Search

A new classification system for computing education papers is presented and applied to every computing education paper published between January 2004 and January 2007 at the two premier computing education conferences in Australia and New Zealand. We find that while simple reports outnumber other types of paper, a healthy proportion of papers address and answer a research question. We find that more papers deal with programming courses than with other courses, and that more than half of all publications are situated in single subjects. To the extent that differing circumstances permit, we compare our results with those of an earlier study of the SIGCSE conference, and find that the Australasian publications include fewer simple reports and more papers describing analysis and experiment. We note a reasonable number of publications on multi-institutional work, which we interpret as evidence of a sense of computing education community within Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we are interested in the notion of multiple ways of thinking, knowing and transforming life, namely an increasing capacity to intervene in "life" as a "molecular biopolitics," and the changing ways in which "life" can be understood computationally. We identify and speculate on the ways different ideas of life, drawing from humanities, social, life and computing sciences, may impact the ways we think about and know education policy. We focus on key aspects of education policy around self-responsibilisation and choice, new forms of network governance and the move to education data science. The paper examines what is required to understand how advancements in the life and computing sciences may be implemented within educational institutions and organisations, and what political and ethical issues might pertain to the challenges these new advancements bring to educational institutions.

In this paper we have examined the position and roles of Computer Science in curricula in the light of recent calls for curriculum change and we have proposed principles and issues to consider in curriculum design as well as identifying priority areas for further research. The paper is based on discussions within and beyond the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Education Community since 2012 as well as an analysis of curriculum developments in five different countries. Emerging themes have been discussed with reference to important perspectives from curriculum theory including "powerful knowledge" as a key element of entitlement and management of the growth of expertise. Based on this analysis we have identified areas of consensus as well as constraints, risks and issues that are still subject to controversy. There is an emerging consensus of the importance of Computer Science and the nature of its "powerful knowledge". Furthermore current understanding of the opportunities and benefits for starting to learn Computer Science early in primary schools has identified this early start as an entitlement and equity issue. There is a strong consensus that teacher professional development in Computer Science Education is critical for supporting curriculum change and is currently a major challenge in many countries. Other key issues include understanding how the growth of expertise affects potential structure and sequencing in the curriculum and the balance of content. Further considerations include how new technological opportunities interact with pedagogical approaches and can provide new potential for the growth of expertise.

Computer science has been a discipline for some years, and its position in the school curriculum has been contested differently in several countries. This paper looks at its role in three countries to illustrate these differences. A reconsideration of computer science as a separate subject both in primary and secondary education is suggested. At EDUsummIT 2015 it was argued that the major rationales for including computer science as a subject in the K-12 curriculum are economic, social and cultural. The paper explores these three rationales and also a beneficence matrix to assist curriculum designers. It also argues computer science is rapidly becoming critical for generating new knowledge, and should be taught as a distinct subject or content area, especially in secondary schools. The paper concludes by looking at some of the key questions to be considered when implementing computer science in the school curriculum, and at ways its role might change in the future.

The demand for graduates with exposure in Cloud Computing is on the rise. For many educational institutions, the challenge is to decide on how to incorporate appropriate cloud-based technologies into their curricula. In this paper, we describe our design and experiences of integrating Cloud Computing components into seven third/fourth-year undergraduate-level information system, computer science, and general science courses that are related to large-scale data processing and analysis at the University of Queensland, Australia. For each course, we aimed at finding the best-available and cost-effective cloud technologies that fit well in the existing curriculum. The cloud related technologies discussed in this paper include open-source distributed computing tools such as Hadoop, Mahout, and Hive, as well as cloud services such as Windows Azure and Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2). We anticipate that our experiences will prove useful and of interest to fellow academics wanting to introduce Cloud Computing modules to existing courses. (Contains 3 tables and 11 figures.)

