potential that is currently untapped for various social and technical reasons, but that can be used to service the scientific community.

This talk will present the main ideas behind liquid journals and other liquid and collaborative knowledge dissemination models, and then focus on the services and social computing side, describing the IT infrastructure that enables each of us to provide, create, consume, and share scientific knowledge.

The talk will also provide an overview of other research done in Trento, and specifically on end-user mashups, process compliance, and social well-being.

Biography:

Fabio Casati is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Trento. He got his PhD from the Politecnico di Milano and then worked for over 7 years in Hewlett- Packard USA, where he was technical lead for the research program on business process intelligence. Fabio has also contributed (as software and data architect) to the development of several HP commercial products and solutions in the area of web services and business process management. In Trento, he is leading or participating to five FP7 projects, is active in many industry-funded projects, both local and international, and has over 30 patents. His passions are now in social informatics, or, informatics at the service of the community. His latest efforts are on prevention of non-communicable diseases, on remote and real-time healthcare, on collaborative programming, and on models for scientific disseminations that can help scientists work in a more efficient way.

Using Private Data for Public Purposes Securely

Greetings from the famous room N101 at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where Professor Bradley Malin of Vanderbilt University is speaking on "Towards Practical Private Data Integration and Analysis".  He is describing the problem of using medical records to detect public health problems. People's medical records need to be kept private, but access is needed to this information to detect an outbreak of disease or an adverse drug reaction. Researchers are investigating ways to protect privacy and also make use of the data, such as Homomorphic Encryption. The mathematics involved is complex, but some of the techniques are easy to understand. One is that fields which have only a few values, such as gender, need to be scrambled more than some which many values (such as address). He has implemented this in the Secure Open Enterprise Master Patient Index (SOEMPI) is software tool. Testing of the security of such techniques is traditionally carried out by trying match public information provided by government about individuals with that which is private. The most common example of public records in the USA is voter registration. However, individuals now provide much more information themselves via the Internet. Does this additional information make such attacks easier?

One of his papers is "A Practical Approach to Achieve Private Medical RecordLinkage in the Face of Public Resources".

Towards Practical Private Data Integration and Analysis

Assoc Prof Bradley Malin (Vanderbilt University, Nashville)

CECS SEMINAR SERIES

DATE: 2013-08-26
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
CONTACT: peter.christen@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
Over the past decade, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that data devoid of explicit identifiers can be linked back to the identities of the individuals from which it was derived. This has made organizations increasingly apprehensive about sharing person-specific information. Yet, with the dawn of the big data age upon us, it is imperative that data sharing proliferate to ensure that researchers can validate published research findings, combine datasets to discover novel associations, and comply with open data initiatives. In this talk, I will review recent research on privacy preserving data integration strategies that are efficient, effective, and obscure personal identities in the process. This talk will further illustrate how such integration can enable biomedical association studies while obfuscating the identities of the corresponding participants.
BIO:
Bradley Malin, Ph.D., is the Vice Chair for Research and an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. He is also an Associate Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and is Affiliated Faculty in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society. He is the founder and current director of the Health Information Privacy Laboratory (HIPLab), conducts technologies that enable privacy in the context of real world organizational, political, and health information architectures. Dr. Malin's research has been cited by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and featured in popular media outlets, including Nature News, Scientific American, and Wired magazine. He has received several awards of distinction from the American and International Medical Informatics Associations and, in 2009, he was honored as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Dr. Malin completed his education at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, where he received a bachelor's in biological sciences, a master's in data mining and knowledge discovery, a master's in public policy and management, and a doctorate in computer science.

hCalendar Microformat in Moodle Courseware System

Perhaps someone could try my first attempt at hCalendar and let me know if it is syntactically correct? hCalendar is a microformat for embedding event details in web pages.

The calendar function in the Moodle courseware system doesn't have hCalendar built in. So I used hCalendar creator to mark up the date, time and other details. I then pasted that into the Moodle editor. Just pasting the entry as is did not look very pretty, so I marked up the text as a normal looking web page. Hopefully I did not break any of the hCalendar markup in the process.

The microformats idea is clever, in that the hCalendar metadata is added to a normal web page, rather than creating some special new type of document. This is an important feature of the microformats approach: you are not required to implement a strict data format, just use the markup around the bits of the document containing the data for the particular Microformat. The software reading the microformat will ignore the parts of the web page not marked. This is a more flexible approach than creating a special XML document and then transforming it to be readable.

In theory, suitably equipped web browsers should be able to detect the hCalendar. But I don't have such software, so if someone could try it, that would be useful.

hCalendar Code

hCalendar creator is a web service which allows you to type details of an event into a web form and have the hCalendar generated. This is useful for seeing how hCalandar works (ideally the facility will be built into whatever scheduler program you use). The form promos you for the summary, location, url, start time, end tims, timezone and description of the event. It generates two version of the hCalendar: one whitespace to make the code readable and a compact version.

