Re: [LINK] Google has removed Canberra buses from directions in google maps
On 22/2/21 1:43 pm, David wrote: ... why the ABC thought ... Facebook or Twitter was a good idea. ... It is a quick and easy way to reach a lot of people. Do they not understand Facebook's business model? ... Yes, but like climate change, the harm happens in the future, when hopefully someone else has to worry about it. -- Tom Worthington, http://www.tomw.net.au ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] The Past, Current and Future State of AI
On 14/2/21 2:01 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: ... I'm a bot. Ask me a question, I'm here to help you. ... In 2018 I took part part in a workshop at an e-learning conference on how to build a tutor bot using IBM's Watson. Mine answered questions about assignment extensions by saying "no". ;-) https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2018/12/chatbot-tutors-for-blended-learning.html On Tuesday, Craig Thomler gave a demo of his Simple Marketing AI tool using Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) for generating marketing material. It worked very well, but that is a low bar for AI. ;-) https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2021/02/ai-to-generate-marketing-content.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Scary - water supply chemicals hacked
On 9/2/21 10:42 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote: This story ... See also the Queensland case of a "Hacker jailed for revenge sewage attacks", 31 Oct 2001: "An Australian man was today sent to prison for two years after he was found guilty of hacking into the Maroochy Shire, Queensland computerised waste management system and caused millions of litres of raw sewage to spill out into local parks, rivers and even the grounds of a Hyatt Regency hotel." https://www.theregister.com/2001/10/31/hacker_jailed_for_revenge_sewage/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australian Government COVID-19 Vaccination Advertisement a Deep Fake?
Has the Federal Government used deepfake software to put words into the mouths of the three medical experts in the COVID-19 vaccination advertisement? The movements of the mouths of the people do not appear to match the bodies, as if they have been digitally animated. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-27/government-rolling-out-covid-19-vaccine-advertising/13093168 I am not suggesting some sort of QAnon conspiracy, just that perhaps to get the advertisement made quickly with a group of non-actors, it was necessary to use extensive digital post-production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Cinemas are dying
On 16/1/21 10:51 am, Stephen Loosley wrote: Ahh, but the above-mentioned figures make no mention of 2020. And now, the claim is that, “removing the theatre exclusivity-window ... Something similar is happening with universities, with shorter qualifications, and more flexible delivery. Government and university rules about having to attend class have been waived due to COVID-19, turning online education from a niche to the norm. The Australian government invented a new undergraduate certificate and is funding those, along with graduate certificates online, as a way to keep those unable to work due to COVID-19 out of the unemployment figures. Students have been signing up, seeing the benefit of a qualification in six months instead of years for a degree. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/05/undergraduate-certificates-to-be-added.html Universities are also trying out micro-credentials, equivalent to about three weeks study. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/10/will-microcredentials-and-certificates.html It will be interesting to see how many students go on to a degree and how many find six months study, supplemented by some micro-credentials are enough. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Cinemas are dying
On 15/1/21 6:26 am, gerard wrote: ... You forgot to mention Universties! I wonder if they will survive the move to on-line? ... Yes, universities will survive. As Robert Pirsig, wrote: "... the real university exists not as the physical campus, but as a body of reason within the minds of students and teachers ..." From: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) As with the cinema, many like the social environment of the university. But like movies, much of education delivery had already moved online before COVID-19. I expect most universities will still have a campus, but the average student will spend only about 20% of their study time there. A survey in 2015 at ANU found that lecture attendance was around 30%. My impression from talking to other lecturers was this was typical for Australian universities. https://missunitwocents.tumblr.com/post/123364615920/that-sinking-feeling-counting-the-cost-of-live In response new buildings were designed with more room for active student work, rather than passive lectures. An example is the ANU Marie Reay Teaching Centre, which opened in 2019: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/blend-and-flip-for-teaching.html Coincidentally these new classrooms have proved more easily adapted for COVID-safe requirements, as the furniture on wheels can easily be pushed further apart for social distancing. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/09/back-on-campus-at-hybrid-event.html See the notes from my six part series: "Higher education after COVID-19": https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/search/label/HE%20After%20COVID19 This was delivered for the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada. Manisha has asked for a new series starting this Wednesday 20 January. I would welcome input: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2021/01/engaging-students-in-online-environment.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Cinemas are dying
On 14/1/21 1:47 pm, Karl Schaffarczyk wrote: ... Cinemas have - in-general - survived home cinema setups ... Good points. The stats seem to show cinemas doing okay. https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/cinema/industry-trends/box-office -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Huawei wants in on Australian 6G network
On 6/1/21 3:14 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Huawei wants in on Australian 6G network ... Very amusing, but it is not 1 April. On 11/1/21 8:25 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: > China Telecom launches quantum encrypted phone calls ... Again, worthy of Professor Klerphell*. * https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amailman.anu.edu.au%2Fpipermail%2Flink%2F+Klerphell=site%3Amailman.anu.edu.au%2Fpipermail%2Flink%2F+Klerphell=chrome..69i57j69i58.5613j0j4=chrome=UTF-8 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Cinemas are dying
On 5/1/21 11:02 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: 'There will be no more cinemas' ... The cinema is an odd idea: you travel to a location and sit in a dark room with a lot of strangers, eat expensive popcorn and look at a video screen which is not effectively any larger than the one in your home. Now add to this is the risk of contracting a deadly disease: why would you do that? -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] New Australian Education Minister Needs to Put Online at Core of Strategy
I was asked to comment by Times Higher Education on what might be Alan Tudge, the new Australian education minister's approach. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/australian-minister-tipped-rethink-building-blocks-degrees In 2013 he chaired a committee investigating online learning particularly for International students. This did not appear to receive support from his colleagues, or the Australian higher education sector at the time. However, as I commented in THE article, the need to teach students during COIVD-19 has shown the value of on-line learning. The problem for the new Minister is now to recast the national strategy for higher education with online learning at its core. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2021/01/new-australian-education-minister-needs.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Small drones to be the future of networked warfare, but buying them isn't easy
On 1/1/21 10:42 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: ... small drones to be the future of networked warfare... https://www.fedscoop.com/pentagon-small-drones-networked-warfare Yes, air and underwater drones featured in projects at the Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020 I helped with in December: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/12/navy-warfare-innovation-workshop-2020.html ... drones, can collect data at tactical levels, buzzing around adversaries ... Then you have swarms of drones to counter the drones. ... has struggled to field drones easily across the enterprise. It is not difficult to find companies building drones. One is Carbonix, a few km from where I am in Sydney: https://carbonix.com.au/ ... existing marketplace has matured ... This is a far from mature market. There is plenty of room for innovation. ... single trusted and cyber-secure option ... Like the early days of any new technology, there is no single trusted option. Like other customers, the military has to place some bets on what might work by buying products from fledgling companies. Some drone companies will succeed, most will not. No one knows which. In 1999 I visited Aerosonde who were making drones in Melbourne, as a spinoff of research by the Australian Bureau of Methodology. http://www.tomw.net.au/travel/ara/ They were acquired by US aerospace company Textron Systems in 2007. https://www.textronsystems.com/textron-systems-australia -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Evidence of Vaccination
On 30/12/20 8:02 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Los Angeles Vaccine Recipients Can Put the Proof in Apple Wallet By Emma Court December 29, 2020 ... bloomberg ... The World Heath Organization has a Smart Yellow Card Working Group: https://www.who.int/groups/smart-yellow-card-working-group Nigeria has taken a slightly lower tech, but perhaps more practical approach, with a QR code for yellow fever vaccination. Presumably the QR code just takes you to a record at the Nigerian Health Department: https://www.health.gov.ng/index.php?option=com_k2=item=517:fg-phases-out-old-yellow-card-replaces-with-new-electronic-version -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] The ACT Govt's COVID-19 Exclusion Zone
On 23/12/20 8:03 am, Roger Clarke wrote: ... ACT government slapped a 14-day quarantine ... Greetings from Greater Sydney. If you have to be banished somewhere, Sydney is a great place for it. ;-) ... No map was provided ... Local Government Areas and State Electoral Divisions: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/local-government-areas-and-state-electoral-divis.aspx As polygons and with interactive map: https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/nsw-local-government-areas (And the ACT Govt provides no email-addresses ... Have your say on ACT Government projects: https://www.yoursay.act.gov.au/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Academics turn RAM into Wi-Fi cards to steal data from stand-alone IT systems
On 16/12/20 9:11 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Academics turn RAM into Wi-Fi cards to steal data from air-gapped systems ... TEMPEST* was something spooks whispered about in the cold war, but has been public knowledge for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)#History There are well known ways to shield equipment, ranging from carefully designed metal cases on equipment, to everyone working in a room which looks like a walk-in fridge. * TEMPEST supposedly stands for "Telecommunications Electronics Materials Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions", but may be a backronym. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Western Australia introduces new app to help with contact tracing
On 16/12/20 9:35 am, David Lochrin wrote: ... Are those protocols protected by some form of intellectual-property rights? The Apple pages with the protocol have a copyright notice on them, but I am not sure if that applies to the protocol itself. However, the similar Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-3T) protocol is open. The privacy benefit of these protocols is that the list of where the user has been is kept on their phone, not in a central database. Wikipedia reports DP-3T is currently used by Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_Privacy-Preserving_Proximity_Tracing -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] The Chinese Digital Renminbi (E-CNY)