This study aims to analyse the work done in the field of Night Vision Robots using IR and Object Detection from 2011 to 2021, using the bibliometric methods. This paper presents a Scopus database review on "Night Vision Bot using Dynamic IR and Object Detection". The necessity for doing this bibliometric survey is that to know how the technology in the field of mobile robotics and night vision, as well as to object detection, has evolved over the years. This paper shows the importance of Night Vision Robot from the year 2011 and continued up to 2021 April. The database analysis for the robot is done through Scopus and VOSviewer Version 1.6.16. Through this database survey, it is revealed that the maximum number of publications are Conference Paper and most of them are from the field of Engineering and Computer Science, India has the greatest number of publications followed by China. Methods: The Scopus database was used to obtain the articles for the above topic. The research papers were considered from the year 2011 to 2021. The Scopus analyzer can be used for the analysis of the database with different categories like Source, Subject Area, Country, etc. The analysis such as co-authorship, co-occurrences, citation analysis etc. is done by using VOSviewer Version 1.6.16. Results: In the study, a total of 69 articles on Night Vision Robot were obtained between the years 2011 and 2021. The statistical analysis and network analysis shows that the maximum number of papers were published in the year 2020. India is the highest contributor followed by China and Australia. Conclusion: The outcome of the Scopus database is 69 articles with the English Language having the largest number of articles. The Statistic Analysis helps to understand the potential of topic. It is done for Authors, Documents, Country, affiliations, funding sponsors. The Network Analysis indicates the interconnections between different parameters such as Coauthor, sources. It indicates that this is a new concept, and the research has been done mostly in the last year, so there is lot of future potential and scope for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduate employability has become an issue since there are broad mismatches between the acquired graduate skills from university and the required skills by employers. While previous researches have outlined the salient skills that need to be embedded in graduate education, to date no studies have attempted to methodically identify and synthesize the literature on graduate attributes. In this paper a total of 39 relevant studies on graduate skills and attributes in the subject areas of business and management, accounting, and computer science were extracted from Scopus® (database). This revealed a total of 53 graduate attributes, with some being highly used, such as communication, teamwork, problem solving, technological skills, creativity, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, self-management and flexibility/adaptability. The majority of studies used a quantitative survey method to collect and rank graduate attributes, and Australia emerged as the most active country in researching the domain.

Within existing ICT degrees there is a widely-held belief that content must be tailored for different "kinds" of students--often two differing student groups: a technical group requiring detailed Computer Science knowledge and a separate group requiring less technical, more strategic ICT knowledge and skills. Our institution has produced a combined degree that contains both technical and non-technical content taught to a single cohort of students and thus requires a deeper insight into the needs of this diverse group of learners. This paper reports on an assessment of learning styles across our first year students, in order to inform our teaching delivery practices. Our findings inform the development of teaching and assessment materials that better support the diverse needs of students, regardless of their self-selected discipline.

This paper investigates the Australian literature relating to female under-representation in the information technology (IT) sphere of careers and education. This summary of the current body of literature presented through the lens of the nature of the discipline includes emerging theories that explore the masculinization of the discipline, followed by a discussion of the lack of a sustainable impact on declining female student numbers of earlier Australian intervention programmes. A position is presented on the marginalization of this line of research within the IT discipline, as well as media representations of gendered messages about IT. Finally, student career choice literature is used to explore the author's premise that many young women in 21st century Australia, when faced with an array of career choices, appear to be exercising this power of choice to exclude IT from their list of possible futures.

In a Finnish study of four different academic disciplines, Ylijoki (2000) found that in Computer Science there was a disparity between the conceptions held by undergraduate students and staff about their discipline; students viewed it as being far more pragmatic and results focused than did their instructors. Not surprisingly, here at our Australian university where the undergraduate Computer Science program emphasizes programming and problem solving skills, the authors had noticed a similar inconsistency between staff and student beliefs. This paper reports on an effort to realign these conceptions and broaden student experience using an assessment task. Centered on solutions to the popular "Sudoku" puzzle (Sudoku, 2005), the task was designed and introduced into an Intelligent Systems course, a final year elective of a Computer Science degree. The goal was to expose students to some of the "pure" rather than applied aspects of the Computer Science discipline (Becher & Trowler, 2001), by using assessment to encourage experimental learning (Kolb & Fry, 1975). The assessment specification instructed students to design and conduct several "in silica" Computer Science experiments to solve and/or create Sudoku puzzles. Importantly, students were asked to keep a Research Diary documenting their thoughts, attempts, backtracking and progresses as they attempted the assignment. Most unique from a student's perspective was that "failure" to solve the given problem by experimentation was a viable option; their efforts would be rewarded given they conducted themselves "scientifically" in their attempt. The inclusion of a Research Diary as part of the assessment proved beneficial to both students and staff, particularly as the Diaries focused students on the doing, rather than on the results achieved. For staff, these journals allowed the privilege of seeing what students were thinking and doing as they engaged in the problem. An early analysis of Diary entries shows evidences of students "thinking scientifically", that is, understanding and thinking about the problem before formalizing an approach to a solution. In addition, Diary entries also show evidences of students "behaving scientifically" as they reported conducting experiments and analyzing their results, before concluding about their experiences. For students, regardless of whether they able to complete the task, the Research Diaries were valuable testaments to their efforts and experimentations. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