Example code for event:

<div class="vevent" id="hcalendar-Broadband-for-Environmental-Sustainability">
<a class="url" href="http://education.acs.org.au/calendar/view.php?view=day&course=55&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;cal_d=19&cal_m=9&cal_y=2007">
<abbr class="dtstart" title="20070919T1730+1000">September 19th 5:30pm</abbr>,
<abbr class="dtend" title="20070920T1900+1000"> 7pm 2007</abbr> —
<span class="summary">Broadband for Environmental Sustainability</span>— at
<span class="location">Australian National University, Room N101, Computer Science Building, North Road, Canberra</span>
</a>
<div class="description">Professor Eckermann argues that broadband telecommunications can be used to make a positive contribution to environmental sustainability. Energy inefficient activities can be displaced with earth-friendly alternatives, such as renting a movie via the Internet (avoiding trips to and from the video store), working some days from home (saving travel costs and easing pressures on the road) or using "networked intelligence" to manage energy and water consumption more efficiently.</div>
<p style="font-size: smaller;">This
<a href="http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar">hCalendar event</a> brought to you by the
<a href="http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator">hCalendar Creator</a>.
</p>
</div>

This renders in the web browser as:

September 19th 5:30pm, 7pm 2007 — Broadband for Environmental Sustainability— at Australian National University, Room N101, Computer Science Building, North Road, Canberra

Professor Eckermann argues that broadband telecommunications can be used to make a positive contribution to environmental sustainability. Energy inefficient activities can be displaced with earth-friendly alternatives, such as renting a movie via the Internet (avoiding trips to and from the video store), working some days from home (saving travel costs and easing pressures on the road) or using "networked intelligence" to manage energy and water consumption more efficiently.

This hCalendar event brought to you by the hCalendar Creator.

This is not the format I want on my web page, so instead I took the various bits of markup for hCalandar and inserted them into my page.

So where I had the start time, I added around it the markup:

<abbr class="dtstart" title="20070919T1730+1000">September 19th 5:30pm<

Around the summary I added:

<span class="summary">Broadband for Environmental Sustainability</span>

This points up two different ways the Microformats are marked up. In the case of the time, the data is duplicated in the added markup. The date and time are endcoded in the added abbreviation tag as "20070919T1730+1000" as well as appearing in the rendered text ("September 19th 5:30pm"). In the case of the summary, the visible text is used as the data.

There is a waste of space and the risk of confusion in the way the time is encoded. Ideally none of the data would be duplicated and the same values would be machine readable and displayable, but the limitations of existing HTML do not make this possible.

ps: The entry is for a real event in Canberra. All those with an interest in broadband and the environment are welcome to attend.

iPhone computer music concert, Canberra, 8 April 2009

The Australian National University will be hosting an experimental interactive computer music concert, using iPhones, 8pm, 8 April 2009. This is in the famous Room N101, CIST Building, ANU, North Road, Canberra:

As part of their projects in the area of Live Coding for Computer
Music, two of our PhD students will be presenting a concert tomorrow
evening (Wednesday 8th April) in N101 of the CS&IT building. This will be
the first in a series of concerts, tentatively badged as the "iMates"
series. Part of the concert will be a technical trial of audience
participation in music generation and, if you have an iPhone or iPod you
will be able to download software on the night and participate in this
event.

All are welcome. Enquiries to Ben.Swift(a)anu.edu.au

Just to clarify a few points:

- the concert starts at 8pm
- the series is tentatively called "inMates"
- you need to have an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Make sure they are fully
charged
- even if you don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the concert should be
interesting and enjoyable

Dr Henry Gardner
Reader and Head,
School of Computer Science
College of Engineering and Computer Science
Australian National UniversityCanberra ACT 0200 Australia
ANU CRICOS # 00120C

Cloud Computing as a Client-Server Architecture

Roger Clarke will talk on "User Requirements for Cloud Computing Architecture" in the famous Room N101, at the Australian National University in Canberra, 11am, 28 May 2010.

The Australian National University
College of Engineering and Computer Science

COMPUTER SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM SERIES

User Requirements for Cloud Computing Architecture
Roger Clarke, Adjunct Professor (SoCS, ANU)

DATE: 2010-05-28
TIME: 11:00:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101

ABSTRACT:
The literature on software architecture for cloud computing is focussed largely on the service-provider. It fails to reflect the fact that cloud computing is a form of client-server relationship. Architectures must also encompass both the software and devices that users utilise in order to invoke functions in the cloud, and intermediary functions. A further problem with analyses to date is inadequate reflection of the risks that users are subject to when they use cloud services. This paper proposes a comprehensive model that reflects user needs, and identifies implications of the model for computer scientists working in the area.

BIO:
From 1984-95, Roger Clarke was Reader in Information Systems in ANU's then Department of Commerce. Since then he has been back in full-time consultancy through his company, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd. He focuses on strategic and policy aspects of eBusiness, information infrastructure and dataveillance and privacy.

He has retained his connections with academe as a Visiting Fellow in the ANU Department of Computer Science (1995-2005) and as an Adjunct Professor from April 2005. He is also a Visiting Professor in eCommerce at the University of Hong Kong (2002-), and a Visiting Professor in Cyberspace Law & Policy at UNSW (2003-). He has also undertaken Gastprofessur at the Universities of Bern (Switzerland) and Linz (Austria), and been a Gastdozent at the European Business School and the University of Koblenz (both in Germany).

Designing a Learning Commons for Computer Science

The computer labs on the ground floor of the Computer Science and Information Technology Building (CSIT) at the Australian National University are due to be re-equipped. Rather than just replace the old computers with new ones, I have suggested turning the entire ground floor (about 800 square metres) into a teaching and learning commons.

Current Building Design

The award winning CSIT Building was purpose designed for computer science in the mid 1990s, with input by computer scientist Dr. David Hawking.

The building was ahead of its time being designed for high performance computer data cabling and work environments have been provided for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, as well as project work.

The ground floor area originally had a seminar room (the famous N101), two smaller project rooms N118, N102), a computer museum in the foyer (N120), two tutorial rooms (N108, N109), five smaller prac rooms (N110 to N114), and two larger prac rooms (N115, N116).

Later N110 and N111 were re-purposed as postgraduate rooms. Half the dividing wall between the larger prac rooms (N115, N116) was removed to make a larger computer equipped teaching space.

