Propose an e-Oxbridge education

Having spent some of the week discussing the future of higher education, with Professor Paul Ramsden and my colleagues at the Australian National University (including my contribution on "Forums and Feedback for e-Learning"), I felt it was time to suggest a way forward. I have proposed an e-Oxbridge educational model for the ANU School of Computer Science (SoCS) .

SoCS has ambitious goals set for "unique", "advanced", "interdisciplinary" and "research lead" undergraduate and masters courses. To achieve this, I have proposed a computer enhanced version of the "Oxbridge" model of education. With this approach at Oxford and Cambridge Universities (where I have given the occasional seminar) students are part of a community of scholars, write and discuss material with their peers and their tutors each week. This can be adapted to the 21st century:

1. Human communication: I suggest teaching all students how to research, write and report. While most undergraduates will not go on to postgraduate research and therefore not need to write a scientific paper, they will have to write technical and business reports which require similar skills. Therefore I suggest teaching how to write and present an argument in the introduction to undergraduate and postgraduate programs. I have done some of this in Green ICT, where I get the students to research and discuss issues online and write a reports about a real problem.
2. Self motivated work: In each course I suggest setting the students a task, giving them the tools and then helping them with the work. In practice this would be done by providing learning materials in traditional written form, as well as multimedia, as used by the "Hubs and Spokes" project. This would then free up staff time to work with the students in small groups and individually. This would also force a discipline on staff, who would need to carefully design course materials in advance. Also this would allow administration to be greatly simplified, with less need for timetabling of classes and resources. This would aid social inclusion, with full and part time students could in the same class, along with domestic, international and remote e-learning students.
   
3. Interdisciplinary skills: I suggest designing SoCS programs to fit in with ANU wide programs and those of partner universities. In this way students will be able to study subjects outside Computer Science in other parts of the university.

Instead of developing whole, self contained undergraduate and
postgraduate programs which are exclusive to SoCS, I suggest SoCS have modules which can fit with other disciplines and can be used by other disciplines. A student should be able to do a standard undergraduate or postgraduate program at the ANU which incorporates SoCS education. While the SoCS programmes might have fancy names, such as Bachelor/Masters of Advanced Interdisciplinary Computing", they should underneath be made of ANU standard components. Ideally the courses should be able to be tailored by the students themselves, as is done with ANU Graduate Studies Select.

Engineering Education Hubs and Spokes Project

The ‘Hubs and Spokes’ Project is a Australian National University and University of South Australia collaboration for teaching engineering in a blended mode. My course about solving climate change with ICT features on the new web site for the project.

How to Create On-line University Courses in Electronic Archiving: Part 16 - Redesign for 2010

After the success of my Green ICT Strategies course (which will be run again in 2010) , the Australian National University has asked me to design and run "Electronic Data Management" (COMP7420) as well in 2010. This is an expanded and accredited version a short intensive course I ran in 2007 at the request of National Archives of Australia. The notes for that course are online. I started preparing for the course in mid 2008 but it was not clear if there was a demand for such a course so it was put on hold for two years. In the interim much has happened with e-document management and I know more about e-learning.

COMP7420: Electronic Data Management

Summer session (1 February 2010 to 31 March 2010)

Topic: Record keeping and data management are essential to support the efficient and accountable performance of business and government yet up until now there has been no training available for a systems approach to this important area. To fill this gap, the ANU has developed several short courses that provide people in government agencies with the critical skills needed to manage government information and records in a manner that keeps pace with international trends and changing technology. This course aims to teach students how they can manage electronic data. Students will learn about electronic data management through online learning, which includes tutoring, mentoring, student discussion forums and weekly feedback. For more information on the course design and content e-mail Tom Worthington. Delivery: On-line with no attendance required. Students undertake the course entirely online via the web from anywhere in the world. Available: as part of the ANU Graduate Studies Select program to anyone who wants to do just this one course on its own, where you can register online to students at other universities in Australia and around the world.

For information on enrolling in this course including fees, please see enrolment information. If you have any queries concerning enrolment e-mail Debbie Pioch (phone 6125 8020).

The StudyAt entry for Course Description and Learning Outcomes and the Course Flyer provide more information.

COMP7420 is a three unit course and is offered subject to sufficient enrolments.

Assessment:

The course is designed to assist the student to see how the course material applies to their world, to compare and select different data mining techniques appropriate to a problem and to understand the implications of those decisions.

Assessment is through:

• 10% Online quizzes
• 20% Online Discussion/ In-class participation/ Learning Journal
• 40% Exam
• 30% Case studies project

Designer: Tom Worthington FACS HLM, consultant to government and industry.

The course is designed by Tom Worthington, a past President, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society. Tom headed an Australian Government committee which developed electronic document management policy for government agencies.

My last examination

Today I told my fellow educators for the course COMP3410 at the Australian National University that this was my last examination. What I did not expand on was that this was not just for this course, I will not set any examination questions for any course. My hope is to able to continue to contribute to courses at ANU and elsewhere, and to design assessment for them, but do not ask me to write examination questions.

Last year I decided to give My Last Lecture and put into practice what I have been learning about combining online teaching and live group work. This was not an easy decision and has taken considerable work, both in reformulating course material and explaining the change to my colleagues.

My first ANU course with no lectures and no examinations finishes in a few weeks time and so far has gone reasonably well. Reformulating the material did take some work. What surprised me was the amount of explanation I had to do to colleagues. Many had difficulty with the idea of a course with no lectures. Even after I had announced that I would not be giving any more lectures there were many who asked me to give lectures. It took some time to reassure them that there were workable alternatives to lectures and this was permitted under university rules.