This paper reports preliminary work in an ARC Linkage Project involving collaboration among James Cook University, Education Queensland, and Technology One (a Queensland based company). The project aims to identify and interpret factors associated with low female participation rates in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) professional level occupations and education pathways. Data is being collected using qualitative and quantitative methods. A survey is being administered to over 6,000 year 11 and 12 female high school students in Queensland to provide a comprehensive database that will be augmented with individual and focus group interviews. An online survey will be administered to women working in ICT industries. Reference groups representing EQ and ICT industries have been established to provide consultative advice and feedback throughout the project, and to function as working groups during the data analysis and interpretation phases. Project results will inform the development of strategic response options for education systems and ICT industries and suggest further research and industry-based initiatives designed to enhance female participation rates. (Contains 2 endnotes.)

Teaching future knowledge engineers, the necessary skills for designing and implementing intelligent software solutions required by business, industry and research today, is a very tall order. These skills are not easily taught in traditional undergraduate computer science lectures; nor are the practical experiences easily reinforced in laboratory sessions. In an attempt to address this issue, a software development project, designed to take students through a complete process of knowledge engineering, was introduced in an undergraduate Intelligent Systems subject. In this project, students were required to act as domain experts, knowledge engineers, programmers, end users and project manager in the production of a game-playing expert system. The paper describes the project, its objectives and development, as well as some of the benefits. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The challenges and solutions for inclusive engineering education are discussed in this paper. We propose remote experimentation as the practicaloriented basis to train engineers with disabilities in the fields of Computer Science and Information Technologies. The structure and the functionality of international GOLDi network that unites partner universities from Germany, Australia, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia is given. The possibilities of REIoT complex for studying the features of embedded systems design and Internet of Things technologies as well as an overview of ISRT laboratory for embedded software development and testing are given. The presented Remote Laboratories are successfully used to improve educational services quality and accessibility as well as to strengthen the practical component of the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphs are commonly used to represent objects, such as images and text, for pattern classification. In a dynamic world, an object may continuously evolve over time, and so does the graph extracted from the underlying object. These changes in graph structure with respect to the temporal order present a new representation of the graph, in which an object corresponds to a set of time-variant graphs. In this paper, we formulate a novel time-variant graph classification task and propose a new graph feature, called a graph-shapelet pattern, for learning and classifying time-variant graphs. Graph-shapelet patterns are compact and discriminative graph transformation subsequences. A graph-shapelet pattern can be regarded as a graphical extension of a shapelet—a class of discriminative features designed for vector-based temporal data classification. To discover graph-shapelet patterns, we propose to convert a time-variant graph sequence into time-series data and use the discovered shapelets to find graph transformation subsequences as graph-shapelet patterns. By converting each graph-shapelet pattern into a unique tokenized graph transformation sequence, we can measure the similarity between two graph-shapelet patterns and therefore classify time-variant graphs. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world data demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advantages of centralized and decentralized computing facilities within institutions of higher learning are discussed; arguments for the decentralized but not random distribution of computing facilities for schools of teacher education are presented; and the organizational structure of one "centralized but decentralized" computing plan is described. (Author/IRT)

