Work in progress: a novel method of creating an academic content repository

This paper outlines a project aimed at addressing the issue of the scalability of online academic support. This project is being run during the Autumn semester at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Toowoomba Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Digital Futures Institute. The study attached to the project will use Design-Based Research to evaluate the effectiveness of a simple, but innovative academic content and metadata creation tool referred to as Academic Assist. Academic Assist has been recently developed at USQ as a plug-in block for the moodle-based Learning Management System employed at USQ for its several hundred online subjects. The pilot project and associated study now extends over nine subjects, including three consecutive subjects in computer engineering; and covers faculties of Engineering, Education, Business, Science and Arts. Some preliminary results are presented here. Complete results of the study including acceptance surveys, expert reviews and usage statistics will be presented at FIE 2009

Ontology-based specific and exhaustive user profiles for constraint information fusion for multi-agents

Intelligent agents are an advanced technology utilized in Web Intelligence. When searching information from a distributed Web environment, information is retrieved by multi-agents on the client site and fused on the broker site. The current information fusion techniques rely on cooperation of agents to provide statistics. Such techniques are computationally expensive and unrealistic in the real world. In this paper, we introduce a model that uses a world ontology constructed from the Dewey Decimal Classification to acquire user profiles. By search using specific and exhaustive user profiles, information fusion techniques no longer rely on the statistics provided by agents. The model has been successfully evaluated using the large INEX data set simulating the distributed Web environment

Sustainability, emergence and the graduate attribute of global citizenship

Universities have an another valuable role in enabling sustainability besides their research capacity. We are interested in their role as risk taking institutions, because we see risk as a pre-condition for sustainability. This paper will explore the relationship between sustainability, emergence, universities and a high level graduate attribute – global citizenship. We will explore this relationship by proposing a model that frames the theory of sustainability as a quality that emerges from a system. Emergence occurs from unmanaged multiple actions at the local scale and is more likely to occur in environments with greater risk and diversity. Emergence is only identified from the scale above where actions are taking place, so an emergent model of sustainability emphasises the space and interaction between the scales of action and observation. Australian universities play an important role in this space between the scales. They are both actor and observer, and trainers of the present and future actors and observers. By choosing to have higher level graduate attributes like leadership and global citizenship, universities are taking a risk in selecting and advocating for the attributes they think our future thinkers and leaders should have. We present the research design and some preliminary data that aims to determine if the global citizenship graduate attribute can serve as an example of universities' engagement between the scales to help create a sustainable future

Boards of Directors and Governance Systems: A Practical Guide for Non-Governmental Organizations

This guide was originally released in Spanish in 2014, as a practical tool for strengthening boards of directors of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Latin America. It was born out of a fruitless search and recurring need for culturally and linguistically adapted tools on board development for Latin American organizations. In many cases in the region, board development of civil society organizations is still quite incipient and looks entirely different than in the United States, Western Europe and other contexts. The original version was written mindful of the reality of Latin American organizations, drawing on the successful experiences of some, and the needs and challenges they have identified. Shortly after its release, we began to receive requests for a version in English. After conversations with colleagues in other regions, we understood that the approach and tools might be useful for organizations in other parts of the world

A double-edged sword: Use of computer algebra systems in first-year Engineering Mathematics and Mechanics courses

Many secondary-level mathematics students have experience with graphical calculators from high school. For the purposes of this paper we define graphical calculators as those able to perform rudimentary symbolic manipulation and solve complicated equations requiring very modest user knowledge. The use of more advanced computer algebra systems e.g. Maple, Mathematica, Mathcad, Matlab/MuPad is becoming more prevalent in tertiary-level courses. This paper explores our students’ experience using one such system (MuPad) in first-year tertiary Engineering Mathematics and Mechanics courses. The effectiveness of graphical calculators and computer algebra systems in mathematical pedagogy has been investigated by a multitude of educational researchers (e.g. Ravaglia et al. 1998). Most of these studies found very small or no correlation between student use of graphical calculators or exposure to computer algebra systems with future achievement in mathematics courses (Buteau et al. 2010). In this paper we focus instead on students’ attitude towards a more advanced standalone computer algebra system (MuPad), and whether students’ inclination to use the system is indicative of their mathematical understanding. Paper describing some preliminary research into use of computer algebra systems for teaching engineering mathematics

Exploratory study to explore the role of ICT in the process of knowledge management in an Indian business environment

In the 21st century and the emergence of a digital economy, knowledge and the knowledge base economy are rapidly growing. To effectively be able to understand the processes involved in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge management in the business environment is critical to the success of an organization. This study builds on the previous research of the authors on the enablers of knowledge management by identifying the relationship between the enablers of knowledge management and the role played by information communication technologies (ICT) and ICT infrastructure in a business setting. This paper provides the findings of a survey collected from the four major Indian cities (Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Villupuram) regarding their views and opinions about the enablers of knowledge management in business setting. A total of 80 organizations participated in the study with 100 participants in each city. The results show that ICT and ICT infrastructure can play a critical role in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge in an Indian business environment

Error resilience analysis of wireless image transmission using JPEG, JPEG 2000 and JPWL

The wireless extension of the JPEG 2000 standard formally known as JPWL is the newest international standard for still image compression. Different from all previous standards, this new standard was created specifically for wireless imaging applications. This paper examines the error resilience performance of the JPEG, JPEG 2000 and JPWL standards in combating multi-path and fading impairments in Rayleigh fading channels. Comprehensive objective and subjective results are presented in relation to the error resilience performance of these three standards under various conditions. The major findings in this paper reveal that a CRC approach is not a viable option for protecting wireless image data when not used in conjunction with an efficient retransmission strategy. In addition, the Reed-Solomon error correction codes in JPWL provide strong protection for wireless image transmission. However, any stronger protection beyond RS(64,32) yields diminishing returns