What I found surprising was that the formal university processes had no problems with a course with no lectures or examinations. Provided what was being taught and how it was being assessed was clearly spelt out, there was no impediment to a course without lectures or examinations.

The group who did not need any convincing were the students, who were very happy with the idea of no lectures. Some students seemed to think no lectures meant no work and an easy course, but soon changed their view when they saw there was compulsory assessed tutorial work each week. Some dropped out early, but not as many as for a conventional course.

I don't like setting examinations to be conducted on paper, over several hours, without the student being able to use external resources. This is not an effective form of assessment, nor is it useful for learning.

An examination is very different to the ways the students could expect to use what they are learning the real world. What is more realistic is have them briefly reply to a few short questions, discuss issues in a group and to write reports over days or weeks, with a library and the Internet at their disposal. That is the form of assessment I have used in the Green ICT course, with assessment for weekly discussion and written assignments.

There is a role for tests in courses and this can be by interactive assessment. These can be used to asses the student's level of knowledge to help with the learning as well as to give them a final grade. But the assessment should be a realistic facsimile of what happens in the real world. Assessment can use simulations and other techniques for being more realistic. Tests can be online and in part multiple choice. There can be many short tests, rather than a few large ones. I hope to explore this next year.

E-learning more popular than blended course

I planned to run the course Green ICT Strategies (COMP7310) at the Australian National University in a blended mode: e-learning via the web with optional seminars on campus. But this has not been popular with the students and yesterday I decided to drop the on campus seminars making it a pure e-learning course.

This is disappointing as I wanted to combine the best of the on-campus experience with distance education. The idea was that the students would have the flexibility to choose if they needed the on-campus component or not, each week, as their needs and circumstances dictated.

However, it has become clear that this flexibility just caused confusion. The students wanted to know if this was an e-learning course, or not. When I tried to explain about optional seminars this just confused them more.

In addition there was the cost of running the face to face seminars to consider. The seminars require about as much in resources as the e-learning component, while only making up about one tenth of the course. There did not seem to be much point in spending so much effort on something of limited value which the students did not want anyway.

Also I included the seminars as a way to make the course more palatable to more more conservative academic colleagues. I assumed that they would have a bias against pure e-learning courses, seeing them as not real courses. However, this has not been the case and they welcomed the e-learning idea. Like the students, my idea of blended mode with optional seminars just caused confusion.

I might still schedule one or two seminars during the semester and invite the students along, with staff, government and company people, to discuss green ICT issues. One student expressed interest in having their assessment by way of a seminar presentation, rather than a written essay. It may be that after the semester commences the students may welcome some face to face interaction, provided it is not seen as a required part of the course. I would still welcome speakers for seminars, but the planned "ANU Green ICT Seminar Series 2009", is cancelled.

Saving money and energy in the learning commons

The University of Canberra is remodelling one floor of its library into a Learning Commons. Library users were asked for input so I should put in some comments, about the use of furniture, computers and lighting. Here are some more comments about floor space, air conditioning and lights:

1. Reduce floor area: A major determinate of cost and environmental impact of a building is size: the bigger the building, the higher the financial and ecological cost. I suggest using a higher density of seating than is usual in learning commons: twice that currently used in the University of Canberra library. This can be done by using compact computers, carefully positioning seating and interspersing desktop and laptop positions. A space allocation of 2 m² per student could be achieved with careful design. This could halve the cost of facility.
   
2. Separate Air Conditioning: As the learning commons will be open when the rest of the library is closed, a separate air conditioning system should be used, which just conditions that floor. This will save having to heat or cool the whole building, as is done at present. If there are several enclosed rooms, these can be air conditioned separately, so unused rooms are not conditioned.
   
3. Automated lights: Normally libraries leave all lights on when any of the building is open, even when large areas are unused. Lights should shift to a lower power setting when an area is unoccupied and switch back to full power when someone enters. This can be done much more simply with LED lights than with fluorescent lights. It should be noted that lights should not switch off completely in open plan areas for safety reasons. Lights can switch off in closed rooms when they are unoccupied and on again when the door is opened.
   

Blended Learning Conference 2009

The University of Queensland is hosting "Blended Learning Conference 2009", in Brisbane 18 June 2009. Apart from looking like an interesting event, UQ have a very useful list of web resources on the topic of blended learning:

Blended learning commonly describes learning that combines traditional teaching and learning approaches with information and communication technologies. It is anticipated that blended learning will enhance the student learning experience. A typical example of this would be blending online activities with face-to-face sessions. This can mean using the best of the best - the best use of online learning to enable classroom activities to be active and engaging learning experiences (Graham, 2006).

The major aims of Blended learning are to:

• use information and communication technologies to support more active approaches to student learning
• support learning activities that extend outside face-to-face sessions
• assist students in being better prepared for face-to-face sessions.

From: What is Blended Learning, University of Queensland, 2009.

Is Blended Learning the Future of Higher Education?

Professor Mike Keppell afternoon workshop at ANU was "Blended Learning: The Future of Higher Education". The material was mostly familar to me from having prepared blended learning courses. Some tricky issues include the expectations of the students and staff: "am I getting my money's worth", "is this a real course?", "all the answers are on the web".

Having used blended learning some of the issues raised in the workshop seemed to be things that had been settled. As an example one surprising issue was if on-campus students should have access to the materials provided for distance education students. To me it seemed obvious you would provide the materials developed for distance education to the local students. Distance education materials are expensive to develop and will likely be of higher quality than the usual ad-hoc lecture notes. However, there may be an equity issue in that the local students will then have an advantage. This seemed to me a silly argument, but still one current at some places.

Another issue was sufficient access to online material. If video is used, then a high speed internet connection is needed. To me this seemed a non-issue. For disabled access the material will need to be provided in different formats and as a by-product this will include low bandwidth access. In addition the student should be informed what Internet access they need before the enrol.