On 14/12/20 11:01 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: “How will the digital RMB change the financial ecology?” ... I expect a digital RMB to be successful, not only in China, but around the world. People outside China find WeChat convenient to use, so they will a digital currency. But as Prime Minister Scott Morrison learned recently, Chinese online services are efficiently regulated. The BBC dystopian TV series 1990 had an episode on "Authorised Systematic Harassment". "Ordeal by Small Brown Envelope", Series 2 Episode 4, broadcast 13 March 1978 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0501331/plotsummary -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Western Australia introduces new app to help with contact tracing
On 14/12/20 12:29 pm, David Lochrin wrote: Could it be that Google & Apple want to be seen to be cooperating with governments re Covid-19 ... Perhaps, the Australian Government doesn't want to be seen cooperating with Google & Apple. It would be far better for Australia to develop its' own "Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing Protocol" ... The Australian Government has has found it challenging enough trying to get an already built app working locally. Tom, could your students develop an Australian prototype protocol and demonstrate its' practicability? Yes, the students could develop a prototype based on new protocols. After all they have built systems for the power grid and missile defence. But I would prefer they concentrated on implementing the Google & Apple one, as that is likely to be got working quicker and be of use world wide. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Western Australia introduces new app to help with contact tracing
On 10/12/20 9:39 am, Scott Howard wrote: Unless I'm mistaken, that's not possible. The Google/Apple APIs are only available to official " public health authorities" (ie, governments), and only a single app is allowed per region. ... What I had in mind was building an App so developing nations could implement it officially. Then asking Google/Apple to change their rules to allow multiple Apps per region and by other than public health authorities. Universities in particular could be seen as being responsible enough to run such a system. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian intelligence community seeking to build a top-secret cloud
On 11/12/20 9:25 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Australian intelligence community seeking to build a top-secret cloud ... Leaving aside the technical issues, the inter-agency politics of this would be formidable. I recall being at an inter-agency meeting about a "secure government intranet". The person next to me mumbled "That isn't secure" and I added "It isn't an intranet", but apart from that it was an excellent proposal. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020
Greetings from the Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020 (NWIW). I have been facilitating a team, with Navy personnel joining with people from the defence community and academia working on an idea. This is much like other hackerthons I have mentored this year, with the added bonus that we can again meet face to face (some teams are online for logistical reasons). https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/12/navy-warfare-innovation-workshop-2020.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Western Australia introduces new app to help with contact tracing
On 6/12/20 12:33 am, Stephen Loosley wrote: Western Australia introduces new app to help with contact tracing as QR codes become mandatory in the state from today ... Unfortunately each state seems to be building their own incompatible App. I am thinking of having students build a free open source privacy enhanced COVID19 app for educational institutions and developing nations. This would work with any check-in QRcode from existing systems & comply with the Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing Protocol from Apple and Google. The user could scan a QR code from any system when entering a facility. If this s already in the database, they need do nothing more. If the location is not registered they enter the name and address, to be added to the central database. The app would regularly check a broadcast list of identified COVID19 outbreak locations. If matched where the user had been, their phone would alert them. The user could then choose to have their phone send a list of where they had been to Contact Tracing staff. This could be implemented without the cooperation, or approval, of government authorities or the commercial providers of contact tracing systems. The app would simply use their QR codes to identify locations. The same app could use Bluetooth to record who the user had been near. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Batteries on a Sydney tram exploded in April due to a software fault
The batteries on a Sydney tram exploded in April, due to a software fault. The 20 kg battery cover was thrown into the air for 4 seconds and landed 6 m away. Fortunately this was overnight, when the tram was not in use and so no one was injured. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau report would be a useful study for students: "Uncontained battery failure involving Sydney Light Rail Vehicle 053, Randwick LRV Depot, New South Wales, on 3 April 2020", ATSB, 3 December 2020 https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2020/rair/ro-2020-005/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”
On 5/12/20 1:10 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: The author ... you tell me? Their profile says they are CEO of a company developing a "wearable device to help people born without a penis", which sounds interesting but not really relevant to COVID-19. Tom, this may seem obvious to everyone, and I can not work out how this is relevant? There is misinformation being spread about COVID-19 online. Before passing stuff on, I suggest checking if it is useful, who it is from, if they, and it, are credible. There are a lot of misinformed people out there passing on nonsense, but there may also be some deliberately spreading misinformation to cause harm. -- Tom Worthington, http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] O/t: “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down the United States?”
On 2/12/20 10:36 am, Stephen Loosley wrote: Linkers, the following is a reddit post for which I have no further references. So is it a good idea to distribute this? Who was the original author and what was their motivation? “How can a disease with 1% mortality shut down ... Once medical facilities reach capacity, the mortality rate will climb, as those who would have survived with treatment don't get it. The 2011 film Contagion depicted a disease outbreak. In one scene a contact tracer has the disease and is placed on a stretcher in a sports hall with hundreds of others left to die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) To get back on topic for Link, any group or nation state, which is spreading misinformation online with the intention of worsening the contagion, it should kept in mind that the USA has a policy of reciprocity. An attack on the USA will be judged based on the effect, not the manner of delivery. US policy includes the option of a response to a cyber attack with conventional or nuclear weapons. https://web.archive.org/web/20110518153848/https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf -- Tom Worthington http://www.tomw.net.au ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Open access science
On 26/11/20 4:50 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03324-y NEWS 24 NOVEMBER 2020 By Holly Else Nature journals reveal terms of landmark open-access option The journals will charge authors up to €9,500 to make research papers free to read, in a long-awaited alternative to subscription-only publishing. ... This is a good move, in that it makes clear the cost of publishing. Previously, the cost was hidden in each university library budget. Authors were imposing costs on all universities by choosing to publish in expensive journals, without that coming from their budget. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Open access science
On 28/11/20 10:23 am, David Lochrin wrote: ... How much are the authors charged for rejection? I don't know of any legitimate journals where authors are charged for rejection: they only pay if their paper is accepted for publication. I am not sure at what stage journals count rejected papers. Most papers never get to the reviewers and a rejected by the editors. In my experience most papers are rejected because they are not on topic, have already been published elsewhere, or are student assignments. By the way, the most common form of for-fee academic publication at present is not open source journals, it is conference proceedings. When I submit a paper to a conference there is no charge, unless the paper is accepted. Then I have to pay the normal registration fee for the conference, plus an amount for publication of the paper. If I don't turn up at the conference, present the paper and answer questions, it is pulled from the proceedings (I don't get a refund). Conferences have been a non-controversial form of for-fee academic publishing, important in fields such as computing and education. The proceedings are mostly distributed electronically and this year the conferences are online. Some conferences then pay established publishers to publish their proceeding to give them legitimacy. ps: This week I am off to (virtually) ASCILITE https://ascilite.org/2020-conference/ and OZCHI http://www.ozchi.org/2020/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Low-code and no-code development .. but .. security?
On 27/11/20 11:11 am, David Lochrin wrote: Tom, ... Although the University reserved some rights ... The ANU doesn't seek to retain any of the student's intellectual property. Each team has to come to an agreement with their client on ownership. Students are provided with legal advice on contracts. Having to worry about this is a very useful learning experience for students. https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/current_students/course_outline/ip/ ... marking Group "deliverables" each semester was not something tutors would anticipate with pleasure. Yes, marking group work is difficult for everyone. We have the students do some of it, tutors some, then experienced people do a final check. https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/current_students/guidelines/many_eyes_process/ Group's "Reflection" ... One of the most insightful comments I had from a student this semester was a complaint that I was not teaching them, just making them learn. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Open access science
On 26/11/20 10:00 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: Some OA advocates criticize Springer Nature’s fee as too high. ... If funders allow academics to hand the results of research to a company for free to make money from, the company can't be blamed for accepting this windfall. it is a “prestige tax” ... Yes, it is a prestige tax, but at least with an upfront fee the tax is not hidden, as is it is when it is buried in the university subscriptions budget. high rejection rates ... not ... guarantee higher quality ... Rejection rates are used by academics as a measure of quality, although that has problems. Likewise the high cost will be seen by some academics an indication of high quality (although they are not the ones paying). or discoverability ... Open access papers are no more, or less, discoverable. But open access will remove the frustration of finding a paper, but then not being able to read it, because it is behind a paywall. “I think it would be absurd for any funder, university or author to pay it,” he says. ... I think it is absurd for any funder to pay researchers to write papers, then pay more money so the researchers can read the papers. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] ACT election 2020: Electronic voting system flawed in 2020 poll, experts say
On 26/11/20 9:24 am, Kim Holburn wrote: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7027348/act-electronic-voting-system-flawed-experts-say/ Flaws in the ACT's electronic voting system could have changed the result of the 2020 poll, cyber security experts say. ... Yes! By rights, I won the ACT election! I wasn't on the ballot and was thus robbed of my rightful place as POTACT (President of the ACT)! ;-) More seriously, who is the expert and where do I get a copy of their report? The ACT government could make the system open for inspection without the need for legislation. But if the system is not open now, how did the expert find flaws in it? -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Low-code and no-code development .. but .. security?