The remaining prac rooms (N112 to N116) are equipped with parallel benches running down the room fitted with desktop computers. There are projection screens at the front of the rooms.

There is a student foyer near the main entrance, this has a notice board shared printers.

Issues With the Spaces

The computer equipment is due for replacement. However, this provides the opportunity to rethink the use of the space.

Changes in Teaching Practice

The facility was designed with a bifurcation of teaching practice on the main axis. There are tutorial rooms on the southern side of the main corridor and prac rooms (computer labs) on the northern side. The tutorial rooms were designed for medium sized groups using conventional face to face teaching techniques lead by a tutor (without computers). The prac rooms were designed for individuals or small groups of students to work, with or without supervision, but without formal presentations.

The prac rooms have now evolved to allow for group instruction, with a presenter at the front of the room, as well as continuing to be used for small group and individual work.

Individual and small group work has different requirements to large group work and there is there for a compromise in the room design. This is seen most obviously in the combined room N115/N116, which has a half wall down the centre of the room. This wall allows the room to be used for two small separate groups, but when used as one large room half the class can't see the other.

Changes In Technology

The ANU Research School of Computer Science is a leader in the development of open source software and operating systems. ANU uses a mix of Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows operating systems. There are also new options with students using their own laptops, net books and tablet computers.

The use of "cloud" computing and web based interfaces is rendering the issues of the desktop hardware and operating system used to be largely irrelevant. It is suggested that students, particularly Computer Science students should be expected to have their own mobile computing device, be it a laptop or tablet. The unviersity then just need to provide wireless networking to the learning management system and major computing resoruces.

Computer Assisted Learning

In the last few years ANU has made a major investment in e-learning with the development of the "Wattle" system using the Moodle learning management system and related software. CECS is a leader in the use of this technology for blended learning with the Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project and for e-learning with the award winning ICT Sustainability course.

As a result CECS will require fewer large lecture theatres seating hundreds of students and more small computer equipped flexible teaching rooms seating 24 to 48 students. Also space will be required for students to work alone or in small groups with computer access.

This creates both an opportunity and a problem. The Colledge will not need to use external lecture theatres as much (these spaces being unsuitable for modern teaching practices) but will require new spaces for teaching. Other colleges, such as commerce and law have constructed new buildings with "Harvard" style rooms for group teaching. However, there is not the space, nor is there likely to be the funding for the construction of these in the CSIT building. Also these Harvard style rooms are not optimal for modern teaching as they do not have a flat floor.

Suggested Approach: Design a Learning Centre

Fitting the conflicting requirements into a small space in the CSIT building is a complex task. However, some recent developments in teaching space design can be adapted. Advances in computer technology can also make the task easier.

The suggested approach is to:

1. Retain Seminar Room: The existing N101 seminar room should be retained essentially unchanged. The previous raised platform at the front of the room has already been removed, to provide a flat floor for the entire space.

2. Re-purpose display room: The current computer display room at the entry to the building is not effective. The exhibits could instead be provided on flat panel wall screen in the foyer and the room used for meetings.

3. Remove Desktop Computers: Using the approach suggested by Dr Kathy Lynch at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the ground floor of the building could be modeled along the lines of a high technology business of the type IT students would aspire to work for (or own). To achieve that look, the central entrance and open plan area could be remodeled as the entrance and reception area. This would provide a place for students to meet and to find out about activities. This area would be also used during breaks in evening courses when the refectory areas of the ANU may not be open.

The current prac rooms have a very low seating density, resulting in great flexibility but limited capacity. It suggested that all desktop computers be removed and students required to bring their own mobile device instead. This will then allow the large fixed benches to be replaced with smaller fold up tables on wheels. It should also allow the space to accommodate twice as many students overall.

The foyer would be equipped as an informal "cafe" with tables and benches equipped with power points for student laptops. Some spaces would be equipped with wall mounted screens for small group work by students. These could be modelled on the UNSW Eora Exchange (by lahznimmo architects) and the Southbank Institute of Technology Library. Other useful examples are the University of Canberra Teaching and Learning Commons, ANU Hancock West, and University of Adelaide Hub Central.

4. TEAL Room: The internal walls would be removed from the western end of the ground floor to create one large 18 x 18 m "TEAL" room, like that at the University of Canberra Inspire Centre. This would accommodate classes of up to 120 students. The TEAL room would open out onto the cafe.

If computer based examinations need to be accommodated, then the TEAL room could be lined with aluminium foil insulation, which would block most external wireless data access. Students could use their own laptop, a specially filtered WiFi system and a monitored, hosted IT system for their examinations. Students would only be permitted to use their laptops as terminals to the examination server, with any data copied from elsewhere detected and reported by the system.

For further items see:

1. Classroom Design
   
2. Flexible learning centre
   
3. Learning commons

Turning a classroom into a flexible learning space

These are some suggestions for the conversion of rooms into a flexible learning center. The example is for the Department of Computer Science (DCS) at the Australian National University, but may be of interest to others.

Only the design of the physical layout is covered, and it is assumed the spaces will be used for traditional teaching, as well as computer aided blended learning and studio teaching. It is based on recent visits to USC, UQ, the MIT iCampus, and having delivered a course in the existing labs and at a remote location. Please note that these are suggestions only and do not necessarily represent the policy of the ANU.

Why Build a Flexible Space?

The initial reason to look at changing the DCS spaces is that the furniture is in need of replacement is some of the computer labs. There is also the opportunity to correct some deficiencies in the rooms and provide for more learning options. These include blended learning combining computer based and face to face instruction, mini-lectures (10 to 30 minutes), computer based tutorials, group working, student presentations, computer based assessment, remote presentations and remote group work.