Mike also mentioned affordances that is making tools obvious as to its use. There are new designs of teaching spaces to allow for lectures and discussion. I have looked at this extensively with flexible learning centres.

Learning orientated assessment

Professor Mike Keppell, Director of the Flexible Learning Institute at Charles Sturt University is in Canberra to deliver some workshops on learning at ANU. This morning it is "Transforming Higher Education through Learning-Orientated Assessment" in the afternoon there is "Blended Learning: The Future of Higher Education".

In the assessment workshop Mike's emphasis was that assessment could be used as part of the learning (formative assessment) , not just at the end to evaluate the student (summative assessment). He also argued for starting with the assessment and making sure it fitted in with what was in the course. In retrospect these ideas look obvious, but when in the details of designing a course when under pressure, there can be a tendency to just tack the assessment on the end.

Some of the terminology sued I found a bit jarring. As an example Mike used "feed-forward" to indicate that assessment should provide the student with useful feedback to help them later in the course, not just for a final mark. But technically speaking the term "feedback" indicates that "feed-forward feedback" is a tautology.

One issue relevant to ANU not discussed so far is the role of research. The ANU is a research university and has emphasised research in learning. This is very different to CSU and other teaching orientated universities. The other issue is undergraduate versus postgraduate education. This is not so much about the formal education the students have but their assumed maturity.

The workshop was very useful for me to come to terms with some of the educational theory which I had found frustrating. One example is the use of a "Rubric" (subjective marking tool). I find these tools wordy and vague.

Seminar Confessions of a Converted Lecturer

Greetings from the Robertson Lecture Theatre,at the ANU in Canberra, where Professor Eric Mazur is giving a Seminar on "Confessions of a Converted Lecturer". There is an audio version of the lecture available from the ABC.

There were three parts to the seminar:

1. Education
2. Peer instruction
3. Results

He also mentioned that he changed from teaching to helping students learn. This reminded me very much of the approach used for the ACS postgraduate ICT courses. While I had accepted that this approach could be used for postgraduate courses, I was not sure it could be used for undergraduates. Last year I decided I was not going to give any more conventional lectures. This semester I have been attempting to use a different technique. If this did not work, my solution was to cease teaching undergraduates at the end of this semester.

The Professor described how he used to give conventional lectures. He would summarise the textbook into lecture notes. The students would then take their notes in the lecture. He then evolved a technique of handing out his notes at the end of the lecture, then he tried handing out the notes at the beginning of the lecture. Then he realised that he could not simply repeat what was in the lecture notes in the lecture.

The Professor then asked if lectures should be focused on the delivery of information. He argued that there is no time for assimilating information in a lecture. Furthermore he argued that most students will not be motivated enough to spend the time on their own outside the classroom. This seems to be a theme which other US based academics have discussed at ANU. I find it a little worrying that the university would be designed around teaching people something they are not interested in learning.

Even if there is a role for educational institutions teaching disinterested students, it is unlikely to be the job for Australia's leading university. Essentially the ANU's success has come from saying: "if you are exceptional and keen, then we will help you learn".

Towards the end of the seminar the Professor joked that he reflected he early on considered giving up on undergraduates. The audience laughed. Perhaps I should not give up on teaching undergraduates.

Offline guides to teaching online

Teaching Online: A Practical Guide, by Susan Ko and Steve Rossen (Routledge, 2008 paperback 339 pages, ISBN: 978-0415996907) provides a useful guide for those new, and not so new to Internet based education. About half the book is devoted to the technicalities of getting courses online and the other to the educational and social issues of interacting with students and encouraging them to interact with each other. One problem with such books is that they have to either deal with specific online tools, which not be the ones you have, or deal in generalities. This book takes the latter course, not naming products and giving a general guide. As a result it can be a bit vague on some of the details.

"Tutoring Online" by Tim Brook and Stephen Wall (CIT Solutions), 2001 is a more modest 50 page booklet on the same topic. It gives more specific details for Widows based systems and concentrates on tutoring online, not the production of courses. Unfortunately, the publisher CIT Solutions (the commercial arm of the Canberra Institute of Technology), do not seem to have done much to promote the book. I couldn't find it for sale on Amazon.com or elsewhere online. CIT, or the authors, could use something like Lulu.com for print on demand, as I did with my Green ICT course notes.

Both the books Teaching Online and Tutoring Online suffer from the quality of the print-on-demand process used to produce them. This does not allow colour, or high quality diagrams. One solution would be for the authors to providing a companion web site with supplementary materials. Also to avoid the general nature of the technology descriptions they could use the open source Moodle e-learning system as example. They could also provide examples online using Moodle.

Learning e-learning

During the Green ICT Symposium today I demonstrated the ANU's new Wattle e-learning system. This uses Moodle and I was able to show courseware using Senator Lundy's Blackberry smartphone.

An odd little quirk I have discovered that the ANU's "Policy: Determination of Systems and Consultation on Assessment" requires the proposed assessment system for each course to be made available to prospective and enrolled students: "... both in hard copy and in electronic form". It seems a little odd if the student is enrolled in an online course, which they can do from the other side of the world, that the ANU insists on providing them a sheet of paper about the assessment. It would seem to make more sense to use the same electronic means as used to deliver the course.

There is no legal obligation to provide the material printed on paper (the High Court recognised that electronic documents are legal some years ago). So I have suggested the ANU Registrar have this deleted from the policy.