On 23/11/20 6:43 pm, David Lochrin wrote: On 2020-11-21 08:47, Tom Worthington wrote: Agile seem to work okay for the teams of ANU computer students ... ... UTS students ... the second year of their degree. ... The ANU TechLauncher teams are in the third year or later, including masters. ... did the "customer" write a detailed System Requirements document ... The projects range from helping collect the requirements and build a prototype including selecting the tools and methods, to working on already developed requirements. The customer can be an individual who knows nothing about computers, up to a major software company with strict procedures. One team I tutored were building a biometric feedback system for a psychologist treating people with a fear of flying. Another was a engineering company needing to simulate a new processor for military radar. The students have already done years on tools and techniques, so the emphasis here is on teamwork and communication skills: can they produce something useful, soundly designed, which the customer is happy with? There is an overview at: https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/current_students/course_outline/#techlauncher-overview Shayne Flint and others who developed the program, wrote a paper about it: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7942964 Here is a later paper on my bit out it: https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Twitter Fleets
On 21/11/20 7:10 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Fleets: a new way to join the conversation ... By a remarkable coincidence: LINK INSTITUTE From the Office of the CEO, Professor Klerphell Internal Memo to All Senior Staff Subject: ChirpShip: A New Way to Distribute Random Thoughts With its new ChirpShip(r) the Link Institute has made a major advance in social media. We all know social media's purpose is to make money, regardless of the consequences for trolled individuals, the destruction of civil society, or world peace. It's where you go to avoid seeing what is really happening, and having to talk to your family. Some say they do not want to have their every random thought on the public record for eternity: but who reads their posts? We have squeezed as much out of this little learner as we can, so we have come up with new way to get customers addicted to their smart phones. At the Link Institute we've been working on the equivalent of a gateway drug for social media users. With ChirpShip everyone can easily join in and never leave. Any random thought a customer may have, however half baked and regrettable in retrospect, can now start a conversation, and at the same time end a relationship or a career. Chirps will only be available to subscribers for a day. Of course we know everyone will keep a copy permanently. We will be early to this market with "ChirpKeep". Also we have opened negotiations with Interpol, the Divorce Lawyers Association, and the Society for Human Resources Professionals, for discount rates on data access. ChipShip is available now. To get started we have invited school children to sign up and start Chirping about their parents. To find out how their kids are defaming them, parents will have to sign up too. Through our tests we have found that ChirpShip is as addictive and harmful poker machines, tobacco, and alcohol, but those are legal, so we think we can get away with this for decades, or at least until the public listing of the shares. ps: Please we don't want a permanent record of this plan. So I remind all staff that they are banned from using any form of social media. ;-) -- Tom Worthington http://www.tomw.net.au ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] ASCILITE 2020 Education Conference Online 30 November.
Looking forward to the ASCILITE 2020 Australasian Education Conference, 30 November. https://2020conference.ascilite.org/ This is ASCILITE's first online event. Academic events appear to have adapted to the online format easily, but commercial ones, with sponsors have suffered. EduTech and Edutech Asia had online exhibitions, where delegates could book a meeting with a vendor. But I missed being able to wander through the exhibition, looking over people's shoulder and listing to the sales pitch for a few seconds, them moving on. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/edutech-2020-on-now.html ps: I am tail-end Charlie for two papers on hybrid and mobile learning in response to COVID19 at ASCILITE 2020. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/ascilite-2020-conference-online-30.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Low-code and no-code development .. but .. security?
On 19/11/20 10:51 am, David Lochrin wrote: I wonder whether "agile" software development is riding the same cycle? ... Agile seem to work okay for the teams of ANU computer students I help teach. But then they are all above average. ;-) https://cs.anu.edu.au/TechLauncher/current_students/course_outline/#access-to-online-systems#agile-kanban-planning-and-execution-monitoring -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Low-code and no-code development .. but .. security?
On 19/11/20 8:59 am, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: ... What goes round comes around and what goes round is often a hype cycle. ... Entrepreneurs can build impressive systems with join the dots software. But the applications they produce tend to all look the same and do the same thing. When they need to do something really new they get stuck. Also they don't know what they should *not do*, for example the Robodebt fiasco. https://theconversation.com/robodebt-was-a-policy-fiasco-with-a-human-cost-we-have-yet-to-fully-appreciate-150169 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] New device puts music in your head — no headphones required
On 15/11/20 11:41 am, Karl Auer wrote: ... Are you saying these guys have not invented what they say they have? No they did not invent directional audible sound using ultrasonics. Pompei, F. J. (1999). The use of airborne ultrasonics for generating audible sound beams. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 47(9), 726-731. http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12092 But it takes a lot of processing power and equipment to do and if the company can turn this into an affordable product, it will be impressive. Students at ANU have worked in the processing needed for phased array radar for the Australian and US military, which works on the same principle. ... participant would still be talking ... Perhaps out of phase sound could be sent by the same system, so the speaker's voice would be muffled. It doesn't really generate sound in people's heads ... Yes, hearing sounds from their fillings works differently (if it works at all). Comedian and TV producer Lucille Ball claimed to have intercepted signals from Japanese spies in WWII through her fillings and reported it to the FBI. Her company went on to produce the original series of Star Trek, so it is surprising Captain Kirk did not have a tooth mounted communicator. ;-) https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/lucille-ball-fillings-spy.htm -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australian Parliamentary Committee reports on education in remote and complex environments
A report on education in remote and complex environments has been released by the Australian Parliament. COVID-19 happened during this, making it more complex. My submission gets a mention on page 121. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/australian-parliamentary-committee.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australian Government Misses the Point on Innovation and Research
Dan Tehan, Minister for Education, announced an expert panel on accelerating the commercialization of university research. The panel has eminent experts from research & industry. But the government has missed a key point on how innovation actually happens. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/australian-government-misses-point-on.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Less time in class for better student outcomes?