Despite the fact that great progress has been made on single image deraining tasks, it is still challenging for existing models to produce satisfactory results directly, and it often requires a single or multiple refinement stages to gradually improve the quality. However, in this paper, we demonstrate that existing image-level refinement with a stage-independent learning design is problematic with the side effect of over/under-deraining. To resolve this issue, we for the first time propose the mechanism of learning to carry out refinement on the unsatisfactory features, and propose a novel attentive feature refinement (AFR) module. Specifically, AFR is designed as a two-branched network for simultaneous rain-distribution-aware attention map learning and attention guided hierarchy-preserving feature refinement. Guided by task-specific attention, coarse features are progressively refined to better model the diversified rainy effects. By using a separable convolution as the basic component, our AFR module introduces little computation overhead and can be readily integrated into most rainy-to-clean image translation networks for achieving better deraining results. By incorporating a series of AFR modules into a general encoder-decoder network, AFR-Net is constructed for deraining and it achieves new state-of-the-art results on both synthetic and real images. Furthermore, by using AFR-Net as a teacher model, we explore the use of knowledge distillation to successfully learn a student model that is also able to achieve state-of-the-art results but with a much faster inference speed (i.e., it only takes 0.08 second to process a $512\times 512$ rainy image). Code and pre-trained models are available at $\langle $ https://github.com/RobinCSIRO/AFR-Net $\rangle $. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The aim of this study was to provide an introduction to nutrition informatics, including a brief history and a rationale of its importance for Australian dietetics. Methods The study method used was a narrative review informed by a literature review and expert consultation with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Results Nutrition informatics has demonstrated potential to improve efficiencies, reduce costs, support research and ultimately enhance patient care. Governments and organisations have identified this as an emerging priority area. The Dietitians Association of Australia has launched initiatives to advocate and provide strategic advice on dietetic involvement in biomedical informatics and specifically nutrition informatics. Conclusions If nutrition standards and processes are not integrated into information systems, dietitians may inherit technologies that do not support dietetic work practices, and opportunities to enhance nutrition services may be missed. It is recommended that dietitians be aware of the opportunities and potential benefits of nutrition informatics, become familiar and involved in technology initiatives, and take the lead in guiding the development and implementation of technologies that may impact patient nutritional care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing is providing sport coaches with opportunities to transform their work with athletes. This paper identifies characteristics of Cloud computing and discusses sport coaches' use of the 'Cloud'. Examples are presented of this use in the sport of canoeing in Australia. The paper examines some of the risks inherent in a move to Cloud computing whilst acknowledging the dynamic possibilities available from new ways of communicating. The paper concludes with a discussion of the use of iterative 'good enough' approaches to digital repositories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latent friend recommendation in online social media is interesting, yet challenging, because the user-item ratings and the user–user relationships are both sparse. In this paper, we propose a new dual implicit mining-based latent friend recommendation model that simultaneously considers the implicit interest topics of users and the implicit link relationships between the users in the local topic cliques. Specifically, we first propose an algorithm called all reviews from a user and all tags from their corresponding items to learn the implicit interest topics of the users and their corresponding topic weights, then compute the user interest topic similarity using a symmetric Jensen–Shannon divergence. After that, we adopt the proposed weighted local random walk with restart algorithm to analyze the implicit link relationships between the users in the local topic cliques and calculate the weighted link relationship similarity between the users. Combining the user interest topic similarity with the weighted link relationship similarity in a unified way, we get the final latent friend recommendation list. The experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art latent friend recommendation methods under four different types of evaluation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years Australian universities have sought to establish generic graduate attributes statements to meet the demands of external stakeholders. Within the area of information and communication technology (ICT), for example, professional organizations and employers want new ICT graduates to be able to talk with clients, create persuasive arguments and present work confidently. To meet such requirements, Australian ICT educators have explored a variety of methods to implement graduate attributes. The selection and content of delivery models, however, vary according to university policies and departmental cultures. In this paper we critically examine the dedicated, infused, and embedded approaches to the delivery of generic graduate attributes. To do this, we first trace the development of graduate attributes. Secondly, we present three diverse approaches by two ICT departments within the same university and discuss factors that lead to sustainable generic graduate attribute programmes. We conclude our paper with issues to consider when adopting implementation models and map out suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer science, like technology in general, is