The rooms are equipped with light gray laminate benches with steel legs. The benches have the look of a chemistry laboratory, which does not provide the right business office atmosphere for IT work. The legs of the benches are at the front, making it more difficult for a group of students to work together.

One deficiency in the design is that there are limited facilities provided for a presenter. There is an open space at the front of the room with a wall mounted projection screen and white board. An overhead projector on a trolley is provided. However, there is no desk, computer or lectern provided for the presenter and no provision for placing a projector to use with the screen.

The lab computers are placed facing the side walls of the room. As a result the students have to turn 90 degrees to be able to see the screen or presenter. Th were intended for computer based work, not presentation.

The rooms have some good points, such as a generous allocation of space per student (1200 x 900 mm of desk), wide walkways for instructor access (1800 mm) and garden views from full length windows along the back (and for the two end rooms, side windows as well).

Other Options

Students at the ANU learn in many ways, including lectures, tutorials, laboratory sessions, exercises and assignments. Some of these activities have purpose built rooms associated with them, particularly lectures, tutorials and laboratories.

Computer based learning is now supplementing, and in some cases replacing, these spaces and the modes of learning they are used for. It is not clear which mode of learning will be most useful, and this will differ from subject to subject and for different students. Therefore spaces which can accommodate different techniques are needed. Rooms which can only be used for one learning style and with one type of elelctronic technology will have limited use.

With its iCampus project, MIT built an online facility for experiments and a matching TEAL rooms. These rooms hold 100 students at "cabaret" style round tables, with the instructor in the center presenting "in the round" and electronic screens on the walls. The students work in groups of three, sharing one computer.

The eZones at the Biological Sciences Library Building, University of Queensland (UQ) hold 11 to 20 students, each with a computer. The room is oriented on an axis, with two long curved benches running down the room and the presenter at one end, but electronic screens at each end.

Monash University’s School of Information Management & Systems used a room for 25 students for its Bauhaus studio style of teaching, with a center large table and semicircular desks on each side.

CIST Building

The ANU's Computer Science and Information Technology Building (CSIT) has the ground floor devoted to seminar rooms, computer labs and other teaching spaces. Included at one end of the ground floor is N101, which despite its name, is used for advanced computer science and CSIRO ICT seminars.

A central corridor runs down the middle of the building, with tutorial rooms on the southern side and computer labs on the northern side. Half way along on the southern side is an entrance and open plan area.

The central corridor is windowless for most of its length creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. There is limited space near the door for students to gather informally.

Information Technology Business Center

Using the approach suggested by Dr Kathy Lynch at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the ground floor of the building could be modeled along the lines of a high technology business of the type IT students would aspire to work for (or own). To achieve that look, the central entrance and open plan area could be remodeled as the entrance and reception area. This would provide a place for students to meet and to find out about activities. This area would be also used during breaks in evening courses when the refectory areas of the ANU may not be open.

Cybercafe

One of the existing tutorial rooms next to the foyer, or the lab next to N101, would be remodeled as a cybercafe, with a kitchen, cafe tables and a bench seat around the wall with data points and power for laptops. This would be used for informal gatherings and for students wanting to work alone at the bench. It would also be used for breaks in courses and for drinks before or after public seminars. The existing drink and snack dispensing machines in the corridor would be moved to the cafe.

Tutorial rooms

The existing tutorial rooms would be retained in their current configuration. Consideration could be given to installing glass partitioning in the walls, or larger glass panels in the doors, to make the corridor more open to the outside. Flat panel screens could be installed for presentations in rooms using notebook computers.

Consideration could be given to building a thin client computer into the flat panel screen for presentations. This would run Linux applications locally and Micrsosoft Windows applications via a remote server.

Computer Labs

The computer labs would be remodeled with new curved benches, similar to the eZones in the Biological Sciences Library Building, University of Queensland. These would be long benches joined to the wall at one end (for data and power access) and curving out into the room. Students would sit on one side of the benches where the are against the wall and both sides otherwise. The end of one bench would hold the instructor's console, with an equipment cabinet underneath.

The seating would be arranged to allow students to see the end of the room with the instructor. A projection screen and white board (with optional interactive white board capture device, Interactive whiteboard, and/or air mouse) would be located on the wall behind the instructor. A smaller flat panel screen, showing the same image as the main screen, would be located on the opposite, and/or side walls, to enable the instructor to see the presentation and for any students who have difficulty seeing the front of the room. This would also allow the instructor to see what is presented without looking back at the main screen or down at their computer.

The desks would have wave, or sawtooth front, similar to those in the UNSW Law Library. The desks would vary in depth from 300 mm at the narrowest part to 800 mm at the widest. One student would sit in each trough of the wave, between two crests. The student would sit at 45 degrees to the wall (as in some business class aircraft seating). They would be able to look directly at their computer screen and, by looking 45 degrees to one side, see the instructor and white board. Each student would have 1200 mm width of desk space.

The desks would be supported from the back, with no legs at the front, allowing seating to be placed at any point. Cables would be carried in cable ways, under the desk at the back, with holes in the desktop for cable access. Under desk power points and shelves would be provided to hold cables, power supplies and communications devices.

Desks in the middle of the room would have students on each side, with the cantilever legs and cable-ways underneath in the middle. The desk surface would be shaped like a sting of pearls, with the crests of two waves coinciding. The top surface of the desk would be flat and unencumbered (apart from desktop computers), allowing the wide sections to be used in a similar way to circular tables for group work, with six students collaborating around each section.

