Cat Kutay

Lessons learnt from the analysis of large-scale corporate databases

This paper presents the lessons learnt during the analysis of the corporate databases developed by IBM Global Services (Australia). IBM is rated as CMM level 5. Following CMM level 4 and above practices, IBM designed several software metrics databases with associated data collection and reporting systems to manage its corporate goals. However, IBM quality staff believed the data were not as useful as they had expected. NICTA staff undertook a review of IBMs statistical process control procedures and found problems with the databases mainly due to a lack of links between the different data tables. Such problems might be avoided by using M3P variant of the GQM paradigm to define a hierarchy of goals, with project goals at the lowest level, then process goals and corporate goals at the highest level. We propose using E-R models to identify problems with existing databases and to design databases once goals have been defined.

Knowledge transformation for education in software engineering

The use of Knowledge Management (KM) is increasingly relevant to education for the management of information and knowledge resources. It is important that educational organisations adapt to mobile learning using existing established frameworks for evaluation. In particular, strategies for KM within the university context need to be understood. This article examines the industrial Socialisation Externalisation Combination and Internalisation (SECI) model of KM and how it is applied to the educational domain. The purpose of this investigation is to analyse the KM supported by different technologies within a SECI framework, in the Software Engineering (SE) programme within a university, and how this may support learning. Results indicated that the SECI model was an incomplete representation of KM in this context. An increased understanding of the technology that supports each aspect of the model would contribute to KM and thus constructive aspects of learning at universities as they move to mobile modes of learning.

Embedding aboriginal cultural knowledge in curriculum at university level through aboriginal community engagement

Purpose This chapter outlines the successful community engagement process used by the authors for the Kinship Online project in the context of Indigenous methodological, epistemological, and ethical considerations. It juxtaposes Indigenous and western ways of teaching and research, exploring in greater detail the differences between them. The following chapter builds on and extends Riley, Howard-Wagner, Mooney & Kutay (2013, in press) to delve deeply into the importance of embedding Aboriginal cultural knowledge in curriculum at the university level. Practical implications The chapter gives an account of an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLTC) grant to develop Indigenous Online

Story telling for cultural knowledge sharing

We present the development of learning resources using multiple contributors. The resources are to assist learning a specific set of cultures, those of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, using stories uploaded onto a web site. The work is aimed at cultural preservation through non-linear digital stories, and representing it in educational settings. By enabling the community contributors to tag their artefacts according to themes, relationships, location and language we can provide a way for the learner-user to select relevant stories to their learning experience. The three learning environment interfaces, combined with the contributors tagging of their story, provides the interconnection between stories and the learning path for the users.

Linking Learning to Community for Indigenous Computing Courses

Since its inception, Problem-based learning (PBL) as a process for learning and teaching has been used to enhance many skills based courses, including education programs at Bachelor College and the Aboriginal Technical Health Worker training program at the Centre for Appropriate Technology in Alice Springs. While PBL is an approach to learning and teaching which has been designed to provide a more holistic educational process for all students, Foster and Meehane (2007) suggest that many aspects of the courses are ideally suited for Indigenous students. In particular, this approach is useful when introducing students to a subject matter which is new both in being derived from another culture and not being accessible to Indigenous parents in the past. PBL provides a flexible approach to enable motivation and involvement of the students and their community. This paper considers the benefits of PBL for learning Information Technology and presents some course templates developed to support teaching Indigenous students at school.

Using complex events to represent domain concepts in graphs

We have developed an event based visualisation model for analysing patterns between news story data and stock prices. Visual analytics systems generally show a direct mapping from data to visualisation. We show that by inserting an intermediate step, which models an expert manipulating data, we can provide unique results that display patterns within the data being investigated and assist less expert users.

Support for Non IT Savvy Teachers to Incorporate Games

This research is to provide the tools for novice IT users to develop immersive games for teaching. The tools were developed in the context of a project in which Aboriginal Australian people, who are members of university or general communities, describe and explain their culture to non-Aboriginal students. Learning from Aboriginal cultural ways of teaching, these tools can be applied to other domains. The teaching environment includes recorded narratives in an interactive cross-cultural training game which is to be used as part of the professional preparation of students working in health. The paper focuses on the tools used to generate learning environment from the stories. This includes authoring the rules for the agents emergent narrative in the teaching games, learning paths to link individual contribution into a coherent story, and scenarios generated using visual tools to support contributors. The tools have been used to generate prototypes from a previously collected set of stories stories, constructing scenarios by compiling them from simpler interactions and this process will be used in future story collection workshops to provide story providers with better control of how they will contribute to the teaching framework.

One Person's Culture is Another One's Entertainment

The work presents a web-based learning system that allows many courses to access and share communities stories, and allows teachers to alter existing scenarios to suit the specific focus of their course. The learning domain is indigenous Graduate Attributes in university curriculum. This knowledge sharing system takes a holistic approach to learning through storytelling and acknowledges that resources collected for one course are often very useful in many other university courses. The combination of stories and the cultural themes that are enacted either as scenarios or agent rules, provide an immersive experience of this culture. This forms both an information sharing medium for Aboriginal communities and a game for non-Aboriginal people. The gaming genre is that or narrative building from community stories, historical scenarios and cultural protocols. At present the features are limited to community authored videos with questions, simple interactions around social protocols and scripted scenarios. This paper looks at how these component can be used for reflective learning through narratives and the need for improved feedback from community, prior to release to students.

Teaching culture as social constructivism

Teaching complex learning domains such as cultural awareness relies on individual perspectives. In this paper we present the process and technology to develop an online system to share multiple experiences of Aboriginal Culture in NSW, Australia within a social-constructivist framework. The focus of the material is the Kinship system used for thousands of years in this region. This topic exemplifies the knowledge used to maintain societies and provides the setting for social conflict with the non-Aboriginal people who came here in recent history. We are using stories from the community to augment the learning material. Using innovative web services, teachers can select the stories that are relevant to their course, and link these within a range of scenarios being developed. The scenarios enable students to select the way they relate to the characters, listen to their stories, and become aware of their own role in the community.

Teaching three quality assurance techniques in tandem - lessons learned

This paper presents our experiences gained in teaching software quality to undergraduate computer science and engineering students at The University of New South Wales. We argue that increasing demand of high quality software makes it imperative to teach a wide variety of skills which are required to deliver quality product or design and implement a quality focused process. We taught three quality improvement techniques to give students a greater appreciation of the range of the techniques available, and their respective strengths and weaknesses. We found it challenging but rewarding to inculcate programming minded students with the skills required to deal with product and process quality related issues. We believe that the experiences gained from this exercise is valuable to those interested in designing and offering software quality education and training at tertiary level.