Greetings from Edutech2020 online via Zoom from Australia. Pasi Sahlberg, Deputy Director of Research at the Gonski Institute For Education University of New South Wales is presenting evidence that Australian school teachers (and students) spend too much time in formal classes. He argues that there is no correlation between time in class and results and Australian teachers don't have time in their long days for innovation. His institute is investigating how digital media distracts students. The solution I suggest is in the hands of those who train teachers: show them how to teach differently, and make use of educational technology, so it helps rather hinder learning. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/11/edutech-2020-on-now.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian Shareholders' Association
On 30/10/20 10:11 am, Roger Clarke wrote: ... assumption needs to always be that 'the law is an ass ... Court hearings are now held online. Would a judge at an online meeting decide that online meetings are not legal? If they did you could appeal the decision on the grounds the online hearing was not legal, based on the precedent set by that judgement. Of course if the hearing was not legal then the decision is not valid, so it is not a precedent, in which case it is. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian Shareholders' Association
On 27/10/20 5:00 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: The Government has announced it proposes to make permanent the ability of companies to hold online-only virtual AGM meetings ... I am surprised any legislation is needed for this. I would have thought that a meeting by video conference is a "meeting". After all this allows broader access to meetings than a physical room of limited size does. When President of the ACS I chaired a meeting of our National Council by video conference. Also it is odd that the Federal Government would be keen for other organizations to have virtual meetings, when it doesn't want to do so itself. The National Cabinet was postponed because the Prime Minister did not want to have it without his staff beside him physically in the room. Also use of virtual or hybrid meetings of parliament has been limited. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] The Corporatisation of Tertiary Training
On 26/10/20 9:24 am, Roger Clarke wrote: ... after paying for the degree, may have to pay more to AWS afterwards, because "students in the degree won’t automatically receive certification from AWS". Yes, with some industry certifications the university is licensed to do the testing, but apparently not in this case. Another interesting example UNSW have announced an agreement with company OpenLearning for a new Online Transition Program for international students. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/10/company-to-provide-unsw-university.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] The Corporatisation of Tertiary Training
On 21/10/20 1:36 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: [ It's remarkable how long the concept lasted of a university being independent in respect of content development, content projection, and degree-granting. ... Australian universities were established to provide trained professionals and useful research, not just to think great thoughts. It is getting more transactional, but it has always been the case that if a university didn't produce useful graduates or research, then it would have difficulty attracting funding. Swinburne Uni launches AWS-backed cloud degree Matt Johnston itNews Oct 21 2020 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/swinburne-uni-launches-aws-backed-cloud-degree-554926 I prefer an approach where you can get a broad education, plus can obtain specific industry certifications for a job. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/09/higher-education-in-post-pandemic-world.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Interoperability guidelines for EU contact tracing applications
On 20/10/20 10:34 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Interoperability guidelines for approved contact tracing mobile applications in the EU https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/ehealth/docs/contacttracing_mobileapps_guidelines_en.pdf I could not find any mention of the Apple/Google Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing Protocol: https://covid19.apple.com/contacttracing Apple and Google control the technology in almost all the smart phones in the EU, so it seems odd to ignore this. Of course the Australian an UK government ignored it, resulting in apps which don't work very well. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] QR codes become the simpler alternative for coronavirus management as COVIDSafe takes a backseat
On 21/10/20 10:33 am, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: QR codes become the simpler alternative for coronavirus management ... Sarah Basford Canales Canberra Times October 21 2020 - 3:00AM https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6960916/an-almost-antiquated-phone-technology-has-become-an-unlikely-hero-in-2020/?cs=17318 ... The rise of QR codes has caught the attention of state governments and the ACT and NSW have built their own check-in apps to help businesses. ... Unfortunately, the ACT and NSW systems are not interoperable. That is silly, given NSW surrounds the ACT. Adoption rates of COVIDSafe haven't hit the planned goal due to a number of concerns over privacy and technical issues with the app ... COVIDSafe is a bad idea badly implemented. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australia and the post-pandemic world online symposium on now
Greetings from "Australia and the post-pandemic world", a free online symposium being hosted by the Australian Studies Institute. This is on from the Australian National University until 5pm. I will be on the 1pm panel "education and online learning in a pandemic". An unusual format is being used, where each speaker prepared a 5 minute video in advance, so the live sessions move straight to discussion. It will be interesting to see if this format continues after face to face symposia are reintroduced. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/10/australia-and-post-pandemic-world.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Honorary Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australian Government Has No Secure Communications in Townsville?
The Prime Minister said in a press conference on 16 Oct that a National Cabinet meeting could not be held because of mechanical difficulty with the BBJ jet prevented return to Sydney. The PM said he couldn't take part from a secure facility in Townsville because: "The National Cabinet is not just me on the end of the phone." https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-sydney-nsw-6 However, the PM would have been able to take part in a secure video conference from the aircraft on the ground, at the Defence headquarters in Townsville, or any location needed. Townsville is the location of a major Defence base and hosts the Army's ready deployment force. These are the troops the government calls on to help with disasters and has a signals regiment to provide secure communications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarack_Barracks Also the "BBJ jet" referred to is a RAAF aircraft. This is equipped with a meeting room and communications. A mechanical breakdown would not prevent these facilities being used on the ground. https://www.airforce.gov.au/technology/aircraft/air-mobility/737-boeing-business-jet It would be surprising if the staff of senior government officials do not carry secure communications equipment for video-conferences with them in bags and pockets, as a matter of routine. If not the ADF could set up equipment at any location needed. -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Australia and the post-pandemic world, 22 October
The Australian National University Australian Studies Institute is hosting a free online symposium "Australia and the post-pandemic world" 22 October. https://ausi.anu.edu.au/events/changes-everything-australia-and-post-pandemic-world I will be on the panel discussing Higher Education after COVID-19. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/09/higher-education-in-post-pandemic-world.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Electronic voting in ACT
On 16/10/20 12:24 pm, Kim Holburn wrote: ... can't find much information on the machines or how it's done ... The EVACS system was originally developed through the Canberra company Software Improvements by people connected to computer science at ANU. It originally used Debian linux: http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~rpg/EVoting/evote_revacs.html Standard government computers were used, mounted in a cardboard polling booth, with a hole cut out for the screen. The same physical arrangement is still used, but I don't know what sort of computer is underneath now. I have used the electronic system to vote in ACT elections since 2001. My notes on this and other e-voting systems: https://blog.tomw.net.au/search/label/electronic%20voting There are also research papers on the security and design of the eVacs system: Boughton, C. (2006). Maintaining democratic values in e-voting with eVACS®. In Electronic Voting 2006–2nd International Workshop, Co-organized by Council of Europe, ESF TED, IFIP WG 8.6 and E-Voting. CC. Gesellschaft für Informatik eV. https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/29161 Das, A., Niu, Y., & Stegers, T. (2005). Security Analysis of the eVACS Open-Source Voting System. online], http://wwwcsif. cs. ucdavis. edu/% 7Esteqers/eVACS-final-report. pdf,[09/06/2008]. "Electronic Voting in the 2001 ACT Election", Commonwealth Parliamentary Library Research Note 46, 2002. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22library/prspub/7MS66%22 Jones, M. Investigating the Software Engineering Process for Electronic Voting Systems. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.497.8133=rep1=pdf -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] GP online exam tech fail
On 12/10/20 8:48 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote: ... For over 1000 people!!How in the world was that ever going to work? ... There are specialized online proctoring products, such as ProctorU and Proctorio. These run an application in the user's computer which limits what they have access to and switches on the web camera on. They look for things like another person appearing in view and then alert human proctors to check. I have tried on of these products: fist you hold your ID card up for the camera to see, then pan it around the room to show no one else was there. The test is then administered. This is a bit slow and clunky but generally works and has been used by online universities for years. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/05/make-online-exams-more-like-real-world.html However, a high stakes, end of course examination is not a good way to test real world skills. An electronic version of an exam is like trying to improve a steam locomotive by putting wings on it. I have never set, or sat, a real test with one of these proctoring products. In 2008 I decided to give up giving face to face lectures, and around the same time decided not to set exams, paper based or online. As a student myself, I don't enroll in courses which have high stakes examinations at the end. I don't mind a thirty minute quiz for a few percent of the final mark, or have to give a presentation and answer questions on it, but something which takes hours, for the majority of the grade is not acceptable. Unfortunately most university academics are not trained in how to design, administer, or mark alternative forms of assessment. So they waste a lot of time doing it badly and so tend to revert to using exams, as that is all they know. With some training in assessment, it is possible to produce better alternatives to exams. ANU is hosting two forums on the university of the future: * The Virtual University: Study, Community and Connections in an Age of Remote Learning", 6pm AEST Thursday 15 October 2020: http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-virtual-university-study-and-community-in-the-age-of-remote-learning-tickets-124363329065 * This changes everything?! Australia and the post-pandemic world, 9am to 5pm AEST, 22 October 2020. https://ausi.anu.edu.au/events/changes-everything-australia-and-post-pandemic-world -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] The Virtual University, 6pm Thursday
A discussion of "The Virtual University: Study, Community and Connections in an Age of Remote Learning", will be held online 6pm AEST Thursday 15 October 2020. http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-virtual-university-study-and-community-in-the-age-of-remote-learning-tickets-124363329065 This is hosted by the ANU Learning Communities at the Australian National University. I will be joining the panel to talk about my ten years experience as an online student and educator. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/10/the-virtual-university-6pm-thursday.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Telstra Joined Regional Smart Cities High Speed Rail Project
Telstra has joined the Consolidated Land and Rail Australia Pty Ltd (CLARA) consortium to build new regional smart cities connected by high speed rail to the capitals. That is a good thing, I guess, if it happens: https://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/379427/telstra-joins-the-clara-consortium -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Telstra “Game Optimiser” Snake Oil?