Floor space allocation

Students in the current DCS labs have a combined desk and floor space of 1200 x 1800 mm, or 2.16 square metres each. Changing to curved desks would make them effectively less deep, reducing the floor space used to approximately 2 square metres per student.

The University of Melbourne guidelines recommend 2 square metres per student for a "Cabaret-Style" Collaborative Learning room. This is less than the 2.38 sq m per student for the MIT TEAL room and half the 1 sq m per student UoM specify for a lecture theater (1.5 sq m for a tutorial).

An ANU course, such as "Information Technology in Electronic Commerce " (COMP3410), has 31 hours of lectures and 14 hours of tutorial/laboratory sessions. Assuming the recommended UoM floor areas are used, this would require an average of 1.16 sq m per student per hour, less than half that of the MIT TEAL room. The refitted DCS labs with more space efficient than TEAL rooms, but much less than lecture theaters.

Example of N111

The DCS computer labs are each a slightly different size with doors, windows and columns in different locations. However, a typical room is 9,000 mm deep by 71050 mm wide, with a 600 to 1200 mm section of one corner of the room taken up with the doorway and widows at the far end and, in some cases, one side of the room.

Using N111 as an example: 9,000 x 9080 mm with a 600 mm cut-in for the door along one side, making an effective space of 9,000 x 8,480 mm. This would allow for four rows of six student places and two rows of five (minus one where the is a pillar), making thirty two student places, plus a presenter desk.

Modes of Learning

The labs would be used for:

1. Individual computer, desk work: One student would occupy each computer place.

2. Small group work: Groups of two or three students would cluster around each wave crest, sharing one computer.

3. Large group work: Groups of six students would cluster around the crests of two opposite waves of the center tables, sharing two computers.

4. Mini lecture/tutorial/presentation: Students would occupy each computer place and watch an instructor, or student group presentations on the white board or electronic screen. A terminal window would allow them to view the presentation on their own screen and they would be able to use the computer for exercises.

5. Remote presentation: Individual, small or large groups of students would watch a remote presentation on the large screen and their own computers. Cameras, microphones and Interactive white board capture devices in the room would allow the whiteboard, instructor and students to be seen and heard remotely.

The instructor's bench at the front of the room would be equipped with the same facilities as ANU lecture theaters, including a microphone and controls for recording lectures, and a computer.

The students would have standard personal computers, or thin client workstations, equipped for Linux and (optionally Microsoft Windows) applications.

What Not to Do

Freestanding tables: Individual circular tables, of the style of the iCampus TEAL room world require either underfloor cabling or conduits from the ceiling for data and power connections. Underfloor cabling would require either a false floor or drilling of the concrete. Interlocking flooring is an option, but is not proven in a learning environment. Overhead cable would require poles which would block vision. In any case, the freestanding desks would be fixed in place by the cabling and would not have the flexibility they first appear to have.

Open Plan: As show in Architecture Australia (Sep/Oct 07) on design of schools. and designs for Victorian Schools, there is a trend to use open plan for flexible learning. This has areas with different levels of formality separated only by partial height screens. However, Dr Lynch empathized the need to control noise and provide a sense of ownership of the space by the students. Noise control and privacy are difficult to achieve in a completely open plan space. Full height walls with doors are preferable. Doors and walls can have glass windows.

High tech gadgets: In his talk on the MIT TEAL room, Philip Long talked about the use of old fashioned chalk boards, as well as computers. It is suggested that the one instructor's station be equipped with the same controls to allow for presentations using the video projection screen from a computer and the same Digital Lecture Delivery system as in ANU lecture theaters. There should also be provision for a document camera, and/or overhead projector. However, the room should be able to function without any elelctronic gadgets.

Microsoft Windows: The Department of Computer Science predominantly uses Linux software. It is suggested that Microsoft Windows be accommodated using a remote server running the windows applications, with the user interactively via a terminal window on the Linus desktop. This will make maintenance easier and also will be useful experience for the IT students, as Microsoft Windows is likely to be phased out from the desktop by business and governments from 2008 onwards.

Designing a Learning Centre for Engineering and Computer Science

The computer labs on the ground floor of the Computer Science and Information Technology Building (CSIT) at the Australian National University are due to be re-equipped. Rather than just replace the old computers with new ones, this is to propose turning the entire ground floor (about 1,000 square metres) into an integrated learning centre.

The new Lilley Centre at Brisbane Grammar School provides a model with lecture theatre, smaller teaching spaces, learning commons, library and offices. This based on ALTC funded research and there is scope for further research in this area using the CECS Learning Centre as an experimental advanced teaching laboratory for evidence based pedagogy.

Current Building Design

The award winning CSIT Building was purpose designed for computer science in the mid 1990s, with input by computer scientist Dr. David Hawking.

The building was ahead of its time being designed for high performance computer data cabling and work environments have been provided for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, as well as project work.

The ground floor area originally had a seminar room (the famous N101), two smaller project rooms N118, N102), a computer museum in the foyer (N120), two tutorial rooms (N108, N109), five smaller prac rooms (N110 to N114), and two larger prac rooms (N115, N116).

Later N110 and N111 were re-purposed as postgraduate rooms. Half the dividing wall between the larger prac rooms (N115, N116) was removed to make a larger computer equipped teaching space.

The remaining prac rooms (N112 to N116) are equipped with parallel benches running down the room fitted with desktop computers. There are projection screens at the front of the rooms.

There is a student foyer near the main entrance, this has a notice board shared printers.

Issues With the Spaces

The computer equipment in the prac rooms is due for replacement. However, this provides the opportunity to rethink the use of the space and address other problems.

