Telecommunication technology and the professional development of teachers : challenge and opportunity

The thesis explores an effective model for using the internet in a distance training program for secondary school teachers. The professional development program, the dissertation, titled The Virtual University: Professional development for teachers, was initiated based on aspects of telecommunication technology and the professional development for Thai school teachers. The question of this program was “How could information technology be used in developing an appropriate professional development model for Thai teachers?” Prior to the project, the four research studies were conducted to formulate the related base line information and supported framework for the program development. The four researches are: (1) Telecommunication Technology in Thai Schools, (2) The Role of University on Science Teachers Development, (3) Computer Education Curriculum for Student Teachers: Theory and Practice, and (4) Teachers’ Perceptions of the Academic Link Project Between Schools and Universities for Teacher Professional Development. The first research study provides the information about the necessary basic factors for change in Thai secondary schools and the new insights and understandings about change in Thai schooling. The major findings were the understandings about teachers’ need for professional development, the available support in Thai school for professional development, and the limitations of professional development of teachers. The second research study provides the information about the roles of university faculty on initiation and operation of science teacher development programs, science teaching and learning resources centers, science instructional media design and production services, science teaching clinics, and science teachers’ associations. The third research study provides the conceptual framework for both preservice and inservice curriculum development program for teacher development. The last research study provides a base of descriptive information about the perspectives of school teachers towards the academic link project between schools and universities and the partnership which can assist in its establishment. The findings of these four research tasks were used for the formation of the framework of the dissertation. The EDNET Project, an example of teachers’ professional development through the information technology based training, was developed and implemented with ten school teachers in Khon Kaen.

Management framework for corporate telecommunication and data centre information security

Network security, particularly Internet security, is at the forefront of business and government networks. This research has discovered weaknesses in current professional practice, particularly in mitigation strategies to reduce the impacts of security violations in corporate telecommunications and data centres. The importance of integrating security policies, processes and operational practice is demonstrated. Leadership models and innovation mechanisms best suited to improved security design are also identified.

An examination of service quality dimensionality and positive word-of-mouth intentions in a Chinese telecommunication context

Word-of-mouth is a powerful force in today’s marketplace. However, few researchers
examine how the dimensions of SERVQUAL relate to positive word-of-mouth, particularly in
the Chinese market. This study attempts to fill this gap. The context is Chinese
telecommunication market. A survey was conducted with a sample of 241 respondents. The
results showed that Reliability and Assurance encouraged more positive word-of-mouth
intention, while Tangibles, Responsiveness, and Empathy did not have any significant effect
on one’s word-of-mouth. These findings have useful implications to international service
companies, particularly those operating in a Chinese environment, by identifying factors that
are salient to the generation of positive word-of-mouth.

Convergent journalism : the fundamentals of multimedia reporting

This book explains the phenomenon of media convergence, defines what has been until recently a confusing topic, describes the main business models, provides case studies of successful converged newsrooms around the world, and explains how to introduce convergence into the newsroom. Stephen Quinn provides a practical introduction to the changing landscape of news reporting, and has written a useful book for students and professionals alike.

Accessible telecommunications information for people with communication impairment

Study investigating the telecommunication information needs of people with communication disabilities in Australia. Participants were informed about the project through flyers, letters, e-mail, disability agency contacts, and Web sites. A survey with multiple choice and closed and open-ended items was developed. People with communication disabilities used a hard-copy survey format to facilitate completion. Sixty-five participants age eighteen and over from Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Queensland completed the survey. Preliminary results of the study indicated that the participants requested six text-based adaptations: (1) make information clear and easy to read and understand, (2) use larger print, (3) highlight the key points, (4) use dot points, (5) use visual information, such as photos and communication symbols, and (6) provide a range of oral/audio and visual formats for information. The accessibility characteristics requested by the participants called for the development of text and Web-based formats, and for the development of inclusive design guidelines. The authors concluded that further investigation was required to determine the best possible method of making the information accessible.

Research on network anycast

Anycast is defined as a service in IPv6, which provides stateless best effort delivery of an anycast datagram to at least one, and preferably only one host. It is a topic of increasing interest. This paper is an attempt to gather and report on the work done on anycast. There are two main categories at present: network-layer anycast and application-layer anycast. Both involve anycast architectures, routing algorithms, metrics, applications, etc. We also present an efficient algorithm for application-layer anycast, and point out possible research directions based on our research.

