SCM News Bulletin Vol 2 - Issue 2 - July 2010
Dr Leanne Rylands Receives ALTC Award
Submitted by Professor Stuart Campbell
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning and Teaching
It gives me great pleasure to announce that UWS academics have topped the nation in the 2010 Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Awards for 'Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning'. UWS and only one other University received ten citations - the maximum number of citations awarded.
This outstanding achievement further builds on the success of previous years and represents the highest number of citations awarded to UWS staff in the five year history of the awards.
The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) promotes excellence in higher education by recognising, rewarding and supporting outstanding teaching and learning practice. Citations are worth $10,000 each and are granted to academic and professional staff who have made long-standing contributions to the quality of student learning and improving the overall student experience.
Citation recipients and university nominated representatives will be attending an award ceremony on Monday, 2 August 2010 at the NSW Art Gallery, Sydney.
Please join with me in congratulating the following recipients:
Dr Leanne Rylands - For sustained quality contributions to mathematical learning for all ability levels and backgrounds by motivating and inspiring students in an open, positive and passionate environment.
Dr Satomi Kawaguchi - The '3-New' approach: Using second language acquisition research, new communication technologies and pedagogy to motivate, inspire and engage students of Japanese for better learning outcomes.
Dr Catherine Camden-Pratt - Foregrounding critical creativity - establishing safe spaces for experimentation using creative learning approaches which transform students' understanding of themselves as agents of change.
Dr Adrian Renshaw - For excellence in Science teaching broadening participation, engagement and inspiring students to learn using approaches in assessment and feedback that foster independent learning.
Dr Katrina Barker - For creating an atmosphere of intellectual excitement to influence, inspire and motivate diverse groups of students preparing for careers in teaching.
Dr Roumen Dimitrov - For successful experiential and engaged learning and teaching that educates public relations students to stand out as professionals.
Dr Fernanda Duarte - For effectively facilitating transformative learning in a management school through sound scholarship and engaging experientially-based approaches that inspire students to think more critically and ethically.
Dr Mark Williams - Innovative online resources provide quality, timely and constructive feedback: enhancing student learning for diverse student cohorts in Chemistry.
Dr Sharon Andrew - Bridging the research-teaching nexus: applying educational research to ensure an evidence-based approach for improved student outcomes in nursing programs.
Dr Margaret Clarke - For leading quality change in teacher education and influencing improvement of teaching and learning practices through her scholarly work at the University of Western Sydney.
SCM Stall Attracts Crowds at CeBIT
Submitted by Su-Yin Jowett
During 24-26 May, 2010, the School of Computing and Mathematics held an exhibition stall at CeBIT, Australia’s largest annual business exhibition which was held in the Darling Harbour Convention Centre. Over three consecutive days, the stall which was located in Skills Alley & eLearning attracted hundreds of enquiries about UWS undergraduate and postgraduate courses from people of diverse professional backgrounds. In particular; our IT Degrees attracted popular interest from visiting delegates to our stall.
The exhibition provided an invaluable opportunity to meet and greet exhibitors from other universities, as well as network with people in the IT and Business industries. Participating in the exhibition was a positive experience for all staff involved in manning the stall. It was the first year our School participated in this exhibition, and it was an ideal opportunity to showcase and promote our UWS degrees. There are plans already to make next year’s stand even more appealing and attractive to the business community. A special thanks to Pip Madden, Contact Services Officer, as well as Professor Athula Ginige and Dr Yogesh Deshpande, and other staff from SCM who supported the event.
International Research Grant Success
Submitted by Simeon Simoff
Professor Yan Zhang and Dr Yun Bai, together with Dr Khaled Khan from Qatar University and also former member of the Intelligent Systems Lab have succeeded in obtaining a major competitive international research grant from Qatar National Research Fund (QNRP). The project is titled “An Answer Set Programming Approach for Specification and Verification of Distributed Authorizations in Complex Environments.” The total funding for this project is US$750,000, where 35% (approximately AUS$300,000) of it will be distributed to UWS over the next three years (2010-2013).
UWS Day Attracts High School Students
Submitted by Dr Stephen Weissenhofer
UWS Day was held at Campbelltown campus on Tuesday 8 June 2010. Being an annual event, the university once again attracted hundreds of high school students from the local Greater Western Sydney area who visited the campus to get a first hand experience of university life at UWS. They were invited to participate in a broad range of workshops conducted by UWS staff across all Schools.
The School of Computing and Mathematics hosted a series of five workshops throughout the day on a range of Computing, ICT and Mathematics topics. All workshops were well received by the keen and interested students.