The area is open during normal unviersity office hours and is accessible by use of access card 24 hours a day. After hours access raises issues with the saftey of students and the clenliness of the facility.

Changes in Teaching Practice

The facility was designed with a bifurcation of teaching practice on the main axis. There are tutorial rooms on the southern side of the main corridor and prac rooms (computer labs) on the northern side. The tutorial rooms were designed for medium sized groups using conventional face to face teaching techniques lead by a tutor (without computers). The prac rooms were designed for individuals or small groups of students to work, with or without supervision, but without formal presentations.

The prac rooms have now evolved to allow for group instruction, with a presenter at the front of the room, as well as continuing to be used for small group and individual work.

Individual and small group work has different requirements to large group work and there is there for a compromise in the room design. This is seen most obviously in the combined room n115/N116, which has a half wall down the centre of the room. This wall allows the room to be used for two small separate groups, but when used as one large room half the class can't see the other.

Changes In Technology

The ANU Department of Computer Science is a leader in the development of open source software and operating systems. As a consequence the Linux operating system is installed on standard ANU computer hardware (DCS people helped develop Linux) in place of the usual Microsoft operating system elsewhere on the campus.

ANU uses a mix of Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows operating systems. There is now the option to "dual boot" these systems from the same hardware (along with Linux). There are also new options with students using their own laptops, net books and tablet computers.

However, there is a rapid change in this technology at present. Any large scale investment could be rendered obsolete within months.

The use of "cloud" computing and web based interfaces is rendering the issues of the desktop hardware and operating system used to be largely irrelevant. It is suggested that low power, small footprint models of the ANU's standard desktop computer hardware be used, retaining the use of the Linux operating system. Using a standard web browser, this is compatible with the ANU's online learning environment.

Computer Assisted Learning

In the last two years ANU has made a major investment in e-learning with the development of the "Wattle" system using the Moodle learning management system and related software. CECS is a leader in the use of this technology for blended learning with the Engineering Hubs and Spokes Project and for e-learning with the award winning Green Technology Strategies course.

As a result it is likely that CECS will require fewer large lecture theatres seating hundreds of students and more small computer equipped flexible teaching rooms seating 24 to 48 students. Also space will be required for students to work alone or in small groups with computer access.

This creates both an opportunity and a problem for CECS. The Colledge will not need to use external lecture theatres as much (these spaces being unsuitable for modern teaching practices) but will require new spaces for teaching. Other colleges, such as commerce and law have constructed new buildings with "Harvard" style rooms for group teaching. However, there is not the space, nor is there likely to be the funding for the construction of these in the CSIT building.

Suggested Approach: Design a Learning Centre

Fitting the conflicting requirements into a small space in the CSIT building is a complex task. However, some recent developments in teaching space design can be adapted. Advances in computer technology can also make the task easier.

The suggested approach is to:

1. Retain Seminar Room: The existing N101 seminar room should be retained essentially unchanged. One modification suggested is to remove the current raised platform at the front of the room, to provide a flat floor for the entire space. The current electronic lectern should be replaced with one equipped with the standard ANU computer and other facilities, including Digital Lecture Delivery.

2. Rehouse Computer Museum: The current computer museum is not an effective display, or good use of space and does not present a good first impression of DCS for visitors. The exhibits could instead be housed in glass cabinets placed against the glass wall of this room (and throughout the ground floor) and the rest of the room utilised for office space or by students. visitors would then look at the exhibits in the display to see computing history and then be able to look through the glass back wall of the display cabinet to see students engaged in computing of the future.

3. Provide different density and use spaces: Using the approach suggested by Dr Kathy Lynch at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the ground floor of the building could be modeled along the lines of a high technology business of the type IT students would aspire to work for (or own). To achieve that look, the central entrance and open plan area could be remodeled as the entrance and reception area. This would provide a place for students to meet and to find out about activities. This area would be also used during breaks in evening courses when the refectory areas of the ANU may not be open.

The current prac rooms have a very low seating density, resulting in great flexibility but limited capacity. It suggested that instead rooms with higher seating density and different layouts be provided. This will reduce the flexibility of the individual spaces, but provide increased flexibility overall. It should also allow the space to accommodate twice as many students overall.

Some areas would be equipped as informal "cafes" with tables and benches equipped with power points for student laptops. Some spaces would be equipped with wall mounted screens for small group work by students. These could be modelled on the UNSW Eora Exchange (by lahznimmo architects) and the Southbank Institute of Technology Library. Rooms with high density seating, each with a computer workstation would be provided. These could be modelled on the Ezones of UQ.

Some approaches to the design of such a space are indicated by Richard Kurk's design for the University of Queensland's new GPN4 (General Purpose North Four) building.

It suggested that the current approach of using fixed equipment in the CSIT Building be retained and the movable approach as provided by QUT's Learning Environments Support not be adopted.

4. Control After Hours Access: To provide for the safety of the students and security of facilities, after hours access should be controlled. The approach of the University of Canberra its remodelling of the library into a Learning Commons provides a useful example. In this case a small area is provided with separate air-conditioning and access control for 24 hour use, while the main building is shut down. As well as reducing energy use, this provides the students with a greater sense of security.

The spaces around the CSIT building main entry could be retained for after hours access, with more distant rooms closed off at night. During times of high demand (such as when assignments are due) more of the building could be progressively unlocked by the cars access system, through an automated system (or by remote security staff control).

For further items see:

1. Classroom Design
   
2. Flexible learning centre
   
3. Learning commons

Cloud Computing Security

Professor John Grundy, Swinburne University, will speak on "Model-driven software security engineering for the cloud" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 12 Noon, 31 July 2013.

