ANU University House Reopening

The Australian National University is having an open Community Day on Saturday 15 August, commemorating 80 years. Registering for the event comes with the chance to win a two-night stay at the restored historic ANU University House, with dinner for two. 

The reopening of University House, marks a revival of the institution's fortunes, academic & financial. The lack of a venue where staff at all levels could freely discuss issues across the institution, contributed to governance problems. At times a leader can only be told something is a bad idea in an informal setting. Equally there is the chance to tell them what will work.

Marghanita da Cruz & Tom Worthington
at the ANU Celebration of Giving, in the
Great Hall of University House.
Photo by Adam da Cruz, 24 November 2014

University House was extensively damaged in a hailstorm in January 2020. It was not so much the loss of the great hall, or other formal areas which impeded consultation with staff, as the Fellows Bar & Fellows Garden outside. Here in the twlight, staff and graduate students would meet after work. While each table tended to be devoted to a discipline, there was interaction between them. 

Optimism and Agency in Times of Change

Associate Professor Susan Hansen

The most unusual title for a course I have come across recently is "Optimism and Agency in Times of Change" (SCNC220), offered by the Fenner School of Environment and Society, which is now part of the College of Systems & Society at the Australian National University.  Perhaps an antidote to the gloom and doom induced by social and old fashoned media. The learn about how changes can be made, to improve the world. 

I was walking down the corridor & noticed the neatest row of color matched posit notes on an office wall. This was Associate Professor Susan Hansen's plan for the running of the optimism course. 

Humanitarian Innovation Hackerthon for the Pacific

Greetings from the Knowledge Hub at University of Sydney, where I am helping shortlist entrants in the Humanitarian Innovation Hackerthon. Entries are focused on the challenge of helping with disasters in Pacific countries. The challenge is to come up with something affordable, which helps people, without doing things to them. The Knowledge Hub is similar to ANU's Hive.

Agentic Coding Studio

Charles Martin and Ben Swift are offering the course "Agentic Coding Studio" this semester at Australian National University, School of Computing. The idea is to teach professionals how to use AI tools to systematically write computer code. 

Building the Decentralised Web in Canberra

Greetings from the start of Solid 2026 Hackathon: Building the Decentralised Web in Canberra, at the Australian National University. Solid is a standard from the W3C, the people who look after the web. It allows individuals to decide who has access to their data. Solid uses  Personal Online Data Stores (PODS) which hold user data & they can choose who can read it. The problem, as I see it, is what would motivate for-profit companies and government agencies, to use the Solid standard, when their business is based on appropriating user data. Perhaps some of the teams today can come up with some business models to make Solid profitable.

Telstra Mobile Network Failure

Faults reported to DownDetector, on 8 July 2026.

Telstra's mobile phone network failed just before 4 am today. The Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) asked for expert comment, so I wrote a couple of paragraphs about it: 

"Telstra's mobile network problems appear to have started just before 4 am today, based on faults reported to DownDetector. The problem peaked just after 6:30 am, with a steady improvement since then.

Apart from consumers' phones, the network is used for transport & mobile payment systems.

It is too early to say what the cause was, but from past experience I expect it was due to a software upgrade which went wrong, not an attack.

One way you can protect yourself at home from such outages is to have phones on different networks.

A widespread long-duration outage, particularly of the Testra network, could be very inconvenient. But it is not going to be catastrophic."

Just as a household can cushion the effects of the loss of one network by having phones on different networks, financial and transport companies can have a backup network programmed into their systems. This will cost a little more, but allow service to continue when one network goes down, for whatever reason." 

AI Teaching People to Assemble Flatpack Furniture and Drones

Greetings from the School of Computing at the Australian National University, where Jiahao Zhan is explaining how videos can automatically be aligned with assembly diagrams. Anyone who has ever tried to put an Ikea flatpack together will under stand the value of this. You have a printed sheet and might even have a video demonstration, but how do they go together? Zhan's software turns the video into a set of step by step instructions. 

Zhan has spent time at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. As it happens Mitsubishi is building frigates for the Australian navy. Robot assembly could be used to speed construction. More locally, I had a technician in my home this week, trying to work out how to replace the motor in my Mitsubishi air-conditioner. ;-)

Apart from reducing the frustration with DIY, and teaching robots to assemble, this has applications in medical procedures and maintenance of safety critical infrastructure. As an example, in the past a large team of people would spend years producing maintenance training materials for a new aircraft. However, UAVs are now being designed, built and put into use within a few months, and being constantly updated. The operator needs to be able to assemble the UAV from a kit of parts in the field. Deployment can't be held up while instructional videos are produced, but correct assembly is a matter of life and death. 

ps: The seminar also demonstrated the hybrid mode. In addition to a room full of people, there were some on Zoom. At question time it was imply a matter of switching on the audio from the remote participant, so they could ask.