The privatisation of telecommunications services : comparison of the developed and developing countries

The telecommunication sector in most countries was managed by the government for a long period. Government provision led to poor delivery of services, poor cost recovery, heavy subsidies and pOOl' maintenance. Privatisation was adopted as a means of overcoming these problems in the telecommunications sector in most developing countries. However, the results were not as expected due to poor privatisations processes, absence of genuine regulatory structure and unnecessary interference from the government. Hence the teledensity, breakages, call completion times, and tariff levels have not improved significantly compared to the developed countries.

A defense system against DDoS attacks by large-scale IP traceback

In this paper, we present a new approach, called Flexible Deterministic Packet Marking (FDPM), to perform a large-scale IP traceback to defend against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. In a DDoS attack the victim host or network is usually attacked by a large number of spoofed IP packets coming from multiple sources. IP traceback is the ability to trace the IP packets to their sources without relying on the source address field of the IP header. FDPM provides many flexible features to trace the IP packets and can obtain better tracing capability than current IP traceback mechanisms, such as Probabilistic Packet Marking (PPM), and Deterministic Packet Marking (DPM). The flexibilities of FDPM are in two ways, one is that it can adjust the length of marking field according to the network protocols deployed; the other is that it can adjust the marking rate according to the load of participating routers. The implementation and evaluation demonstrates that the FDPM needs moderately only a small number of packets to complete the traceback process; and can successfully perform a large-scale IP traceback, for example, trace up to 110,000 sources in a single incident response. It has a built-in overload prevention mechanism, therefore this scheme can perform a good traceback process even it is heavily loaded.

Address reuse in wireless sensor networks

Sensor Networks have applications in diverse fields. While unique addressing is not a requirement of many data collecting applications of wireless sensor networks, it is vital for the success of applications such as emergency response. Data that cannot be associated with a specific node becomes useless in such situations. In this work we propose a dynamic addressing mechanism for wireless sensor networks. The scheme enables successful reuse of addresses in event-driven wireless sensor networks. It also eliminates the need for network-wide Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) to ensure uniqueness of network level addresses.

A case for cross layer design: the impact of physical layer properties on routing protocol performance in MANETs

In this work we evaluate the performance of routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks using different physical layer models. The results obtained show that the performance results obtained using idealized models such as the free space propagation model vary significantly when propagation effects such as path loss and shadowing are considered. This difference in performance indicates that optimization is required in the protocol development space that takes into account channel state information (CSI). Such an optimization requires a cross layer approach to be adopted and a framework for protocol performance evaluation to be established. We believe that this work would serve as a first step in this direction. We provide comparative performance results through network simulations.

Energy efficient on-demand addressing for wireless sensor networks

Conserving of battery power is a critical requirement in WSNs. Past studies have shown that the transceiving process consumes more energy than the internal processing. This work focuses on eliminating overhead messages used for address allocation by employing multiple base-stations. In this context we explore address allocation without Duplicate Address Detection (DAD). We present an alternative approach to Duplicate address detection using the sink as an address pool to maintain and systematize available addresses. Experimental results show that this approach eliminates overhead messages generated by DAD; resulting in energy savings when used in conjunction with an on-demand address allocation mechanism.

Teaching for blended learning : how is ICT impacting on distance and on campus education?

The concept of blended learning, defined in a range of ways, has begun to change the nature of all teaching and learning in higher education. Information and communication technologies have impacted by providing a means of access to digital resources and interactive communication for all courses and the blending of pedagogy and technology has produced a range of approaches to teaching and learning. This paper will investigate reported studies from both research literature and from the writers' research, defining what they have concluded are teaching practices that use the concept of blended learning effectively.

Potential of telemedicine : a preliminary evaluation through the innovation diffusion lens

With the rapid diffusion of innovative technologies in the healthcare industry, the potential of telemedicine has increasingly come into focus. Touted as a catalyst for an equitable healthcare framework among nations, research is wide and one spotlight is on the potential of this innovation to diffuse among the wider society. In this paper, we attempt a preliminary evaluation of the potential of telemedicine through the components of [Diffusion of Innovations (4th ed.). NY: The Free Press] diffusion of innovations theoretical lens, drawing also as relevant from reported literature. We expect that this preliminary evaluation will facilitate further academic research and make other stakeholders, such as regulators, medical practitioners, telecommunication providers and vendors, aware of potential steps to be taken to leverage telemedicine diffusion.