According to Leigh Stark Telstra is planning to charge $10 a month for a “Game Optimiser” to "prioritise traffic to gaming devices". Will this really improve gaming? https://www.pickr.com.au/news/2020/telstra-starts-testing-game-optimiser-for-its-nbn-customers/ -- Tom Worthington http://www.tomw.net.au ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian University Rankings
On 7/9/20 10:54 pm, David Lochrin wrote: On 2020-09-06 09:57, Tom Worthington wrote: Palali, Van Elk, Bolhaar & Rud (2018) ... Did the undergrads actually receive significantly ~lower~ grades? Yes, that was my reading of the research. ... a successful IT project only requires knowledge of the technology (i.e. vocational training) and strict adherence to the correct project methodology ... No, as I tell my students, most IT projects fail, even if you do the technical bits right. They usually go wrong due to a failure to understand who the client was and what they needed, not because of some technical detail. ... some are born natural teachers and some are not Yes, some people make better teachers than others, but training can still help most. If the training includes testing, we can keep some of the really poor teachers away from students by failing them. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Smart meters back in the frame
On 7/9/20 9:29 am, jw...@internode.on.net wrote: ... you can tell the age of a fridge by a smart meter? Seriously .. Yes. ... it can tell how many people are in the home ... Yes. Hype in terms of oversell or over-fear? Yes, there are easier ways to carry out widespread electronic surveillance of the population. But if you are worried about your smart meter spying on you, then get a household battery. That will even out energy use and so hide the details of what is switching on and off. https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/worlds-first-plug-in-home-battery-set-to-be-tested-in-australia/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian University Rankings
On 4/9/20 10:37 am, David wrote: ... Staff with a funded research interest probably make more informed & involved teachers ... No, what makes a teacher is teacher training. Palali, Van Elk, Bolhaar & Rud (2018) found students taught by academics with good publication records got higher grades, but only for masters level students, not undergraduates. Researchers have a very different university experience to the average student. Many genuinely want to help their students, but don't know what to do. ps: I can relate to the average student, as I was a very average student myself, recently of education (Worthington, 2016). ;-) References Palali, A., Van Elk, R., Bolhaar, J., & Rud, I. (2018). Are good researchers also good teachers? The relationship between research quality and teaching quality. Economics of Education Review, 64, 40-49. URL Palali, A., Van Elk, R., Bolhaar, J., & Rud, I. (2018). URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775717302315?via%3Dihub Worthington, T. (2017). Digital Teaching In Higher Education: Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology, Innovation and the Environment. Lulu. com. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/digital_teaching/introduction.shtml -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australian University Rankings
On 2/9/20 10:29 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Record number of Australian universities crack world's top 200 By Natassia Chrysanthos September 2, 2020 https://www.theage.com.au/national/record-number-of-australian-universities-crack-world-s-top-200-20200902-p55rlv.html ... experts warn their success could be short-lived if they can no > longer fund strong research. ... Yes, research increases university rankings, thus attracting international students, even though the research has nothing to do with the quality of education provided. Australia has had a strategy of requiring all its universities to undertake research, which has helped with the national education brand. But with this comes the inefficiency of institutions which can't specialize in a particular field of research, or focus on education. We have had a short term crisis with COVID-19, but our universities still need to change if they are to survive the technological and geopolitical changes which will unfold over the next few years. This will likely include flexible global programs which can be delivered partly online in the student's country by staff who are qualified to teach. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/higher-education-after-covid-19-webinar.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Government Death Notification Service
On 31/8/20 8:40 pm, Nic English wrote: ... rendered ‘digitally dead’ ... Imagine the difficulties if all your bank accounts are frozen and you have to prove you are not dead. No doubt you can pay for a digital hit, on the dark web, to get rid of your enemies. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] It is Time for Parliament to Follow the Rest of Australia Online
On 25/8/20 10:48 am, Brendan wrote: I think it is not only desirable, but necessary for MPs to be physically proximate in order to do their job properly. That job involves more than participating in debates in the chamber or voting on legislation. Yes. I found it interesting having appeared before a few inquiries that much of the business happens in the breaks, around the coffee and snacks. Also there is an interesting dynamic at the parliamentary cafe, with people meeting, and people watching who is meeting who. That can still take place: I am suggesting a blended and hybrid parliament, with both online and face to face elements. Also we are learning how to better do that backroom work online. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] COVID-19 a White Swan Event for Universities, Webinar, 8am Wednesday
I will be speaking on "Higher education after COVID-19: Not business as usual" next week as part of the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College in Canada. This is the sixth and last weekly sessions. Free, register now. https://forms.gle/QKjRboTbaXoSMZt27 Higher education after COVID-19: Not business as usual by Tom Worthington, Computer Consultant & Honorary Lecturer ANU For the Microlearning Series, Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada 4pm Tuesday MDT (North America), 8am Wednesday 2 September AEST (Canberra) In August 2008 I told my computer science students at the Australian National University that this was my last lecture. Not just the last for the semester, but the last I was ever intending to give. Through a sequence of coincidences I then spent five years teaching online and another seven learning how to integrate a classroom back into my teaching. After a year teaching in mixed mode in a new purpose built teaching building, COVID-19 forced me back to online only teaching. The question then is what I will do, when the COVID-19 pandemic is over and classroom teaching is again possible. The future I see for higher education is Online Plus: there will still be campuses and classrooms, but with the core of the curriculum online, with students out learning while working in the real world. COVID-19 was a *White Swan Event* for Australian universities: something they were warned about, knew was coming, were told how to prepare for and yet failed to act. Can existing universities make the changes they know are now needed, or will new forms of higher education replace them? Questions for participants: 1. How can we replicate water cooler conversations for students and academics online? 2. We have the technology and pedagogy to to teach online but universities find a business model to make it work, or do we need new teaching institutions? More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/higher-education-after-covid-19-webinar.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] It is Time for Parliament to Follow the Rest of Australia Online
On 27/8/20 11:02 am, David Lochrin wrote: ... with no audience ... sitting at home in front of their computer... Each new form of communications which comes along requires different skills and provides new opportunities. I suggest it would be good to have our politicians spend more time face to face with their constituents and use the tech for formal parliamentary sessions. I am no Olivier, but do I train computer project students and start-up teams to work online. This is a different skill to performing in front of a live audience, for or a media reporter, or on a live TV broadcast. Prime-time ABC news programs alone have an audience of around half to three-quarters of a million viewers ... Is it good for national decision making to have our politicians spend hours in the chamber just to get a few seconds on the evening news? -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] It is Time for Parliament to Follow the Rest of Australia Online
On 25/8/20 10:45 am, David Lochrin wrote: The theatre of Parliament is one place where our Representatives are publicly held to account. ... The theater of parliament is largely rehearsed and scripted. Like any performance the spontaneity is largely an illusion. ... less accountable than it is now by creating a sense of remoteness ... Only a tiny fraction of the Australian population ever experience parliament face to face, and then only from the remoteness of the public gallery. It is possible to use online tools and techniques to make the experience "better than life". The nature of the technology would reduce the impact of the stirring policy speech to that of an SMS text. Great speeches are great in written form. I expect Lincoln and Churchill would have done well online. And where do you draw the line? Would Senate Estimates be held using Zoom? Yes, Senate inquires are already help via Zoom. They have been videoed for years and transmitted around the internal Parliament system (I have appeared in front of a few). I want to see incompetent ministers and public officials squirming in their chair under close questioning. With ultra high definition video you will be able to see every bead of sweat, better than sitting in the public part of the audience. ;-) The incident where Scott Morrison produced a lump of coal ... I do wonder when the Speaker will get onto the idea that they could insert an artificial background of the chamber behind each member on video. That way members could not use props. This effect is noticeable when someone with a virtual background on Zoom picks up an object: the software cuts out the object and inserts the background. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Mentoring student group work online, Webinar, 8am Wednesday
I will be speaking on "Mentoring student group work online" this week as part of the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College in Canada. This is the fifth of six weekly sessions. Free, register now. https://forms.gle/LKnNkm3HzL2xcfvk9 Mentoring student group work online by Tom Worthington, Computer Consultant & Honorary Lecturer ANU For the Microlearning Series, Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada 4pm Tuesday MDT (North America), 8am Wednesday 26 August AEST (Canberra) The best way for students to learn practical skills for a vocation is by practice. This can be in a real workplace as an intern, or in a team of students working on a real-world project. But many "real" workplaces are now virtual, with staff working online remotely. This requires new skills of those providing Work Integrated Learning. Questions for participants: 1. How do you provide individual students, or teams, just enough advice, when you can't physically meet with them? 2. How can online mentoring techniques be used after face to face teaching and working resumes? More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/mentoring-student-group-work-online-8am.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] It is Time for Parliament to Follow the Rest of Australia Online
The Australian Parliament's first hybrid sitting went okay. I suggest it be made permanent and online voting be implemented. In the last few months the barriers which were thought to exist to stop online working were overcome. There are teachers, judges, lawyers, doctors, physiologists and other professionals helping their clients online every day. In some cases Parliaments had to make minor changes to the law to facilitate this, but mostly there was no law preventing online working, just some administrative procedures. There is no law preventing the Parliament meeting online, just a lack of will to do it. It is time for MPs and Senators to follow the example of tens of thousands of other Australians and make the minor changes to their routine to work online. This will have benefits for the nation beyond the current COVID-19 emergency. During my term as President of the Australian Computer Society I chaired the first meeting of the ACS national council by video conference. Even among computer professionals there was some reluctance to do this, but it worked fine. At the end of my term in 1997 I suggested electronic sittings of Parliament with members in their electorate offices: https://www.tomw.net.au/twcl97c.htm#parliment -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] ACCC's Mandatory Media Bargaining Code
On 31/7/20 4:40 pm, Karl Auer wrote: ... opportunity ... to set up a news search service ... By a remarkable coincidence just issued: LINKGRAM from the Link Institute Link Institute Calls for New Media Payments to Old Media Dateline 23 August 2020, Moscow, Idaho: The Link Institute today called for social media to pay for use of old media stories. Institute director, Professor Klerphell, drew attention to an item in Sunday's Google News Business section: "Four-ingredient slow cooker Rocky Road recipe goes viral - Slow cook your way to this rich, chocolatey and marshmallowy treat - with a simple recipe that only requires four ingredients." 7NEWS.com.au Klerphell said: "Obviously this is a warning about a four party secret political pact which is ostensibly pro-USA supporting the ANZUS Alliance, but has hidden Chinese connections, systematically undermining our political process, leading to widespread loss of order in civil society, by making unrealistic claims of economic growth with simplistic campaign promises." He went on: "Some might think this is just a recipe for a chocolate slice, but our serious news media would not waste its time on such nonsense, that is what social media is for. It is clearly a warning about a deep state conspiracy, blown wide open by in depth reportage, locating 'Rocky Road' in Maine USA, the heartland of our allies, in a town named "China". ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?
