Real World Tests to Prepare Graduates for the Real World

I am helping out with some project audits of ANU Techlauncher computer students this week. Students have been working for ten weeks in teams for a real client to produce a system. They are audited every few weeks to see how they are doing and to make suggestions for improvements. The clients, and other students have input to this as well as staff. This is an approach which might be applied in other disciplines, to make assessment for useful for learning and prepare graduates for the workplace.

This approach is modeled on real world software engineering practice. I have carried out similar audits at the Defence Department on large projects, some of which were subsequently cancelled (as an expert witness in court cases I have reviewed documentation from projects which should have been cancelled). I thought I should revise the fundamentals and found a Wiki version of the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) which doesn't need registration to access (but I am not sure how up to date this is). Chapter 10: Software Quality, 2.3 Reviews and Audits is the relevant part:

"Reviews and audit processes are broadly defined as static—meaning that no software programs or models are executed—examination of software engineering artifacts with respect to standards that have been established by the organization or project for those artifacts. Different types of reviews and audits are distinguished by their purpose, levels of independence, tools and techniques, roles, and by the subject of the activity. Product assurance and process assurance audits are typically conducted by software quality assurance (SQA) personnel who are independent of development teams. Management reviews are conducted by organizational or project management. The engineering staff conducts technical reviews."

Re-imagining Computing at the Australian National University

The Australian National University (ANU) has invited applications for a senior job "re-imagining" engineering and computing over six to twelve months:

"...  embark on an ambitious re-imagination of engineering and computing that will result in expansion of Engineering & Computer Science at the ANU.

Reporting to the Dean, successful applicant will have responsibility for the oversight and academic leadership as part of a team that will develop a blueprint and business plan for the College for the next 10 year period while also providing support to the Dean with leadership and management of the College, and will be a member of the College Executive. ..."

Dean Elanor Huntington talked on "Why We Need Engineers Now More Than Ever" at TEDxSydney. 

m-Learning in Sydney

The 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016), was held at the University of Technology in Sydney, 24 to 26 October. There were five parallel sessions in the MLearn2016 Program. The mLearn 2016 Proceedings are available as a PDF file. Here is a summary of my notes from the event:

UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation

Professor Shirley Alexander, UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor, welcomed the delegates and talked about the UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation (BTI), being introduced next year. This is a general degree in technology, suitable for those going into business. I am skeptical of the idea of a BTI as the 21st Century replacement for the arts degree. BIT graduates may end up like arts graduates: well educated, but not qualified for any real job.

Mobile Learning and Indigenous People

Marguerite Koole Assistant Professor, Curriculum Studies at University of Saskatchewan described applying a frame model of learning (Koole & Ally, 2006).

Kevinwâsakâyâsiw Lewis, then talked about the teaching of teachers of indigenous languages in the University of Saskatchewan's Certificate in Indigenous Languages. Asked about the relevance of song in language learning, Kevin pointed out that chant and song enables the learner to stop worrying about how they pronounce. Also the repetition in the song helps learning, as well as being culturally significant. This reminded me of Dr McComas Taylor, at ANU's Teaching Sanskrit online with chanting.

mLearning for Aboriginal Pre-service Teachers in Remote Communities

Philip Townsend talked on "A Theory of Enhancement of Professional Learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Pre-service Teachers in Very Remote Communities through Mobile Learning". He pointed out that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have a much lower completion rate than the general population. The Community Based ITE program, specifically for students in remote areas, has an even lower completion rate than other forms of education. Philip has devoted his PHD research to finding if mobile devices can improve completion rates. Also he mentioned the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation. I suggest that addressing the needs of remote students can assist all students. If we make courses flexible enough for the remote students, these courses will also be better for city and campus based students. Philip was awarded top paper at the conference.