Listening for Teaching

Manisha Khetarpal

It now seems a lifetime ago when I came across Manisha Khetarpal's Microlearning Series of online events for educators, from Canada, during the darkest days of COVID-19. Manisha talked me into presenting a a talk in the series, which grew to a series of five on "Engaging students in the online environment". Manisha's latest venture is "Teaching for Listening" a chapter of the free open e-book Open Education in a Good Way: Rediscovering Together on the Land. 

The book is a collection of articles, which apparently came from an event at Jasper National Park. It is very difficult to work out what exactly this was, from the introduction by Darrion Letendre. However, Manisha' chapter is a lot easier to follow, describing a Listening Continuum Framework, derived from learning with Indigenous colleagues and students. 

Manisha describes intentional listening as a process for "respectful, relational learning environments". While framed for indigenous pedagogy, this could be usefully applied in any classroom, or with online learning. It provides a useful counter to the AI driven rush to push content onto students, and a solution to the problem of students submitting AI generated work. 

This approach is reminiscent of Johnnie Moore's "Unhurried Conversations", as detailed in his book "Unhurried: What's possible beyond busyness?". However, Manisha focuses on education, a rubric is presented with four levels (Not yet, to Consistent), & three criteria (presence; understanding & action; discernment & care). This is useful for taking a abstract idea and turning it into something a teacher can teach and assess. Rather than just measure output rubrics often only measure an individual final product, Manisha suggests assessing student's group learning. These are the "soft skills" which university administrators like to talk about, but academics don't like to tackle. However, combating AI based cheating will remain an impossible challenge if we just try to teach the same old way to assess the same old things.

UNSW Canberra Three Minute Thesis

Greetings from the Canberra round of the UNSW Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. I was one of the judges. As always this is difficult. It is a little like assessing student presentations, but needing a bit more entertainment value. 

Inclusion by design

Lorraine Finlay,
Human Rights Commissioner

Kylie De Courteney,
Managing Director,
NSW Telco Authority

Delighted to be chairing the panel on "Inclusion by design - The new frontier of digital trust" at Tech in Government 2026. The panel is Kylie De Courteney, Managing Director, NSW Telco Authority and Lorraine Finlay, Human Rights Commissioner. 

Chinese Government Endorses Pratice Based Degrees

Reporting in the China Daily, Zou Shuo wrote "Practice-based degree assessments gain traction" (2026-06-16). They report that a class from East China Normal University submitted novels for their master's degrees, while China Agricultural University students submitted fertilizer and produce production plans. This is not that unusual in Australia, particularly at the masters level. As it happens, one of my students undertook a project to design a video learning system. They are now studying for a PhD, while also teaching students using this type of technology. 

Australia has introduced a Vocational Degree which will allow students to study more practical skills at vocational institutes, rather than universities. 

ps: What makes this significant is that the China Daily is an official government newspaper. I visited the HQ of the other official newspaper, the People's Daily, in 2003. 

pps: Curiously, the LinkedIn and Twitter links have swapped labels on the China Daily page: if you place your pointer over the LinkedIn icon it says "Twitter" and for Twitter it says "LinkedIn".

Come and Build the Decentralised Web in Canberra at the Solid 2026 Hackathon

Solid Hackerthon Free Tickets

Just been talking to Jess Moore, who is organizing the Solid 2026 Hackathon. This is a free event anyone can sign up for 14 to 16 July 2026 at the the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) Canberra. This is run by the Australian National University's  Software Innovation Institute.  The Solid protocol (SOcially LInked Data) is a way to have secure data under the control of the owner and has been adopted as a standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), based on work by Tim Berners-Lee. As well as protecting personal information, this has application in military and security systems, where sensitive information needs to be provided on a need to know basis. This is particularly difficult when working with allies you don't entirely trust.

Improving Governance in Australian Universities

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has issued a report on Australian National University Financial Management (4 June 2026). The findings (five) and recommendations (three) are remarkably short and readable. This contains useful advice for any Australian university. ANAO found the university's income is not keeping up with its costs, but there is no intimidate financial crisis. It suggests not relying on an increase in international student numbers. ANAO suggest proposals for change come with a business case. 

In my submission to the Higher Education Review, I suggested no radical change was needed to how universities and vocational institutes do educaion in Australia. However universities need to be reminded their primary mission is to provide educated professionals for the workplace, and applied research for industry, supported by fundamental research. Addressing areas of need require universities to fund some programs and defend others, adding and shedding staff. Australia can  double down on the use of online, blended, and mobile learning. This will not only provide a cost effective way to meet domestic needs, but also open up a new international market. AI needs to be incorporated in learning, but as an enabler, & a skill for graduates, but this required no fundamental change to the system.