On 18/8/20 3:47 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: ... channel for communications among members ... At the the ZeroCO2 Hackathon suddenly someone appeared on my screen from a ute in South Australia. Which of the video apps work on a car dashboard? ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] A solar superpower? Australian $24b plan
On 17/8/20 10:11 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Could Australia ... become a solar superpower? ... Yes, but an undersea cable is just one way. My colleagues at ANU also looking at Hydrogen Fuels and Renewable Refining of Metal Ores. Also they are looking at Indigenous Community Engagement (you can't just go an cover someone's land in solar panels) and Renewable Energy Policy and Governance in the Asia-Pacific (you can't just turn up with gigawatts of power and try to sell it). https://www.anu.edu.au/research/research-initiatives/zero-carbon-energy-for-the-asia-pacific/the-projects ps: Even before COVID-19 the project was making use of video conferencing. It was fascinating to talk to the researchers located in indigenous communities in northern Australia. Their role is important as you can't just turn up and tell the locals you are going to build a huge power station in their community and it will be good for them. They have been lied to repeatedly about such projects for hundreds of years. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?
On 18/8/20 3:47 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: ... channel for communications among members ... Every time I sign up to mentor a hackerthon, teach an online course, or collaborate on some research, I end up on another one of these platforms. Today it was podio.com for the ZeroCO2 Hackathon. As far as I can tell it is like Slack, but with more tasking features. The hot area for such products is to provide real time video conferencing within the product. So far no one has got it quite right. This is what I would call the synchronization of asynchronous communications. I wrote a series of papers on that but no one had a clue what I was on about, including me . ;-) https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/student-research-projects/async-sync-learning-system ps: Touching on this in my talk for Canada at 8am Wednesday: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/webinar-on-tools-to-engage-students.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Tools to engage students online, Free Webinar, 8am Wednesday
I was about to register for this exciting looking webinar, when I realized I am the speaker. ;-) Tools to engage students online by Tom Worthington, Honorary Lecturer in Computer Science, ANU In the Microlearning Series, Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada 19 August 2020, 8am AEST (Canberra Time) Due to the risk of COVID-19, universities are using online delivery of courses. But "delivery" suggests students are passive recipients of knowledge, a view reinforced if all students get are recordings of lectures, or a live lecturer who drones on and on in Zoom. Students learn best when they are doing things and there are many techniques developed for getting students active in the classroom which translate online easily. These and be used with the basic learning management system (such as Moodle) and video conference system (such as Zoom). There are also specialized online tools for individual and group activities, such as Slack, Piazza, GitLab, Padlet, and Trello. These will be discussed in this webinar and participants asked to contribute their experience. Here are some questions to get started: 1. What tips, tools and techniques do you use to get students actively engaged? 2. Do you do this differently in online, if so how? Register at: https://forms.gle/iKizi6aTdKhYnMGu6 More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/webinar-on-tools-to-engage-students.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] [Off-Topic]What is burning in the fire in "Planet America"
On 8/8/20 2:48 pm, jw...@internode.on.net wrote: ... TV panel showing one of those fake fire videos ... As POTUS would say: Fake Flues! ;-) More seriously, I suggest federal parliament be set up with a virtual chamber, for the members to attend online. This would look similar to Remo Conference, displaying a layout of the chamber, with members in their seats. Members could vote by pushing a button in an App on their ADS approved smart phone. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/hacking-virtual-hackerthon.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] nbn is offering assistance to switch back to your old broadband service if you were on the TransACT network
On 7/8/20 3:13 pm, Kim Holburn wrote: It has come to our attention that the advice was wrong for people connected to the TransACT VDSL2 network... Perfectly understandable mistake. Canberra has only had the TransACT broadband network for 18 years. There have only been about 100 papers in the technical literature and 18,000 web pages about it, so it would be easy to overlook. ;-) https://www.tomw.net.au/links/20020501.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Online Assessment with Portfolios in Response to the Coronavirus, Webinar 8am Wednesday
I will talk on "Online Assessment with Portfolios in Response to the Coronavirus" Wednesday 12 August, 8-9 am, AEST (Canberra Time) as part of the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College in Canada. This is the third of six weekly sessions. Register now. https://forms.gle/1dLZARwEYewV6xg69 Comments, corrections and suggestions welcome. More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/online-assessment-with-portfolios-in.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australia has an updated government style manual
On 2/8/20 7:00 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: ... little mention seems to have been made of previous editions or contributors ... Not an oversight: standard practice for government documents. This is partly about the public service being an ego-less group effort, partly not being able to admit a former government (which might be from a different party) did anything worthwhile, and partly about bureaucratic greasy pole climbing by taking all the credit. ... Tony Barry is the original instigator of our Link Mailing List ... We did acknowledge Tony's contribution 25 February 2011 at ANU Fellows Garden. But more could be done. Perhaps build a real Link Institute? ;-) https://www.tomw.net.au/irc/irc47.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] ACCC's Mandatory Media Bargaining Code
On 31/7/20 4:40 pm, Karl Auer wrote: ... opportunity ... to set up a news search service ... Such a service would need media companies willing to cooperate, which is not easy. The Australian Associated Press (AAP) has operated for 85 years, but recently the cooperation between media companies and willingness to pay has been lacking: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-29/aap-newswire-service-sale-finalised-nine-news-corp/12404748 If Google doesn't want to pay multiple media organizations, they could subscribe to AAP, or buy it. How much is the news content from traditional media companies worth to digital platforms? Do users of social media really value accurate factual news reports on public issues? If the customers just want gossip then there is no business case for Google and Facebook to pay for hard hitting investigative journalism: users can generate the gossip themselves. James Marcus recounted in his book "Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut" how he wrote book reviews for Amazon. But Amazon then starting selling things other than books and publishing customer reviews. Amazon found that customer reviews were just as effective for selling and there was no need to pay experts to write reviews. https://blog.tomw.net.au/2006/02/lost-in-amazon-jungle.html Journalists have never wanted to admit that their job is to fill in the gaps in the newspaper between the advertisements. If a media organization could find a way to sell advertising without news, they would, as ads make the money. The digital platforms have, in effect, worked out how to do that. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Open Content for e-Learning in Response to the Coronavirus, 8am Wednesday
I will talk on "Open Content for e-Learning in Response to the Coronavirus" 5 August, 8-9 am, AEST (Canberra Time) as part of the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College in Canada. This is the second of six weekly sessions. Register now at: https://forms.gle/hgY7a7uPJjbdGEYt9 Description: In this second of six talks on responding to the coronavirus with e-learning, Tom Worthington talks about openness content and open learning. Openness in education can apply to the way education is provided as well as the course materials. This is not just about using free stuff to save money. The Open Source movement in computing and the Wikipedia show a way of contributing, as well as using, content. This is based on the chapter "Use of Open Education Resources" in Tom's free e-book "Digital Teaching In Higher Education". He will also cover some participant requests from the first talk. More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/08/open-content-for-e-learning-in-response.html ps: Sorry about the time, but I had to pick one to suit Canada. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Now we have a clear energy solution?