My First Blended Course: Part 6

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my fifth task was to expand the networking content. But another issue which came up with the web design content was how much of AJAX and Web 2.0 to cover. My preference was to leave this out completely, as it is an advanced topic. In some ways, Web 2.0 web pages are not really web pages but are interactive computer applications. However, it might be worth tacking an additional section on at the end of JavaScript: "AJAX and Web 2.0" to introduce the topic.

Another issue is how online to make the course. E-learning is relatively new to the ANU's Computer Science department and a new LMS is to be used. So a cautious approach should be taken. The content will be provided online via the LMS, plus some assessment. However much of the material will be presented face-to-face and there will be conventional lectures and examinations. A student could, in theory, download the material, do the exercises, never attending a lecture or tutorial. They need only turn up for the examinations. However, they would have to be a very motivated student to do this, as these are not designed to be online e-learning courses.

My First Blended Course: Part 5

Having decided on the web content for a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my next task was to expand the section on networking and security.

Previously I had:

NETWORKING AND SECURITY

1. Networking
   1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
   2. Lecture 2 - Network Models.
   3. Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
   4. Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
   5. Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
   6. Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
   7. Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
2. Security
   1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
   2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
   3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
   4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.

This is eleven lectures of material and needs to be expanded to about fifteen. The ANU runs a course specifically on Computer Networks COMP3310/COMP6331/ENGN4535/ENGN6535. This uses the textbook Computer Networks ( Tanenbaum, Andrew S., Prentice-Hall, fourth edition, 2003) which is available to the students online. This would therefore seem a reasonable source for some more networking content. Topics such as DNS are relevant to web use. The material might roughly form three sections:

1. Networking
   1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
   Chapter 1. Introduction
   Section 1.1. Uses of Computer Networks
   Section 1.2. Network Hardware
   Section 1.3. Network Software
   Lecture 2 - Network Models.
   Section 1.4. Reference Models
   Section 1.5. Example Networks
   
   
2. Internet Protocols
   Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
   Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
   Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
   Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
   Chapter 6. The Transport Layer
   Section 6.1. The Transport Service
   Section 6.2. Elements of Transport Protocols
   Section 6.3. A Simple Transport Protocol
   Section 6.5. The Internet Transport Protocols: TCP
   Chapter 7. The Application Layer
   Section 7.1. DNS—The Domain Name System
   Section 7.2. Electronic Mail
   Section 7.3. The World Wide Web
   Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
3. Security
   1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
   2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
   3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
   4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.
   5. Chapter 8. Network Security
      Section 8.1. Cryptography
      Section 8.2. Symmetric-Key Algorithms
      Section 8.3. Public-Key Algorithms
      Section 8.4. Digital Signatures
      Section 8.5. Management of Public Keys
      Section 8.6. Communication Security
      Section 8.7. Authentication Protocols
      Section 8.8. E-Mail Security
      Section 8.9. Web Security

To this could also be added some of the content from the textbook, Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (Jennifer Niederst Robbins, O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2006):

• Chapter 4. A Beginner's Guide to the Server
• Section 4.1. Servers 101
• Section 4.2. Unix Directory Structures
• Section 4.3. File Naming Conventions
• Section 4.4. Uploading Documents (FTP)
• Section 4.5. File (MIME) Types

My First Blended Course: Part 4

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my third task was to add some less techncial material on Analysis and Essay Writing, Ethics and Copyright. To do this I created an extra topic after "The Web Environment" for "The Social Environment". Also I added an item on Mobile devices, Writing for the Web and Testing Web Pages:

1. The Web Environment
   • Chapter 1. Web Standards
   • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
   • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
   • Chapter 5. Accessibility
   • Mobile devices
     
   • Chapter 6. Internationalization
2. The Social Environment
   
   • Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
   • Writing for the Web
     
   • Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
   • Lecture 30 - Copyright.
   • Testing web pages
     
3. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
   • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
   • Chapter 9. Document Structure
   • Chapter 10. Text Elements
   • Chapter 11. Creating Links
   • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
   • Chapter 13. Tables
   • Chapter 14. Frames
   • Chapter 15. Forms
4. Web Graphics and Media
   
   • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
   • Chapter 29. GIF Format
   • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
   • Chapter 31. PNG Format
   • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
   • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
5. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
   • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
   • Chapter 17. Selectors
   • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
   • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
   • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
   • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
   • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
   • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
   • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
   • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
6. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
   
   • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
   • Section 26.1. A Little Background
   • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
   • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
   • Section 26.4. Event Handling
   • Section 26.5. The Browser Object

Each topic would be covered in a week. This approach has the advantage of first introducing the student to the why of the web, then the basic mark-up, then prettying up the web pages with graphics, styles and JavaScript. Ideally web pages should be designed so that these layers can be discarded in the reverse order. That is web pages should work without JavaScript, CSS and Images, at which point they are just text.

In practice for a course also covering networking for the web, it may be necessary to interleave the web and networking topics. However, I will proceed on the assumption they are two separate modules.

My First Blended Course: Part 3

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my second task was to reconcile the material which was in the previous lectures with that in the new textbook and divide all that into logical units. I decided to divide the course into two equal size components, on on web and the other networking/security (with some material on Analysis and Essay Writing, Ethics and Copyright to fit in somewhere).