Mobiles for TEQSA Regulatory Course Compliance

Anthony Chung from mobileLearning gave one of the more practical and less academic (in a good way) sessions on "How does a Mobile Platform Address TEQSA and Other Regulatory Compliance for Online Courses?". Anthony went through some of the TEQSA requirements and how these could be facilitated with mobile devices. What was interesting about mobileLearning's approach is that they provide  mobile interface to the institution's native educational applications, rather than replace them. The idea is to make it easier for students and staff to do what is educationally useful. One example is to encourage the student to engage with the learning. This can be difficult where a Learning Management System (LMS) design for static desktop pages is used. The mobile interface can make it easier to access the materials and interact.

IamLearn AGM

The AGM of the International Association for Mobile Learning (IamLearn), was held in conjunction with the conference. Because I registered for the conference I received a year's membership. One initiative is that a new website will allow members to add content directly, rather than emailed to an officeholder who then puts it up. This is something other organizations might like to try

Telstra on Personalised mEducation

 Susi Steigler-Peters, from Telstra Corporation talked on "Personalised Learning, mEducation and Partnerships". Susi spent most of the time describing research on education Telstra has funded over the last few years. This research sounds well designed, but does not tell us, as educators, anything new. So I asked Susi how Telstra could help improve education. In response she cited something called "Telstra Smart Learning" and presented a use case of a student named "Ferris" having an "enriched learning experience". Susi also mentioned a center to be established in Sydney for education. It might be useful for Telstra to instead showcase some of the work in their muru-D startup accelerator.

Online Tutorials for Higher Education

Norman Wildberger and Joshua Capel presented an excellent live demonstration of "Higher Education Practice Online Tutorials and GeoGebra as Mobile Learning Tools" used for teaching mathematics at UNSW. However,what seemed to be missing was a business model to support the high up-front investment to produce such material.

UNSW mLearning Physics

Elizabeth Angstmann talked on "Higher Education Practice Using a mobile Moodle app in an online physics course". This shows an approach to education which focuses on ensuring that e-quality education can provide quality education, backed up by solid research.

Identity and the Mobile Learner

Professor John Traxler, University of Wolverhampton gave the last keynote on "The Role of Education in Identity Transformation and Acculturation". Professor Traxler challenged the assumption that m-learning (and education in general) was a culturally neutral boon for developing nations. Rather than telling us a canned answer, this was a presentation asking questions, which was refreshing.

Professor Traxler is concerned about a Western European view of education and technology being culturally imposed on others. However, this might also be a product of that culture.

Online Education for Prisoners

Louise Patching, USQ, talked on "Using Offline Personal Devices to Enable Access to Higher Education in Prisons" for the Making the Connection Project. Louise pointed out that lack of Internet access is only one factor limiting e-learning in prisons; also there is limited access to hardware, limited prior education of the students. She explained that USQ had decades of experience in teaching prisoners. USQ has a special server for providing materials to prisons and a way for materials to be loaded to portable devices.

Some of what USQ has done would be useful, more generally for students. For example, a problem with webinars is where students have inadvertent left their microphones turned on. I suggest that the off-line features could be built into Moodle and the Linux operating system, allowing the approach taken by USQ to be made available world-wide at no cost.

Encouraging Faculty Development

 Lisa O’Neill, York University, talked on "Encouraging Faculty Development Through Micro-Credentialing". This presented a good overview of the mechanics of recognizing small units of learning with "badges". However, what is also needed is a way to motivate university academics to learn to teach and undertake activities which award such badges.

I suggest that university educators should follow the approach used by nurses and computer professionals in Australia to enhance their recognition of their profession. This could include draft policy for universities and government to require and recognize teaching qualifications of university academics. Also they could suggest changes to university ranking schemes to give teaching quality the same weighting as research output.

References

Koole, M., & Ally, M. (2006, April). Framework for the rational analysis of mobile education (FRAME) model: Revising the ABCs of educational practices. In International Conference on Networking, International Conference on Systems and International Conference on Mobile Communications and Learning Technologies (ICNICONSMCL'06) (pp. 216-216). IEEE. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICNICONSMCL.2006.103

Townsend, P., Halsey, J. R., & Guenther, J. (2016). Mobile Learning Congruencies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Philosophies. In Publishing Higher Degree Research (pp. 25-32). SensePublishers. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-672-9_3 

UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation

Greetings from the University of Technology Sydney, where the 15th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn 2016), just opened. Professor Shirley Alexander, UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor, welcomed the delegates and talked about the UTS Bachelor of Technology and Innovation (BTI), being introduced next year. This is a general degree in technology, intended for those going into business: the 21st Century replacement for the arts degree.