Also, as noted by Senator Kate Lundy, Minister Assisting for the Digital Economy, the Federal Government released a National Cloud Computing strategy. The Australian Computer Society has released a Cloud Computing Consumer Protocol Discussion Paper and is inviting input for the consumer code. In the ACS Cloud Discussion Paper, cloud computing is defined as:

"... a general term for the delivery of hosted services over the internet, enabling users to remotely store, process and share digital information and data."

From: Cloud Computing Consumer Protocol, July 2013: http://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/19928/ACS-Cloud-Discussion-Paper.pdf

That would not seem to make it any different to a 1960s Time-sharing business.

Model-driven software security engineering for the cloud

Professor John Grundy (Swinburne University)

GENERAL Software Engineering

DATE: 2013-07-31
TIME: 12:00:00 - 13:30:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
CONTACT: lani.smales@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
Software security engineering is a challenging problem. The emergence of cloud computing platforms as a "new" way to deliver software services in many ways compounds the problem: multiple tenants have differing security requirements; service and cloud providers have differing (sometimes conflicting) security requirements and platforms; and many security issues are emergent at run-time as tenants, service providers, cloud providers and deployment environments all evolve. We describe our recent research into securing cloud-hosted software applications from cloud provider, service provider, and cloud consumer (tenant) perspectives. This includes a new infrastructure-as-a-service security monitoring appliance, a new platform-as-a-service security analysis, design and management framework, and a novel tenant security requirements capture and management console. We describe several evaluations of these approaches identifying key strengths and weaknesses and some of our on-going research in this area.
BIO:
John Grundy is Professor of Software Engineering and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of ICT at Swinburne University of Technology. Previously he was Head of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Swinburne, Head of Department for Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Director of Software Engineering, University of Auckland. He has published widely in the areas of automated software engineering, model-driven engineering, visual languages, software architecture and software methods and tools. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Software and Automated Software Engineering. He is currently the CORE Australia President, was on the ERA 2012 MIC Panel, and is on the Steering Committee for the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. He is a Fellow of Automated Software Engineering and Fellow of Engineers Australia.

Classroom design

Flinder's University has a useful Consideration Factors for Classroom Design, which gives an overview of some teaching theories, and learning styles , but stops short of actually discussing any actual classroom designs.

University of Missouri's Classroom Design: Layout, provides useful resource links, including: Recommended Room Layout Guidelines. The layout guidelines suggest a room two thirds as wide as it is long, with computer desks a minimum of 30 x 42 inches (about 762 x 1067 mm ), with 5 foot clearances (1524 mm) from the side of another desk and 7 foot (2134 mm) meters were desks are back to back. They suggest a minimum of 6 foot (1829 mm) between the front desk and the projection screen. However, the design has the teaching station in the corner of the room and doesn't seem to be intended for teacher presentations, just computer based work.

At the other extreme is Classroom Architect, which gives a web based drawing board where you can place desks, chairs, shelves and other classroom furniture. It has some limited intelligence, for example stopping you putting one desk on top of another, but otherwise does not do much more than a pencil and paper.

Build a Class, similarly allows you to lay out furniture, but the emphasis here is on computers, with laptops and desktops able to be positioned. This system also adds up the cost of your layout. What I would like is something which would stop me putting the desks too close together, or would point out that the students at the back could not see the whiteboard.

One design I came accross recently is the Hale School Technology Centre. This has what looks a bit like a backbone running down the room, with the computers at the spine and the vertbret being the desk wings. This uses a modular desk system called a Sweep Module from System Shawtec. These are cleverly designed to be able to be assembled into rows for a computer lab or clusers for a libary. However, the modules are designed for old fashed computers with deep CRT screens and tower processor boxes. As a result the desks are much larger than they need be for modern flat screens and min-boxes. Also the desks appear to need a joiner unit if set up for a lab and the joiners seem to be afixed to each desk, making them not easily rearranged.

One thing I found by accident at the Open 2020 Forum, was the way a wedge shaped room could be used. The ANU Computer Science Department's seminar room N101 is wedge shaped. The front wall has been made into one large wide screen projection surface, by covering over one door and painting the wall mat white.

For the symposium I planned to use two video projectors, side by side. One display would be for the speaker's slides; the secondary screen would show a VotaPedia audience response poll (and act as a backup if the main projector failed).

However, on the day my co-chair, Senator Lundy, placed a desk and two chairs to the side of the main screen for us to sit at, facing the audience. The speaker's lectern was on the other side of the screen. This was a good layout, but we were now directly in front of where I was planning to project the second screen. Looking around for what to do I noticed a mobile white board (needed as the front wall is reserved for projection). So I wheeled this to the side of us, against the side wall and we projected onto this.

A white board does not make an ideal projection surface, being shiny (perhaps someone makes a mat surface whiteboard?). But this worked reasonably well. Some "Access Grid" rooms have a wedge shape, with three screens on the left, middle and right walls for the three video displays usually used. I have thought this arrangement cumbersome and a simple rectangular wall better, but perhaps the wedge has its advantages.

Cloud on a Chip

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the Research School of Computer Science at the Australian National University, where summer students are reporting on their projects. One project is "Porting the Xen Hypervisor to Intel's Single-Chip Cloud Computer".  The SCC an experimental chip with 48 cores, each equivalent to an Intel P45C processor. One feature is that cores can be switched off to save power when not needed. The problem is to get this to work in practice.