An ANU semester is 13 weeks (same as an ACS one). So dividing this in half gives six weeks for each half (assuming the thirteenth week is for revision). For the web half of the course I had five topics:

Refining the "wanted" list more:

1. The Web Environment
   • Chapter 1. Web Standards
   • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
   • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
   • Chapter 5. Accessibility
   • Chapter 6. Internationalization
2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
   • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
   • Chapter 9. Document Structure
   • Chapter 10. Text Elements
   • Chapter 11. Creating Links
   • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
   • Chapter 13. Tables
   • Chapter 14. Frames
   • Chapter 15. Forms
3. Web Graphics and Media
   
   • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
   • Chapter 29. GIF Format
   • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
   • Chapter 31. PNG Format
   • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
   • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
4. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
   • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
   • Chapter 17. Selectors
   • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
   • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
   • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
   • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
   • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
   • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
   • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
   • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
5. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
   
   • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
   • Section 26.1. A Little Background
   • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
   • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
   • Section 26.4. Event Handling
   • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
   • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More

So the eaiest approach would be to have one of these per week, and add another topic to make six. There were three lectures which did not fit in this structure, so they could be sued to make the extra topic:

The Social Environment

• Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
• Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
• Lecture 30 - Copyright.

These could be placed first, to give context to the course, but the student may then wonder where the web stuff is, so it might be better to put this second, after web standards and the like are introduced. Three lectures are insufficient content and so more will be needed.

My First Blended Course: Part 2

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my first task is to divide the topic up into modules. This is not starting from scratch, as I am using the content from an existing course, "Networked Information Systems" (COMP2410/6340). The task is to try and divide this into logical units.

The existing course is 6 "units" (8 such units make up a year of a full time course). The simplest arrangement seems to break the course into two 3 unit components. Dividing up the existing lectures gives:

1. NETWORKING AND SECURITY
   1. Networking
      1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
      2. Lecture 2 - Network Models.
      3. Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
      4. Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
      5. Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
      6. Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
      7. Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
   2. Security
      1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
      2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
      3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
      4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.
2. WEB TECHNOLOGY
   1. HTML
      1. Lecture 7 - HTML & XHTML and an XHTML example.
      2. Lecture 11 - More XHTML & XHTML Forms and an XHTML & form example.
   2. CSS
      1. Lecture 12 - CSS and an XHTML example with style sheets 1, 2 & 3.
      2. Lecture 13 - More CSS and an XHTML example with a style sheet.
   3. Intranet website development and maintenance
      1. Lecture 17 - Web Standards
      2. Lecture 19 - Website Design - Introduction & Testing
      3. Lecture 20 - Website Design - Structure
      4. Lecture 21 - Website Design - Design
   4. Java Script
      1. Lecture 27 - Web Programming - Client-side with an example and a JavaScript file.
      2. Lecture 28 - Web Programming - Server-side with an example and the script.
      3. Lecture 29 - Cookies.
   5. Portable devices
      1. Lecture 22 - Website Design - Mobile & E-web

This creates a few problems. There are 12 web lectures, but only 7 networking and security ones. Also there are some topics from the course which do not logically fit in either category:

• Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
• Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
• Lecture 30 - Copyright.

These are the sort of topics which tend to get left out when courses are modularised. They were included because web design is about more than the technology of serving up web pages. The content of the pages has to make sense to human readers and has to meet legal and social requirements.

Looking at the textbook, Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (Jennifer Niederst Robbins, O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2006) might provide some clues on a better way to arrange the material:

1. The Web Environment
   • Chapter 1. Web Standards
   • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
   • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
   • Chapter 5. Accessibility
   • Chapter 6. Internationalization
2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
   • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
   • Chapter 9. Document Structure
   • Chapter 10. Text Elements
   • Chapter 11. Creating Links
   • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
   • Chapter 13. Tables
   • Chapter 14. Frames
   • Chapter 15. Forms
3. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
   • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
   • Chapter 17. Selectors
   • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
   • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
   • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
   • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
   • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
   • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
   • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
4. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript and the DOM
   • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
   • Section 26.1. A Little Background
   • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
   • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
   • Section 26.4. Event Handling
   • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
   • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More
5. Web Graphics
   • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
   • Chapter 29. GIF Format
   • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
   • Chapter 31. PNG Format
6. Media
   • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
   • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
   • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web

From this list I removed the items which belong in "Networking":

• Chapter 4. A Beginner's Guide to the Server
• Section 4.1. Servers 101
• Section 4.2. Unix Directory Structures
• Section 4.3. File Naming Conventions
• Section 4.4. Uploading Documents (FTP)
• Section 4.5. File (MIME) Types

And items I didn't want to cover at all:

• Chapter 27. DOM Scripting
• Section 27.1. A Sordid Past
• Section 27.2. Out of the Dark Ages
• Section 27.3. The DOM
• Section 27.4. Manipulating Documents with the DOM
• Section 27.5. Working with Style
• Section 27.6. DOM Scripting in Action
• Section 27.7. Supplement: Getting Started with Ajax
• Chapter 32. Animated GIFs
• Chapter 35. The Flash Platform

Refining the "wanted" list more:

1. The Web Environment
   • Chapter 1. Web Standards
   • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
   • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
   • Chapter 5. Accessibility
   • Chapter 6. Internationalization
2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
   • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
   • Chapter 9. Document Structure
   • Chapter 10. Text Elements
   • Chapter 11. Creating Links
   • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
   • Chapter 13. Tables
   • Chapter 14. Frames
   • Chapter 15. Forms
3. Web Graphics and Media
   
   • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
   • Chapter 29. GIF Format
   • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
   • Chapter 31. PNG Format
   • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
   • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
4. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
   • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
   • Chapter 17. Selectors
   • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
   • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
   • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
   • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
   • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
   • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
   • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
   • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
5. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
   
   • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
   • Section 26.1. A Little Background
   • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
   • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
   • Section 26.4. Event Handling
   • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
   • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More

This merges "Web Graphics and Media" and moving it just after "The Structural Layer". I extracted "Printing from the Web" and placed it at the end of "The Presentation Layer" as it depends on using Cascading Style Sheets.

My First Blended Course

Having finished the design of a new masters level e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies" for the ACS Computer Professional Education Program, I thought I would see if what I had learnt was applicable to a traditional university course, to turn it into a part online, part classroom blended course. This would be an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary development, making maximum use of the existing material.