seen as a masculine field and the under-representation of women an intransigent problem. In this paper, we argue that the cultural belief in Australia that computer science is a domain for men results in many girls and women being chased away from that field as part of a border protection campaign by some males – secondary school teachers, boys and men playing games online and young men on campus at university. We draw on American feminist philosopher, Iris Marion Young’s analysis of the ‘five faces’ of oppression to suggest strategies whereby Australian universities could support women in computer science and educate men about respectful behaviour and gender equity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A novel canonical duality theory (CDT) is presented for solving general bilevel mixed integer nonlinear optimization governed by linear and quadratic knapsack problems. It shows that the challenging knapsack problems can be solved analytically in term of their canonical dual solutions. The existence and uniqueness of these analytical solutions are proved. NP-hardness of the knapsack problems is discussed. A powerful CDT algorithm combined with an alternative iteration and a volume reduction method is proposed for solving the NP-hard bilevel knapsack problems. Application is illustrated by benchmark problems in optimal topology design. The performance and novelty of the proposed method are compared with the popular commercial codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) are intended to support group collaboration in completing tasks. While there have been many case studies and laboratory experiments on how EMS can support group tasks, large scale macro investigations exploring EMS adoption and use have been practically non-existent. Furthermore, while several barriers to EMS adoption and use have been suggested, their validation across organizations remains unexplored. We undertook a global initiative to explore information technology support for task-oriented collaboration in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and Norway. In this paper, we focus specifically on assessing the adoption and use of EMS, and barriers to their adoption and use in organizations across the four regions. Our results suggest that EMS currently have limited adoption and are used infrequently across all the four regions. A further investigation into barriers to EMS adoption and use suggests that significant numbers of respondents do agree with a list of fourteen suggested barriers. However, while there is significant agreement between two countries (US & Australia) over how these barriers are ranked, there is no significant agreement between the remaining pairs of countries. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The career paths of students are influenced and shaped by the subject choices that are made in the final years of secondary schooling. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study that identified the key factors influencing the decision of rural / regional Australian students to choose or not choose to study Information Processing and Technology. The findings revealed that career oriented, extrinsic factors play an important role in motivating the selection of I.P.T. at school and, by implication, information technology at university. There are few apparent gender differences but there is limited evidence to suggest that males may be more influenced by extrinsic motivators and females by intrinsic motivators. Although the factors used in the study were initially identified largely via informal processes, they all appear to influence the decision to take I.P.T. The focus on career-related factors and the instrumentality of taking I.P.T. could explain the drop-off in students taking the subject. This has potentially significant implications as regards the future supply of good information technology professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We quantify spatial turnover in communities of 1939 plant and 59 mammal species at 2.5 km resolution across a topographically heterogeneous region in south-eastern Australia to identify distributional breaks and low turnover zones where multiple species distributions overlap. Environmental turnover is measured to determine how climate, topography and geology influence biotic turnover differently across a variety of biogeographic breaks and overlaps. We identify the genera driving turnover and confirm the versatility of this approach across spatial scales and locations. Methods: Directional moving window analyses, rotated through 360°, were used to measure spatial turnover variation in different directions between gridded cells containing georeferenced plant and mammal occurrences and environmental variables. Generalised linear models were used to compare taxic turnover results with equivalent analyses for geology, regolith weathering, elevation, slope, solar radiation, annual precipitation and annual mean temperature, both uniformly across the entire study area and by stratifying it into zones of high and low turnover. Identified breaks and transitions were compared to a conservation bioregionalisation framework widely used in Australia. Results/Significance: Detailed delineations of plant and mammal turnover zones with gradational boundaries denoted subtle variation in species assemblages. Turnover patterns often diverged from bioregion boundaries, though plant turnover adhered most closely. A prominent break zone contained either comparable or greater numbers of unique genera than adjacent overlaps, but these were concentrated in a small subsection relatively under-protected by conservation reserves. The environmental correlates of biotic turnover varied for different turnover zones in different subsections of the study area. Topography and temperature showed much stronger relationships with plant turnover in a topographically complex overlap, relative to a lowland overlap where weathering was most predictive. This method can quantify transitional turnover patterns from small to broad extents, at different resolutions for any location, and complements broad-scale bioregionalisation schemes in conservation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]