Posts By Tom Worthington

Problems with Set Top Boxes for Pensioners

I talked on radio 2CC in Canberra at 7:20am this morning about issues with the “Household Assistance Scheme” to issue digital TV set top boxes to pensioners. There is enough money for about $350 per pensioner, which is far more than the $50 or so a box costs. The remainder is for installation.Kogan has suggestedRead… Read more »

Professional Ethics and Social Issues in Networked Information Systems

These are the draft notes for my lecture on “Professional Ethics and Social Issues in Networked Information Systems”, in the course Networked Information Systems (COMP2410/COMP6340), prepared for the Australian National University. I would welcome any comments or corrections.Table of Contents1 Introduction2 Ethics3 Being a Professional4 Social Issues in Networked Information Systems5 Readings Original post

Reload Tool For Creating Learning Objects

Helen Lynch, ACT Toolbox Champion, from Canberra Institute of Technology gave a webinar today on “Learning objects: Create, reuse and deploy for better teaching and learning online!” using the VET Reload Tool and use this with the as LORN and Toolbox Repositories of the vocational sector. This was of interest beyond the VET sector, asRead… Read more »

Bachelor of Counter Terrorism Online

Open Universities Australia, a consortium of universities offering online degrees, is now advertising a “Bachelor of Counter Terrorism”, via Google ads. The web site this links to explains the degree is actually a Bachelor of Arts (Security, Terrorism and Counter-terrorism). Most of the units appear to be provided by Murdoch University, with titles such asRead… Read more »

Thin Client and Application Virtualisation at Defence

The Australian Defence Department will proceed with its Next Generation Desktop Project, using thin client computers and application virtualisation (“Next generation desktop for Defence”, Warren Snowdon, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, MIN55/11, 6 May 2011). While this will deliver benefits, such as energy and cost savings, it is a difficult to implement in aRead… Read more »

Democracy Implemented in XML

All 110 years of transcripts of parliamentary proceedings are now available for the Australian Parliament as search-able web content. Hansard, as the record of the Senate and House of Representatives, is known, display by default in HTML, but can be downloaded as XML (under a Creative Commons licence) for analysis.Here is an example. Starting atRead… Read more »

All Australian Parliamentary Speeches Online

All 110 years of transcripts of parliamentary proceedings are now available for the Australian Parliament. The Parliamentary Library claims that Hansard for the Senate and House of Representatives has been converted to XML for easy online access under a Creative Commons licence.While it is good that Hansard is available online, the interface could be improved.Read… Read more »

Assessment beyond the degree factory

Greetings from day two of the Faculty Board Meeting of ACS Education, the part of the Australian Computer Society which provides education to computer professionals. There are about 30 people around a table in the ACS South Australia Branch office.AssessmentWe started with a presentation on the role of assessment in academic integrity. What I foundRead… Read more »