Since 2001 I have been teaching web design at the Australian National University. This was originally part of the course "Internet, Intranet, and Document Systems" (COMP3400/COMP6340), now "Networked Information Systems" (COMP2410/6340).

COMP2410 is run with traditional face-to-face lectures and tutorials. Over they years the tutorials have tended to use more computer support, with the students following a set of web based instructions and using web based materials to complete exercises (such as to test the accessibility of a web page). The lecture notes are provided via a web site, but are essentially in the form of print facsimile. Some lectures were recorded for online replay using the ANU's very well designed, but over-ambitiously named "Digital Lecture Delivery" system.

The ANU has a Learning Management System installed, using the Web CT product, with an entry for each course. However, Web CT was not used for the web design course, apart for providing an interface to the audio recordings of lectures. The reason for the LMS not being used more could form the subject of several PHDs.

Most of the lecture notes for the course are prepared in the form of PDF files. Because I was teaching web design, I made a point of preparing my notes in the form of web pages. Over the years I experimented with different ways to format the materials and to combine text with presentation slides: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006/2007 and 2008. The results were not all that successful. Also the content tended to grow in length and complexity.

Late last year one of the student feedback forms for another course where I use a similar web format was critical of the readability of the notes and the quality of the presentations. These were valid criticisms and confirmed my decision not to give any more conventional lectures (see: "My Last Lecture").

In "e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies" I documented my progress on designing an e-learning course with the expert advice of David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education. The Green ICT course does not start with the first batch of students until next week and no doubt there is much more to learn, but I can see now how such courses are prepared. However, the ACS course is designed for mature working ICT professionals, using purely distance education e-learning and in what is essentially management skills. The ANU courses are more technical, and have students expecting more hands on help.

What prompts me to look at this now is that ANU is selecting a new LMS to replace Web CT. This will be available for piloting during semester 1 2009 (the particular LMS package to be used has not yet been announced). It would therefore make sense to put the revised content in the new system.

Previously with the notes for the web design course I attempted to provide both extensive written notes, as detailed as a text book, and presentation material (slides) suitable for use on a computer project screen in a classroom. I had several attempts at using CSS and JavaScript to combine both versions of the material in the one document. This was intended to reduce the maintenance problem, maintaining multiple copies of material, to reduce the sizes of the files used and to avoid using proprietary technology, such as Microsoft PowerPoint. The results, as noted by some of the students, were not all that successful.

The Green ICT course is purely online and as a result does not have presentation slides. The notes provided are more cryptic that those I was previously preparing. I noticed that the course I modelled Green ICT on used minimal formatting in the PDF documents. These used headings, subheadings, bullet points, bold, italics and the like. There was not extensive use of colour or graphics. I found I could reproduce this format reasonably well using the online Moodle web editor, producing simple web pages in place of PDF files. This makes preparation and maintenance much simpler than using PDF and an external tool.

The Green ICT online course essentially consists of: "read this introduction, now read this external reading, answer these questions, discuss, do this assignment". There is no presentation from a teacher and no multimedia equivalent, such as a video or slide show. Will this same approach work for an ANU course?

My intention would be to add another element to the process, which would be seminars or demonstrations. These would have a live presenter in a classroom. Unlike a conventional lecture, the detailed content of the course would not be covered. There would be none of the "repeat each important point three times" technique. Instead it would be assumed the students had read the readings and were interested enough to see an example of them put into practice. The presentations would be audio recorded, with notes and/or slides available. Screen casting or video would be used if this is available in the live presentation site.

The tutorial/workshops should translate into the on-line environment reasonably well. In this case the students would get the same web based instruction sheet. They could attempt the exercises themselves or attend a face-to-face tutorial.

The detail and complexity of the lecture notes would be reduced by relying on the textbook. Previously I was reluctant to use a textbook for a web course, as it seemed to be contradictory to teach the use of online design using a printed document. Those electronic books which were available were of poor quality and used various proprietary formats making access difficult. However, Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins (O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2006) is available online to the students, via the library. The layout is a very conservative conventional book format, but is reasonably readable. The students can also buy the conventional printed edition if they wish.

My task then is to simplify my previous material, convert it to a simple web format as used by LMS (I can use Moodle while waiting for the new ANU LMS), referecne the text book and incorporate the tutorial exercises. Then I need to be able to convince my colleagues that this will work and will be acceptable (I only teach part of the course).

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 14 - Wikiversity version

In Part 13 I prepared the remaining content for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The Wikiversity, an educational equivalent to the Wikipedia, has an Information Technology school, so I added and entery for "Green IT" and "Introduction to Green IT" based on the material I prepared for the ACS course. I am unclear as to exacltly how the Wikiversioty functions, if it does function at all, but thought it might be worth making a contrbution.

The Wikiversity does not seem to have reached the point at which there is enough content to attract people to add more. Many of the entries are only stubs: with just a heading waiting for someone to fill in the details. Also there seems to be a lack of integration with the Wikipedia. You can use the same user-id for updating the Wikipedia and Wikiversity, but you have to add an external reference from the Wikiversity to the Wikipedia. The result is that it is difficult to use the Wikipedia content to build the Wikiversity.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 13 - More Pragmatism

In Part 12 I discovered I had scheduled two week sevens as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. Having merged some of the topics so I had the required number of weeks for the course I got on with preparing the remaining content. This became progressively more difficult as I got to the more esoteric topics, such as quality management and auditing.

Also I asked my colleagues at the ANU to check the course details, which they proceeded to do in forensic detail. They found several errors in the first sentence. By the time they got to the end of the first paragraph I started to regret asking for comment, but these were all useful suggestions.