UTS are still working out the details of their BIT, but it is positioned for everything from Technology Policy Analysts and Creative Technologists to Project Managers. One interesting aspect is that students will undertake a capstone project, to "... integrate the skills and knowledge learnt and mastered ...". It will be interesting o see how UTS cope with guiding students through the capstone and how they assess it.

At present I am undertaking a capstone for an Master of Education, in the form of an e-portfolio and also tutoring ANU students who have to prepare a project portfolio. For technology students, who are used to delving into technical details, a capstone is a very different, very difficult task. This is also challenging for instructors with a technical background to teach how to do this and to assess.

Another aspect of the BTI which will be challenging is how to have a broad, but still relevant, technical degree. As an example, UTS are claiming the degree will be suitable for future "Project Managers". However, project managers would normally be first qualified in a discipline and then in how to mange projects in that disciple. Software engineers learn how to create software first and then how to mange software projects. Ideally, software engineering students go through stages, where they first learn the basics of software, then work as a team member on a project, then as a team leader. In addition, students could work on their own innovation startup, however most work in conventional companies and government agencies.

Do BIT students undertake their disciplinary studies concurrently as a double degree, or as a masters afterwards (the Melbourne model)? Otherwise BIT graduates may end up like arts graduates: well educated, but not qualified for any specific job.

Expertise As Well as Equipment Needed for Productivity

Shahiduzzaman, Kowalkiewicz, Barret and Briggs conclude their analysis of the productivity of IT in Australia by saying: "... IT investment is not enough to make a positive
change to Australia’s economic performance. Knowing how to efficiently and effectively use IT capital requires the development of organisational, managerial and individual capabilities.". The authors seem to have misunderstood what IT is: it is not just computers and telecommunications equipment, IT also encompasses the skills in applying this to business and human aspects of making use of that equipment. IT professionals spend much of their time working out what the businesses does and how it can do it better with IT.

Many executives make the mistake of thinking they can simply buy IT from someone and then apply it to their business. But it is that application which is the hard bit. Computing students also tend to make this mistake: they will design what they think is the perfect computer program and are surprised when they see it does not work in practice, because people do not behave the way they expected.

One field where the productivity of IT is hotly debated is education. A question often asked is: "Students have laptops, tablets and smart phones, so why aren't they learning better?". Chen, Seilhamer, Bennett and Bauer (2015) conclude that "... students and instructors need technical, logistical, and pedagogical support for integrating mobile devices and apps." It may seem obvious that just giving students computers will not make them educationally useful, but it is a lesson the education system (and governments funding it) have to keep learning. Similarly CEOs and, worryingly, CIOs seem to forget they need skilled IT professionals for IT to be productive.

Reference

Chen, B., Seilhamer, R., Bennett, L. & Bauer, S. (June 2015). Students' Mobile Learning Practices in Higher Education: A Multi-Year Study. EduCause. Retrieved from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/6/students-mobile-learning-practices-in-higher-education-a-multiyear-study

 

Shahiduzzaman, M., Kowalkiewicz, M., Barret, R., & Briggs, A. (December 2015). Technology investment is not enough: Growing Australia's productive digital economy. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia.

CFP International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Japan August 2016

The call for papers has been issued for the 11th International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE2016). This is to be held 23-25 August 2016 at Nagoya University, Japan
(Satellite site, 23 August 2016, University of Fukui, Koyoto City). Submissions are due by 1 May 2016. I attended ICCSE 2013, 2014 and 2015 and hope to be at 2016. Also if anyone knows of any education or IT conferences in Japan or nearby I could attend at the same time, that would be good. Last year I attended ICOFE 2015 in Hong Kong on the way to ICCSE, but this year ICOFE 2016 is earlier and ICCSE later.