On 1/8/20 3:09 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Australia’s trilemma of providing good, fast and cheap energy finally has a clear solution ... Not quite, what is lacking are strong renewable energy industry and employee lobby groups to put the case for renewables to government. Perhaps start-up and crowdfunding techniques could be used for this. Companies and individuals who rely on fossil fuels for their livelihood are understandably going to put pressure on politicians to oppose renewables. It is difficult for politicians to resist, in favor of jobs which do not yet exist at fledgling companies. Perhaps the renewable industry needs new forms of networked lobby groups to represent the interests of future employers and employees. That might include using entrepreneurial start-up techniques, where potential employees and investors contribute a small amount for a possible large future return. https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2015/04/designing-innovation-course-part-3.html#ch422 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Ten Dollar Telepresence Robot for the COVID-Safer Classroom
On 1/8/20 12:01 pm, Peter Batchelor wrote: ... upmarket version of Tom’s device: essentially an iPad on a Segway ... Yes, the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) had one of these tablets-on-wheels to greet people in the foyer and escort them to reception. It was a bit unnerving when the lift doors opened to see this thing looking at you and it did not last long. Also I just discovered CBRIN hosted the start-up "MissingSchool" with three wheel telepresence robots for sick kids to attend school virtually. With older teachers now at risk of COVID-19, perhaps the students should be in the classroom and the teacher remote: https://www.missingschool.org.au/page/80/telepresence -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Ten Dollar Telepresence Robot for the COVID-Safer Classroom
On 30/7/20 9:35 am, Karl Auer wrote: ... someone basically wearing a tablet on their face, displaying yours in real time, would visit functions, meetings etc in your place. ... It was a research project called "Chameleonmask", rather than a commercial service: https://lab.rekimoto.org/projects/chameleonmask/ Perhaps a screen could be built into the front of the face shields worn for COVID-19? -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Ten Dollar Telepresence Robot for the COVID-Safer Classroom
I built myself a ten dollar telepresence robot for Hybrid Learning in the #COVID19 safer classroom: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/07/ten-dollar-telepresence-robot-for-covid.html Well its actually a remote control toy car with a smart phone bolted to the top, running Zoom. But it works and is cheap, which is more than can be said of most COVID-19 ideas being hyped at the moment. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Can digital contact tracing make up for lost time? (The Lancet)
On 23/7/20 3:38 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: Can digital contact tracing make up for lost time? Not as much as online training for people doing contact tracing. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/general-training-modules.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Former Victorian Public Servent Convicted Over e-Learning System Fraud
Not from the Link Institute, this is a real media release from the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC): "A former deputy secretary of the Department of Education and Training, Darrell Fraser, was today convicted and sentenced at Melbourne's County Court to a two-year Community Correction Order and 300 hours of community service following Operation Dunham, an investigation by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, IBAC. ..." 24 Jul 2020: https://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/media-releases/article/former-deputy-secretary-of-department-of-education-and-training-convicted-over-fraud-related-to-ultranet-project -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Off Topic: 2 Why China’s extreme coronavirus controls are unlikely to work elsewhere
On 23/7/20 5:18 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: ... Neighbourhood monitoring system is at the heart of restrictions imposed ... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3080912/wuhans-elderly-reminded-life-under-mao-during-coronavirus An Australian apartment building body corporate is a sort of capitalist commune: a not-for-profit organization governed by a committee which issues rules the residents must follow. Just try parking your car in the wrong place and see what happens. ;-) It would be possible to make better use of the Internet and smart phones to communicate restrictions to the residents. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Off Topic: 1 Why China’s extreme coronavirus controls are unlikely to work elsewhere
On 23/7/20 5:17 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: Why China’s extreme coronavirus controls are unlikely to work elsewhere https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3094140/why-chinas-extreme-coronavirus-controls-are-unlikely-work In World War II Australia had local cadres of air raid wardens enforcing blackouts. Given the propensity of some on social media to report on the activities of their neighbors, it would not be difficult to set up a modern online equivalent. ;-) While Australian governments may not have a very sophisticated domestic surveillance system in place, our private sector does. It would not be difficult to use electronic payments to identify individuals who are going out too much and too far. Ten years ago I had my car serviced on one side of Canberra. I then drove to the other side and bought an appliance. A few minutes later my credit card company called to verify these were legitimate payments. The wide geographic spread and narrow time-frame made them suspicious. Perhaps nudge techniques could be used rather than threats: "As a gold level customer we are now offering services to save you the stress of shopping out. For a limited time our partners are now offering a free home delivery service for your online purchases. Or you can use our one-stop curbside pickups: order online and collect everything at once from your nearest center.". -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning, Webinar, 29 July
On 22/7/20 1:38 pm, Karl Auer wrote: On Wed, 2020-07-22 at 10:02 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote: ... fist of six weekly webinars on ... e-learning ... COVID-19 The Fist of Six? Sounds like a Chinese initiative. "Yes, Grasshopper, when you can take Zoom control from my hand, it will be time for you to leave." ;-) Good to know that Linkers read things carefully. That announcement went through teams of educators in Australia and Canada, none of whom noticed my mistake. It will be interesting to see if online learning becomes the new normal for university students. Yesterday I listened to a brief talk by Chirag Kasbekar, who researches how such changes happen: "In the wake of exogenous institutional change, organizational populations often experience a legitimacy shock. As a new institutional logic becomes dominant, old symbols and practices are delegitimated and new ones legitimated. Old symbols and practices persist into the postshock period, however, forming an ecology of diverse cohorts and audience schemas, some divergent and others convergent with the new institutional logic." From: Kasbekar, C. (2020). Adaptation of New Organizations to Legitimacy Shocks: Postbellum Firearms Firms in the US South, 1866–1914. Organization Science, 31(2), 355-377. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1305 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Malware
On 22/7/20 12:31 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: ... value added tax ... malware ... A Data Tax? It takes 10% of your data. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning, Webinar, 29 July
I will presenting on "Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning" as part of the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College in Canada: https://continuingeducationi.blogspot.com/2020/07/responding-to-coronavirus-emergency.html This is online, open to all and free, but please register now: https://forms.gle/hgY7a7uPJjbdGEYt9 It is the fist of six weekly webinars on how I came to e-learning, used it response to COVID-19 and some thoughts on how higher education can be improved in light of this. Suggestions welcome. More at: https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/07/responding-to-coronavirus-emergency.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] COVIDfail – the Australian coronavirus tracing app that can’t find anyone
On 14/7/20 9:34 am, Karl Auer wrote: It cost a lot of money that could have been far better spent on other things. ... The COVIDSafe App only cost a tiny fraction of the billions spent on COVID-19. The app was oversold, but at least it appears to have done no direct harm, unlike some other measures. But an App which works well and does not infringe privacy would be useful. This might be done in conjunction with Apple and Google. This could be branded "COVIDSafe 2.0", to save the government the embarrassment of admitting failure. The program is yet another IT debacle ... What worries me is that Australia has got used to implementing pandemic measures in a relatively benign environment and on the assumption these will be short term. Governments need to help the public maintain public health measures as routine, for years, and possibly under much more difficult conditions. Consider controlling the pandemic at the same time there are widespread bush-fires, floods, or cyclones, or if the ADF is committed overseas in its primary mission of defending the country, or with cyber attacks interrupting power, water, health and food supplies, or while misinformation campaigns cause civil unrest, or all of these at the same time. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] COVIDfail – the Australian coronavirus tracing app that can’t find anyone
On 9/7/20 6:04 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: COVIDfail – the Australian coronavirus tracing app that can’t find anyone ... Compared to other government COVID-19 initiatives, the App was cheap and at least has done no harm so far. Because of a lack of planning, governments threw money at whatever might work. There is still scope for new apps, as we need to be able to sustain virus control measures for the next few years. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] What is hyper-automation?