One frustration was that some of the standards used for ICT and environmental purposes are formal ISO ones. As a result the text of the standards are not freely available, ISO and its national counterparts, such as Standards Australia, sell copies of the standards. These standards are therefore not freely available online. There are many references to the standards, but little of use for students trying to understand them.

Another frustration continues to be material which is freely available, but in large PDF files. The Australian Government has provided the full text of a proposed Draft National Carbon Offset Standard, but it is tacked on the end of a discussion document in a PDF file.

However, hopefully many of those frustrations are now behind me. The revised Green ICT Strategies Course Outline is done, along with twelve weeks of content, two assignments and readings:

Weekly outline

	Green ICT Strategies (GICTS) is a new subject in the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society. The officially approved course description is available on the ACS web site, for which enrolments are open until 11 January 2009 for Study Period 1 (18 January to 19 April 2009). This is a working draft of the course material for 2009. For background on why the course is being prepared, see: "Educating ICT Professionals on Energy Efficiency". For details on how, see: Green IT Strategies Course. Most material is being prepared under an open access licence. Contributions and comments are welcome. The ACS CPeP program is the first in the world to be globally accredited. Enrolments can be in the Green ICT subject alone, or as part of the full CPe Program. Credit towards Graduate Diploma and Master courses are offered by university articulation. News forum Chatroom Terminology List Green ICT Strategies Course Outline Blog about the background to the e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies
	18 January 24 January Week 1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries. Readme 1st - Week 1 Work Notes - Week 1 Workload Assessment Seminar - Week 1 Discussion Questions - Week 1 Friday Message
	25 January 31 January Week 2: The Global ICT Footprint Estimate the embodied carbon and the footprint from use of telecommunications, data centres and desktop PCs. Read me 1st - Week 2 Work Notes - Week 2 Seminar - Week 2 Discussion Questions - Week 2 SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age
	1 February 7 February Week 3: Enabling ICT Investigate how ICT systems can reduce energy and materials use by improving the efficiency of business systems by replacing the movement of goods with information (dematerialisation), improve the efficiency of machines (smart motor systems), logistics, buildings and grids. Read me 1st - Week 3 Work notes - Week 3 Seminar - Week 3 Discussion Questions - Week 3
	8 February 14 February Week 4: Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment Computers and telecommunications equipment contributes about 2% to greenhouse gas emissions. Look at how data centres and client equipment can be made more efficient. Read me 1st - Week 4 Work Notes - Week 4 Seminar - Week 4 Discussion Questions - Week 4
	15 February 21 February Week 5: Materials Use Energy reduction is only part of making a Green ICT system, there is also the issue of use of materials and hazardous substances. Read me 1st - Week 5 Work Notes - Week 5 Seminar - week 5 Discussion Questions - Week 5
	22 February 28 February Week 6: Methods and tools Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation. Read me 1st - Week 6 Work notes - week 6 Seminar - Week 6 Discussion Questions - Week 6
	1 March 7 March Week 7: Business process improvement Recommend alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches. ICT has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones. How do you analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches? Read me 1st - Week 7 Week 7 - Work notes Seminar - Week 7 Discussion Questions - Week 7
	8 March 14 March Week 8: Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency Investigate how to implement and assess data centre efficiency. Read me 1st - Week 8 Work Notes - Week 8 Seminar - Week 8 Discussion Questions - Week 8 EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres
	15 March 21 March Week 9: Enterprise Architecture The business of business is business, so any environmental goals have to fit into the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. How do you incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits? Read me 1st - Week 9 Work Notes - Week 9 Seminar - Week 9 - Enterprise Architecture Discussion Questions - Week 9
	22 March 28 March Week 10: Procurement Much of the environmental benefits come about by selecting the right products and services. How do you write ICT requirement documents to ensure that your hardware, software and services suppliers provide green products? Read me 1st - Week 10 Work Notes - Week 10 Seminar - Week 10 Discussion Questions - Week 10
	29 March 4 April Week 11: Energy Star Program and Quality Management Ensure that the processes for producing a product or service sustainability will do so to a consistent standard. Investigate the fit between US EPA's Energy Star Program and those of Quality Management Systems. Read me 1st - Week 11 Work Notes - Week 11 Seminar - Week 11 Discussion Questions - Week 11 Assignment 2 - Assessment Criteria
	5 April 11 April Week 12: Compliance audit Assess the conformity of corporate systems to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series of environment management standards, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program. Read me 1st - Week 12 Seminar - Week 12 Draft National Carbon Offset Standard Discussion Questions - Week 12
	12 April 18 April Week 13: Review and discussion for assignment 2 - Prepare to go out and save the world Let us revisit the reasons we are studying Green ICT: to maximise positive environmental benefit and minimise the negative impact. What specific processes will you propose in Assignment 2, to improve energy efficiency and the use of materials in your organisation?

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 12 Two Week 7s

In Part 11 I looked at courses were being offered around the world as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. That showed what I was doing was consistent with the limited other courses available. So I continued on preparing the material for each week of the course (I have a Christmas deadline to have it finished). But at week seven (out of 13) I discovered a problem: I had scheduled two week sevens.

The course is thirteen weeks long. It was suggested I leave the last week for revision, giving twelve weeks. These were then divided into four topics, each with three weekly topics. I started with an introduction in week one and then went on setting down the topics for each week. But I forgot to count week one, thus ending up with an extra topic.

So now I had to work out what to do. This may seem a careless mistake which should have been caught earlier on, which it is. One reason for the mistake taking so long to find is the online preparation of the material. On my small screen, with a big font (to make it readable) only one topic can be displayed at a time. Thus I never saw the two "week 7" titles on the screen at the same time. Had I printed the document out, this would have been easier to spot.