ICCSE2016: The 11th International Conference on Computer Science and Education

Call for Papers

August 23-25, 2016: Nagoya University, Japan
Satellite site:  August 23, 2016. University of Fukui (Koyoto City).

Important Dates

Submission deadline: May 1, 2016
Decision Notification: June 15, 2016
Final Versions and Author Registration: July 1, 2016
Conference Dates:  August 23-25, 2016

CRC-CE: http://ieee-iccse.org/

The 11th International Conference on Computer Science and Education will be held in Nagoya University, Japan from August 23 to 25, 2016. The conference is organized by the National Research Council of Computer Education in Colleges & Universities, China (CRC-CE) and technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Nagoya, Japan Section.

Keynote Speakers

Professor Toshio Fukuda PHD, Robotics, Meijo University Japan, Beijing Institute of Technology, Nagoya University.

Mr. Iwao Nakayama, Evangelist, Softbank Co Ltd.

Evening Talks

Dr. Hirofumi Seo, CEO & President at SCIEMENT, Inc.

The proceedings of ICCSE 2016 will be included in the IEEE Conference Publication Program (CPP) and be published through IEEE Xplore. The past proceedings of ICCSE have been indexed by EI. For Ei/ISI Proceeding indexing timetable please refer to the past ICCSEs in the conference site. 

Topics of interest include, but not limited to:

Annual Selected Topics

• Big Data and Time Series
• Mobile Information Technology
• Disaster Prevention
• Displays 4k/8k, 3D, e-paper
• Informatics in Social Medicine
• Natural Language Processing
• Information Security
• Forms and Fundamental Fields

Interdisciplinary

• Mechatronics
• Automation & Robotics
• Bio-inspired Engineering
• Energy Efficiency
• Uncertainty Quantification
• Biomedical engineering

Engineering Education

• Education Reform and Innovation
• Engineering Education Mode
• Curricula and Courseware Design
• Engineering Training
• Life-long education
• Computer Education for Special Groups

Computer Science

• Artificial Intelligence
• Software Engineering
• Database Technology
• Computer Graphics
• Computer Application
• Control Technology
• Systems Engineering
• Communication Technology

Submission of Papers

Authors should submit the full version of their manuscripts online through the conference submission system at http://www.yeedao.net 

All materials must be written in English

The submitted manuscripts should contain sufficient details including key concepts and novel features of the work, and must be formatted according to IEEE’s Two-Column Format for Conference Proceedings and be no longer than 6 pages including all texts, references, appendices, and figures. Templates are available at the conference website. The submissions should be in PDF format which is IEEE PDF eXpress compliant. To ensure submissions are suitable for ICCSE, authors are strongly recommended to first review the papers published by previous ICCSEs.

Special Issue for Control and Intelligent Systems

ICCSE will select about twelve papers with further enhancement, to submit to the journal, published by ACTA press, which can be indexed by EI.

Invited Sessions:

Proposals for invited sessions in the related areas are also solicited and should be submitted through email to Invited Session Chair, Dr. Wenxing Hong via Email: hwx@xmu.edu.cn

Conference Venue: Nagoya University, Japan
Sponsors:  IEEE Nagoya, Japan Section
National Research Council of Computer Education in Colleges & Universities, China (CRC-CE) 
Nagoya University, Japan
University of Fukui

 

Systems Engineering for Sustainable Development

Greetings from the famous room N101 in the Computer Science and Information Technology building at the Australian National University in Canberra. I am helping teach "Systems Engineering for Software Engineers" (COMP3530 and COMP6353). This week's topic is Sustainability. , with Dr Lorrae van Kerkhoff, from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society and myself, Tom Worthington, from the ANU Research School of Computer Science and member of the ANU Climate Change Institute. This may seem a strange topic and speakers for a software engineering course, but there is little point in just teaching the students to build a new App with dancing cats. As professionals the graduates need to be worrying about the social effects of what they do. I ask the students "How Green is My Computer?" and talk to them about ICT Sustainability. The issue for me is how to address environmental concerns while meeting social goals.