AI Education in a Box

Rose Luckin, Danny Liu, Sue Keay, & 
Tom Worthington in headphones at EduTech_AU. 
Photo by Tom Worthington, CC-BY 4 June 2026  

There was standing room only at EduTech_Au in Sydney today for "Beyond personalisation: Human-centred and equitable learning in the age of AI". Thanks to Danny Liu (University of Sydney), Rose Luckin (UCL Knowledge Lab and Sue Keay (UNSW AI Institute), putting up with my moderating. 

Audience in headphones
at EduTech_Au 2026. 
Photo by Tom Worthington, CC-BY 4 June 2026

Global events company Terrapinn has created a very workable formula for a combined trade-show and multi-stream conference. For EduTech_Au everything is contained in the one exhibition space at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre. The trade exhibits are in the center of the floor. Around the sides and back of the space are multiple simultaneous conference presentations. 

As there are so many people in the room, all speaking at once, those attending a presentation have to wear headphones. Each presentation has a separate channel, with headphones lighting up in a color to indicate the channel (like a "silent disco"). A single presenter doesn't need headphones, but a panel does, as one panelist can't hear what another says. This sounds cumbersome, but works well, with sound which is clearer and more intimate, with the usual public address system. 

This system works on a larges scale at EduTech Asia, which I will be experiencing again, first hand, in November. 

Indigenous Education at Edutech Au

Greetings from the Edutech_Au conference at Darling Harbour in Sydney. I a moderating a session on AI and equity tomorrow morning. Today I am wandering around the exhibition. Most interesting is in the back right corner, with three booths from indigenous education organisations (TIPIAC, indigenous Literacy Foundation, Wingaru Education), with an adjacent series of talks.

Humanitarian Innovation Hackathon 2026

Registrations are open for the 2026 Humanitarian Innovation Hackathon at the University of Sydney, 17 to 19 July. Teams of undergraduate students will work world problems. There are prizes, but as with any hackerthon it is about learning to work together. I have volunteered to mentor. This will be my third time mentoring a hackerthon this year.

No Governance Crisis in Australian Universities

Julie Hare writes "It's a governance crisis, but why now precisely?" (The Hare Report, May 31, 2026). But is there a governance crisis? Some universities have very public problems, but only a tiny number. Other public & private organisations fail every day. Companies go into receivership, local government bodies are taken over by an administrator, public officials & private individuals are investigated for corruption. Provided these problems are addressed, no one says there is a "governance problem", just ordinary everyday hubris, incompetence and greed. Universities in Australia are almost all public non profit institutions, so more subject to public scrutiny. Perhaps that is why there seem to be more problems: they are more visible and we are expecting more of universities. 

In the mid 1990s, I looked at how Cambridge University did innovation (Cambridge live from a Double Decker Bus, 1999). In the process I talked to students, staff & leadership. One thing which struck me was that people who worked for the same institution had very different views, & in some cases a deep dislike for, each other. However, the place still worked, perhaps because, not dispute, this.

Australian universities had international students before the Dawkins reforms. However, these were on government scholarships, invited to Australia as part of a cold war hearts and minds campaign. More recently international students became a revenue source for universities, as well as a source of shovel ready migrants. This proved useful for government, offloading some cost of universities onto international students & providing a source of quality overseas workers. Universities failed to treat the international student fees as a windfall and bank the money for future need. 

There is no way to create a governing body for a university which will create harmony & perfect decision making. Be it federal cabinet, a company, or the bowls club, there is always conflict. Traditionally the VC ran the university, & the council grumbled about it. If you have a more active council, there will be more conflict. There is no solution, as such, except to select good people. But more staff & student representatives would be a start. 

COVID-19 and government controls on international student numbers have been challenges to universities. However, these will seem minor compared to shocks to come. In 2016 I warned that conflict in the region could result in most international students having to leave Australia. AI is challenging the way research and educaion are done. This may see the potential of online educaion, to be finally realized. These will require university councils to make difficult, rapid, existential decisions. 

Positive Persuasive LLMs

Dr Siying Hu at City University of Hong Kong talked on "Persuasive Simulations in the LLM Era" at the ANU AI, ML and Friends seminar. They suggested AI could be used in a positive way to counter the negative effects of social media and scammers. The Australian government is planning more support for the long term unemployed. Perhaps this technology could help build their confidence, as well as improving job seeking skills.  

Edutech Asia: What can Australia Learn About AI for Education?

I just paid my registration for EduTech Asia, in Singapore in November. Normally, I just wander around the exhibition and attend random sessions. This time I am on a mission, to find out what we should do with AI in Australian higher education. This is after completing the AI for Higher Education Faculty: Course by the Digital Education Council. The Australian National University paid for the course and prodded me to, reluctantly, do it. As with most learning, it wasn't a pleasant experience, but left me with the conviction there was something to this AI thing. 

CyberPath Occupations Framework Out for Consultation

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has issued a "Call For Feedback: Occupations Framework". The aim is to create a structure for describing cyber work in Australia.