When I went back and reread the advice I had been originally given by David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education, I realised that the problem was not that bad. He suggested 4 major topics each of three weeks, with each week is a new sub-topic, which is what I did. But I got a little confused and wrote the introduction as a separate week. So all I had to do was merge the introduction into week one.

At this point I thought I should do some more checks of the material. I found a number of spelling mistakes. There seems to be a conflict between the Firefox add-on spell checker and the Moodle web based HTML editor, resulting in the spell checker not working some of the time (the same happens with the Blogger editor). Just to make sure, I used the grammar and spell checker extension for OpenOffice.org. This found a few repeated words, blank spaces, uses of "can not" instead of "cannot" and the like.

One problem I found was that one of the semianr topics (week 6) seems to be un-editable. I suspect there was some invalid HTML code which is causing problems for the Moodle editor. Running the code through HTML Tidy, fixed the problem.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 11 Other Courses

In Part 10 I reported on some Australian green ICT events I had attended as part of preparing a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. That showed what I was proposing for the course was consistent with the approach others in Australia were taking with Green ICT. However, I tought I should look more widely and see what other courses were being offered around the world.

Margaret Ross, Southampton Solent University, UK and Bob Crooks, DEFRA gave an "Overview of Green ICT" to the BCS Academics Forum, 14 November 2008. This included many of the same information on the extent of carbon emissions from ICT as other presentations and ways to deal with it, but it also has a few slides on courses:

We need

• Students and staff to
  • understand the issues, be aware and skilled in tackling them, promote green behaviours
  • use their own and Estab’s ICT in greener ways
• Educational establishments to see Green as
enhancing reputation and attraction for students
• reducing costs (less Carbon = Less energy => less cost)
• Courses to provide
Accreditation of Green skills and knowledge
• Green dimensions

...
Assignments and Projects

Assessment:

* Case history or evaluation of an organisation
* Survey, eg of local SMEs
* Audits
* Learning Activities, eg multi-choice questions


Identifying for an organisation

* Benefits and risks
* “Road map” with priorities justified,
* Budget, time scale
* Business case

And the Curriculum...

* BCS initiatives
o ISEB module
o SME awareness
o Branch forum/mash ups

...

Leeds Metropolitan University is offering a MSc Green Computing. The part-time course modules are delivered as workshops, with self study and distance learning support. Assessment is typically by reports related to the student's work and so appears similar in concept to the ACS course:

Core Modules
ICT and the Environment: Assesses and measures the current environmental impact of ICT within a corporate context.

Green Computing Technologies: Investigates existing and emerging green computing technologies and systems.

Sustainable Computing: Considers the whole life cycle from procurement to disposal with a sustainable objective.

Responsibly Green: Analyses the legal and ethical issues from a Corporate 'Green' perspective.

Green ICT strategies: Develop, formulate and evaluate Green ICT strategies for practical implementation.

Research Methods: Research, methods, skills and practice for masters level dissertations.

Brian Henderson-Sellers, UTS, has set a Green ICT Project, OO Modelling Project Report, UTS, 2008:

Case Study for Project Work & Deliverables

STATEMENT TO BE MODIFIED BY STUDENT GROUPS…

1. Green ICT (GICT)

... Note: Following are the requirements for a system called GREEN ICT (GICT). GICT is a system developed to provide systems support for businesses implementing Environmentally Responsible Business Strategies (ERBS). This is an example of how in practical real-life projects, information is initially provided as a set of descriptive pages: usually half-baked, hardly complete and at times confusing. The requirements below are more organized than that, but still the students are encouraged to delve deeper into these requirements to identify what the user wants out of the system. The students will be able to appreciate how they can further correctly, completely and consistently model and document these requirements and their designs using the UML. These requirements also describe the business situation that is so important in understanding the context in which the project exists. Understanding the context of the project is a crucial ingredient of the quality process. ...

2. Background information on the Project

GICT is a software system to be designed to support businesses implementing Environmentally Responsible Business Strategies (ERBS). Therefore, GICT is not software that is specific to a particular industry. In fact, GICT must be able to be used by various types of industry categories, including both product and service industries. ...

3. Players

There are number of players (also called stakeholders) in the GICT system. ...

4. Organizational Portal (OP)

The GICT is made up of two major parts – the Organizational Portal (OP) and the regulatory standards portal (described next). ...

5. Regulatory Standards Portal (RSP)

Regulatory Standards Portal (RSP) is a large portal, maintained by the government of the country (take, for example, Australia) ...

Green ICT Workshop, UNI Strategic Pte Ltd, December 4–5, 2008, Singapore:

Participants will Learn About

• What is “green”, what is “sustainable”, and what is “greenwash”
• How to assess their organization’s current ICT eco-footprint and create objective standards for measurement and performance.
• How to create a systematic and strategic plan for reducing the cost and eco-footprint of ICT assets and operations.
• How to estimate, document, and realize cost savings of greening IT.
• How to estimate, document, and realize the environmental benefits of greening IT.
• How to present and justify green ICT initiatives to technical, financial, environmental, and Social Responsibility stakeholders.

Kent Connects ran a one-day "Green ICT Workshop", Jul 14, 2008:

... Socitm Consulting experts will help you and your colleagues move this agenda forward:

• Understand the carbon footprint of your current ICT and customer service operations
• Learn about successful initiatives in the UK and elsewhere to reduce the environmental impact of delivering services to citizens
• Discover how green awareness and more flexible working methods can save your authority money
• Lay the foundations of an effective and realistic Green ICT action plan
• Find out how to monitor progress using Green ICT key performance indicators