Around 35 high school students attended the “Mathematics: How good are you at evaluating your chances?” workshop which was conducted by Dr Stephen Weissenhofer. In the first activity, students felt it would be unlikely that two of them would have a birthday on the same day and month of the year. The general consensus was that the chances were about 35/365, or under 10%. As the activity progressed, Stephen claimed the chances to be closer to 80% and used basic mathematics to explain the reason why. As it turned out, it was soon discovered that two pairs of students actually shared the same birthday. The workshop was an enjoyable experience for all students who attended. The outcome was that students learnt that you cannot always trust your intuition, and that the study of mathematics is a worthwhile pursuit.
SCM at Parramatta Makes the Move
Submitted by Simeon Simoff
The School of Computing and Mathematics on Parramatta Campus has vacated building EC and relocated to the newly refurbished building ER, featuring a high tech look and feel for the School. The building renovation has been supported with a government grant, dedicated to supporting the School of Computing and Mathematics on the Parramatta Campus. The dedication of the funding was mentioned by the Honourable Julia Gillard in her speech at the UWS School of Medicine Official Opening on 17 November, 2008. The School is pleased with this move, which reflects the recognition of the fundamental and transforming role of ICT in contemporary society. SCM further continues the setup of the high tech special multipurpose room in order to enable better engagement of its students and its industry partners involved with the students’ research and educational activities
Success Again at the 2010 Microsoft Imagine Cup
Submitted by Sharon Griffith
This year's successful UWS Australian Finals entry to the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition was represented by the "3 PC's" Jared Nagle, Tim Hiatt and Sahan Wimalasiri. The team achieved second place victory in the highly contested Australian Finals held at Microsoft Australia, Sydney. Their project UNITED MD, is an online Medical Database which allows medical professionals to access the most up to date patient record information for each of their patients. The database is accessible on any computer via the Internet. Patients can be treated by any doctor using the latest details on record. The overall purpose of the website is to provide statistics for medical professionals, healthcare organisations, businesses and Governments to make informed decisions that will lead to the overall reduction in the number of child related deaths due to illness.
All students who entered the Microsoft Imagine Cup this year are currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Computer Science at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. They are mentored by Ms Sharon Griffith, Associate Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney.
Professional and Community Engagement
Submitted by Simeon Simoff
Professor Athula Ginige represented the School and UWS on 10 June 2010 at Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, at the formal launch of the ParraConnect program by the Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Honourable Stephen Conroy. The School has been and is a supporter of the e-Parra Roadmap initiative by the Parramatta City Council and CivicTEC, aiming at engaging students in technology development and/or application projects under this initiative. In late July to early August, respective Parramatta Council and CivicTec representatives will be visiting the School and will be presenting project opportunities to the students enrolled in the computing project units.
Leading the Way in Health Informatics
Submitted by Professor Anthony Maeder
Professor Anthony Maeder recently attended the International Standards Organisation (ISO) meeting of the Technical Committee on Health Informatics, TC215 in Rio de Janeiro, between 9-14 May, 2010. Delegates from about 30 countries attended the meeting, including six from Standards Australia. TC215 has eight different working groups covering a range of eHealth areas such as data, devices, terminology, security, systems. Other Standards Development Organisations such as CEN, HL7, IHTSDO, CDISC, IEEE and WHO were also represented, and a Joint Working Group exists to help all of these to share information and planning for standards activities. The meeting consisted of four days of parallel working group sessions to advance work items such as new documents which will be put to ballot by member countries in the coming year, and comment resolution for documents already balloted. The final plenary day was devoted to reports and resolution voting. Some new work of interest to Australia was the proposal of a quality framework for designing and implementing Telehealth activities.
On his return home, Anthony attended the American Telemedicine Association annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. This is a huge meeting of over 3,000 delegates and features a very informative and extensive trade show of telehealth equipment and software. Some of the items offered by vendors include large trucks equipped with operating rooms and imaging equipment, and a robot for retrieval of injured personnel in hazardous environments. As Vice-President of the Australasian Telemedicine Society, he participated in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the ATA to initiate international cooperation between the two organisations. As a result of the MOU, ATA will be represented at the Global Telehealth GT2010 Conference to be held in Perth between 10-12 November, 2010.
Jackaroo’s Success in Trading Agent Competition
Submitted by Dr Dongmo Zhang
At this year’s international Trading Agent Competition (TAC-10) held in June, the UWS team, also known as Jackaroo, achieved second place in the Market Design Game (one of three games in TAC-10) for the second year in a row. This year's competition was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA. First place was taken by Mertacor from the Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering Lab (ISSEL) at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (4th place last year). Third place was received by Nick Jennings's group at the University of Southampton (3rd place last year).
The UWS members comprised of Dr Dongmo Zhang, Dengji Zhao, Md Khan, Zhaowan Chen, Wei Huang, Dr Yan Zhang and Laurent Perrussel.
Jackaroo plans to enter the Ad Auction Game next year.