Clustering TDB, Canberra, 9 July 2007

Recommended:

DCS SEMINAR SERIES

Department of Computer Science
The Australian National University
Canberra

Clustering TDB - a Little Database Meets Big Iron
Andrew Tridgell (IBM OzLabs)

DATE: 2007-07-09
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101

ABSTRACT:
The little tdb database has been at the heart of Samba for many years. More recently it has become a focus in the efforts to create a clustered Samba solution. Attempts to cluster Samba in the past have been patchy at best, oftentimes resulting in a solution which relies on "relaxed" data coherence rules, which is a polite way of saying that they can lose user data. In the last few months we have finally worked out a architecture for a clustered tdb which will allow us to achieve three goals simultaneously:

1) scaling to large numbers of nodes in a cluster (potentially into the hundreds)
2) robustness to node crashes and new nodes entering the cluster
3) correct data coherence rules, so user data is not at risk
4) High Availability, including IP takeover, service management and related tasks

This talk will present the solution we have come up with, and will discuss our experiments and the results of the first production installation.

BIO:
Andrew Tridgell is a free software developer working for IBM OzLabs from his home in Canberra.

Tridge is widely known as the inventor of Samba and as a key contributor to Linux development. He has had a long association with ANU both as a student (having earned both his BSc and his PhD here) and a researcher in operating systems for highly parallel machines.

ps: I assume this is a rerun of Tridge's talk at the January Linux Conference.

Automatically Identifying Cyber-criminals

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra where Dr Robert Layton, Research Associate, Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL), University of Ballarat, is discussing how to automatically identify cyber-criminals. He uses artificial intelligence software to compare document created on-line for Phishing. The software can identify which documents are from the same criminal gangs, so that those gangs can be targeted. Also the software can be used to monitor on-line chat rooms where illicit good are bought and sold, to identify those involved. Also the source code of malware can be subject to analysis to see if it has a common author.

Robert pointed out that response to such activities by authorities has to be prompt. It is possible to contact the host provider where an illegal activity is identified and ask for it to be "taken down". But the criminal can ear a significant amount of money in the hours or days this takes.

While  Robert was discussing identifying criminal activities, the same techniques would be applicable in defending from attack in cyber-warfare.  One of the major problems in cyber-warfare is knowing who is attacking you. An attacker can disguise a coordinated attack as a series of apparently unconnected non-state sponsored criminal acts. In this way the attacker can avoid retaliation, on-line or by kinetic means (that is by using conventional military force). If the attacker can be identified then they can be targeted using a cyber-attack, electronic warfare or using a bomb, missile or special forces raid.

ANU CECS SEMINAR SERIES

Indirect Attribution of Cybercrime

Dr Robert Layton, Research Associate (ICSL, University of Ballarat )

CECS SEMINAR SERIES

DATE: 2013-05-30
TIME: 15:00:00 - 16:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101
CONTACT: peter.christen@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
In this talk, Robert will be discussing some of the issues relating to indirect attribution of cybercrime, and how authorship analysis provides techniques to overcome issues of traceability on the internet. Further, he will discuss the state-of-the-art in authorship analysis, as applied to written documents. Finally, he will discuss some of the clues that are appearing within these techniques for attribution studies in non-written documents and how this relates to some other techniques in machine learning.
BIO:
Dr. Robert Layton is a researcher at the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) at the University of Ballarat. His research investigates authorship analysis methods, particularly in unsupervised applications to cybercrime. He completed his PhD in 2011, investigating an application of these techniques to phishing webpages, in order to determine the size and scope of the operations behind them. He is now continuing his research at the ICSL, working with industry partners Westpac, Australian Federal Police and IBM. Current projects include the application of the techniques to alias-matching in IRC rooms and online reviews.

Making the Law an Open e-Book

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the Australian National University where Tom Bruce and Sara Frug from the Legal Information Institute at
Cornell Law School are speaking on how readable the law is for non-lawyers. They have been working with Michael Curtotti and Eric McCreath at ANU. They have recently published papers on " Machine learning for readability of legislative sentences" and "Citizen Science for Citizen Access to Law".

Researching Web 2.0

Recommended free seminar by Roger Clarke on researching Researching Web 2.0 at the Australian National Unviersity, Department of Computer Science:

DCS SEMINAR SERIES

Web 2.0 - Tsunami or Mirage?

Roger Clarke (DCS, ANU & Xamax Pty. Ltd.)

DATE: 2007-07-30
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101, Computer Science and Information Technology Building, ANU

ABSTRACT:
There's considerable excitement about the notion of 'Web 2.0', particularly among Internet businesspeople. In contrast, there's an almost complete lack of formal literature on the topic. Movements with such energy and potential need to be subjected to critical attention. Industry and social commentators should have the opportunity to draw on the information systems literature in formulating their views.

This paper performs a tentative assessment of Web 2.0, with a view to stimulating further work that applies existing theories, proposes new ones, observes and measures phenomena, and tests the theories. In order to do so, it examines the origins of Web 2.0 in the marketing arena, followed by its technical under-pinnings, and then considers the alternative, communitarian perspective.

BIO:
From 1984-95, Roger Clarke was Reader in Information Systems in ANU's then Department of Commerce. Since then he has been back in full-time consultancy through his company, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd. He focuses on strategic and policy aspects of eBusiness, information infrastructure and dataveillance and privacy.

He has retained his connections with academe as a Visiting Fellow in the ANU Department of Computer Science (1995-2005) and as an Adjunct Professor from April 2005. He is also a Visiting Professor in eCommerce at the University of Hong Kong (2002-), and a Visiting Professor in Cyberspace Law & Policy at UNSW (2003-). He has also undertaken Gastprofessur at the Universities of Bern (Switzerland) and Linz (Austria), and been a Gastdozent at the European Business School and the University of Koblenz (both in Germany).

Books on:

• Web 2.0
• Communitarian perspective