On 10/7/20 10:03 am, Kim Holburn wrote: According to Gartner, hyper-automation ... By a remarkable coincidence: LINK INSTITUTE - LINKGRAM From the Innovation Bunker Under Sydney Central Station: Hyper-Heuristics Help High-rollers Hyper-automation sounds like hype, but according to Professor Klerphell of the Link Institute, it is being made real. To overcome business confusion, the institute is apply automation to automation with the hyper-hype-cycle. “We created the first hyper-hype-automation tool for managers. We presented it that way because people don’t understand it.", says Klerphell. It now has a clear name for an unclear concept. While the name is fixed, the definition is in a stale of flux. According to Link Institute, hyper-hype-automation “involves a combination of tools, including offshore process automation (OPA) and outsourced business management (OBM), with a goal of increasingly AI-driven report writing.” The institute further unclarifies that “hyper-hype-automation results in the creation of an offshore digital twin of the organization (ODTO)”. This enables organizations “to virtualize how functions, processes and key performance indicators interact to distract stakeholders.” In short, you can think of hyper-hype-automation as automated automation of consulting reports. It allows high speed reports advising on future trends to be prepared without the need for CJGMCs (Cheap Just Graduated Management Consultants). Hyper-hype-automation enables machines to automate the development of consultant reports recommending additional automation without the input of human assistance, or even CJGMCs. One automated report said that machines running on this type of technology can learn 10,000 times faster, without ever missing on the next iteration. So far no one has been able to work out what that means, which shows the effectiveness of the system. "This is one of the benefits of this system" said Klerphell. "One of the problems with human generated consultants reports is the client might try to implement them. With hyper-hype-automation the result is a jargon rich, zero meaning report, so there is no risk of our advice being wrong". Hyper-hype-automation has become mainstream, with adoption growing. The next phase will be a voice and video font end to provide clients with personalized advice via Zoom, with avatar consultants speaking directly to management. This industry—cloud communication, when customer calls in, must combine information from various systems to get a completely clouded picture. The hyper-hype-automation tool then generates a custom recommendation, tests it for common sense advice and provided it fails, speaks it to the client. The institute hyper-hype-automation is a pivot from an automated political speech writing system. "We tried to generate politicial speeches, by feeding in two hundred years of Hansard to a neural network. Unfortunately after days of analysis on the world's largest supercomputer all we got was a cloud of smoke and a very confused computer. But we found that when the parameters from neural net were used for analysis corporate data the results were completely unintelligible, which is the key innovation of hyper-hype-automation." *** Ends *** ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] MyGov Phishing eMail
On 9/7/20 3:56 pm, Scott Howard wrote: In this case the sender of the email ... is not a customer of theirs, nor presumably is the recipient ... Tom's personal account domain? It's not clear). ... No, I am not a customer of Agari. Should I be? I had never heard of it before this thread started. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Slow Smart Cities
On 9/7/20 3:54 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: ... Bays Precinct ... Google might move there but that soon vanished ... Atlassian did not want to move to Bays Precinct either. They are building at Sydney Central Station, solving their transport problem. Very keen staff can stay at the YHA in the building so don't need to go home at all. https://www.hotelmanagement.com.au/2020/06/26/yha-railway-square-to-feature-in-new-atlassian-hq/ Hopefully, the Bays Precinct will be accessible by both Light Rail and Metro West. ... Perhaps the Powerhouse Museum could move to the White Bay powerhouse building in the Bays Precinct. Put solar panels on the roof and make it a powerhouse again. ;-) https://thebayssydney.nsw.gov.au/destinations/white-bay-power-station/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] MyGov Phishing eMail
On 2/7/20 9:40 am, Christian Heinrich wrote: Is ... as per ... following up on each DMARC report[s]? No idea. I marked the messages which got though to me as Spam, and after that did not see any more. Either my spam filter has learned to stop them, they are being stopped somewhere else. Or perhaps the spammer has been dealt with under the Painter Doctrine of Proportionality. ;-) https://blog.tomw.net.au/2018/06/australia-declares-cyberwar.html ps: ANU is offering a new Cyber Masters: https://cyber.anu.edu.au/services -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Slow Smart Cities
On 2/7/20 12:21 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: ... seems like slow progress to me ... Perhaps Smart Cities are slow to take off because they do not provide real short term benefits. ... street furniture ... free wi-fi, barbecues ... parking sensors. Smart parking can save on inspectors and smart BBQs a little on maintenance. Free public WiFi is a useful byproduct if you need the network for something else. But these are not going to revolutionize urban living, or save city a lot of money. ... LoRaWAN technology ... I was impressed with Newcastle's IoT setup: https://blog.tomw.net.au/2019/02/ ps: Perhaps real smart cities take two or three decades. In 2002 I was invited to talk to students from the German "new" Bauhaus design school in Sydney on the role of ICT in urban development. The students produced a plan for redevelopment of the area around an old power station, now known as the Pays Precinct. With a Sydney Metro West station expected to open in 2030, something might finally be built. https://blog.tomw.net.au/2015/10/sydney-silicon-harbor-proposal.html -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
[LINK] MyGov Phishing eMail
My spam folder had 105 myGov Phishing messages recently.
These look too amateurish to be from a nation state. Even so it is good
to see the Australian Government setting up a CyberWarfare Battalion,
even bigger than I suggested in 2013:
https://blog.tomw.net.au/search/label/cyberwar
- Original message -
From: MyGov
To: "*" <*@*>
X-Spam-hits: BAYES_80 2, HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001,
ME_VADEPHISHING 2, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001, SPF_HELO_NONE 0.001,
SPF_SOFTFAIL 0.665, T_KAM_HTML_FONT_INVALID 0.01, LANGUAGES en,
BAYES_USED user, SA_VERSION 3.4.2
Subject: {SPAM 04.6} Important MyGov inbox mail
Date: Monday, June 29, 2020 1:51 PM
Hello *@*
You have a new message in your myGov inbox. Read Now
<http://sunnti.com/maryayam.php>
Regards, myGov team
Do not reply to this email
Email was sent to *@* on 6/29/2020
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--
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au
+61(0)419496150
TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation
Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington
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Re: [LINK] COVIDFail. The IT debacle that could cost lives
On 23/6/20 8:41 am, I wrote: ... my ANU Honorary Lecturer status ... is coming to an end. ... My ANU status has been renewed. Thanks to all those who expressed their support. One thing I am looking at setting up is a Humanitarian Computing Scholarship. I hope to get some ideas from the IEEE Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) Australian workshop, 26 June: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/232691 -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] COVIDFail. The IT debacle that could cost lives
On 22/6/20 12:20 pm, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote: Opinion: COVIDFail. The IT debacle that could cost lives> The Manderin ... Laurie Patton ... 19 June 2020> https://www.themandarin.com.au/135285-opinion-covidfail-the-it-debacle-that-could-cost-lives/ ... hasn’t identified anyone they didn’t already know about ... The Australia Government has certainly oversold the COVIDsafe App. At best it should be seen as something which might provide a useful adjunct to manual tracing. It might be useful in a major outbreak, where there are not enough trained tracing personnel. No nation, or company, appears to have a tracing app which works well. If, they do, its features can be used in Australia. One feature I would like to see is eliminating the central database, or making it optional. A more practical use of IT are online courses to reduce risk and deal with outbreaks. Before being permitted to return to my ANU office, I was required to undertake one of these short COVID-19 courses, and present the certificate as evidence I had completed it. ps: I am only going back to my office for a week, to clear it out, as my ANU Honorary Lecturer status at the Research School of Computer Science is coming to an end. If anyone knows another bit of ANU, or another institution, who would like an honorary (free) staff member, who knows a bit about IT and e-Learning, please pass them my CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomworthington/ -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] RFI: messagelabs.com
On 19/6/20 9:34 pm, Roger Clarke wrote: ... Below is the "alert notification" I received ... You were the *sender* of the message? The system at one of the recipients *replied* to your message? Apart from being a bit big brotherish, that would seem to go against normal security and risk mitigation principles. Normally messages are checked for spam and viruses with warnings attached for the recipient. You don't alert the sender, as they could use this to learn to get around the checks. Having a bot reply to the sender with a critique seems a legal risk, as the organization which was running the bot would be liable for what the bot wrote. Having the bot filter messages, particularly problematic for a medical organization, as there are technical terms which can be misconstrued as profanity, and also slang terms may need to be used with patients for clarity. Such filtering could result in miscommunication with fatal consequences. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] All German petrol stations must offer electric car charging
On 12/6/20 11:50 am, Stephen Rothwell wrote: ... recharging is possible (most of the time) in a few hours even from a 10A 240V circuit. ... That assumes you have a parking space with mains power. If you park on the street, or in an complex with allocated parking, there may not be power to charge from. It is possible to provide infrastructure for this, but someone has to pay for it. Also there is a trade-off between providing a few shared high current charging stations, or many dedicated low current ones. With batteries having longer lifetimes, some entrepreneur may offer discounted charging, if they can use part of your car's battery as grid storage. As an example, they might give you a discount to reserve 25% of your car battery for grid use. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] All German petrol stations must offer electric car charging
On 5/6/20 7:19 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: FRANKFURT, June 4 (Reuters) - Germany said it will oblige all petrol stations to offer electric car charging ... Unless car charging can be got down to a few minutes, it doesn't make sense to have it at "service stations". If it takes 30 minutes to charge the car, what are you going to do while waiting? Also a service station only has room for a small number of cars. It would make more sense to have charging at places people leave their cars for long periods, such as car share parking spaces, apartment parking, shopping centers and public car parks. What might be interesting, and on topic for the Link list, is how to use the Internet to make maximum use of shared charging infrastructure. You might book a charger online, be alerted when your car is charged and need to move it, to avoid an additional fee. This could also be used to encourage people to charge cars at the noon peak, when solar power is cheap. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] NBNCo Breach results in a belting with a feather duster
On 3/6/20 11:32 am, Roger Clarke wrote: (a) the chances of attracting the attention of a resource-limited regulator are pretty low ... Not a good idea to send a misleading letter out to people in the city where the regulator's staff, family and friends live. -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
Re: [LINK] Australia’s Rollout of Covid-19 Tracing App Is Marred by Secrecy and Bugs
On 29/5/20 12:45 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote: Wonder how resistent it is to viruses ... We need an App to record when Covid-19 Tracing App gets too close to other Apps. ;-) -- Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150 TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington ___ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
