Notes on the history of the mobile phone in Australia

The first automatic mobile phone service was launched in Australia in 1981, with the first cellular mobile service following in 1987. In 2003 there were over 14.5 million mobile phone subscribers, and the technology had become central to everyday life and culture. Despite the significance of mobile phones, little has been written about their Australian histories. This paper offers some notes on the history of mobile telecommunications in Australia. As well as reviewing the development of the mobile phone in Australia, it looks at the cultural representation of this technology.

Disability's affect: Or, refugees, communication and community

Cultural theorists have given much attention recently to the notion of 'affect', yet such discussions have not seriously, if at all, raised the question of disability. However we would suggest that disability has very strong relationships with affect. In this paper we argue for the importance of rethinking affect and communication from the perspective of a critical, socio-political account of disability. To illustrate this, we look at affect and disability in two important cases of refugees in Australia.

Observations in a maternity ward: Usability considerations for EHRs in an interrupt driven environment

With the increasing demand on healthcare systems it is imperative that all care is provided as efficiently and effectively as possible. Technology within the medical domain offers an exciting opportunity to augment work practices in order to meet these needs. This research project explores the implications of the interrupt-driven nature of work in clinical situations on documentation within an environment that increasingly involves electronic health records (EHRs). Midwives in a busy maternity ward were observed and interviewed about the work practices they employed to document information associated with patient care. The results showed that the interrupt-driven nature of the workplace, a feature common to many healthcare settings, led to a tension between the work and the work to document the work. Further, the IT environment in which the information was collected was not designed to cater for frequent interruption of the data entry process. Several recommendations for improving the IT environment are proposed to support health professionals in documenting patient data whilst attending to the interruptions. The recommendations include timeout screens, push technology, use of handheld PDAs, and cues to augment documentation in an interrupted session. Copyright © 2008 RMIT Publishing

After Skye Gellmann’s “Snow”

J. Patrick Lewis calls poetry ‘a circus for the brain’. After watching Skye Gellmann’s ‘Snow’, a circus performance at the 2014 Melbourne Fringe Festival, I found that the only way I could respond was through poetry. While my intentions no longer matter once the reader’s eyes balance down these lines, the poem attempts to offer a sense of what it was like to witness Gellmann’s stunning acrobatic performance. Just as contortion bends and flexes the body into unconventional forms, this poem endeavours to offer an alternative version of the traditional prose review.

Good practice guidelines for curriculum, supervision and assessment of final year engineering projects and AQF8 learning outcomes

Undergraduate engineering programs require final year students to complete capstone final year projects and demonstrate that they can integrate knowledge, skills and professional graduate attributes developed during the program at Australian Qualification Framework, level 8 (AQF8) outcomes. Literature shows that currently there is no guarantee of consistency for curriculum, supervision and assessment practices of FYEPs. Practices differ greatly between universities and littlework has been initiated that seeks to identify good practice, highlighting the need for the development of guidelines for curriculum, supervision and assessment of FYEPs. This workshop is designed to share and disseminate the good practice guidelines that have been developed on curriculum, supervision and assessment of Final Year Engineering Projects as a part of phase 2 of the project ‘Assessing Final Year Engineering Projects (FYEPs): Ensuring Learning and Teaching Standards and AQF8 Outcomes’ funded by the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) with people working in the area of FYEPs. The guidelines typically apply to four year undergraduate engineering degrees with embedded Honours and support achievement of AQF8learning outcomes. The project team has 7 partner Universities – Central Queensland University (the lead), University of Technology Sydney, University of Adelaide, Curtin University, Deakin University, University of Tasmania and RMIT University.Participants will be invited to reflect on and evaluate guidelines and findings derived from FYEP coordinators, supervisors and the wider literature and to consider the ways in which these findings might lead to improvements in their practice.

Now again

Now Again is a participatory performance made up of a series of individual and group activities that create opportunities to notice how we fit and shift in our environment. Reflecting the dance histories of the artists, the variable dynamic possibilities of the city are brought into focus through specific ‘scores’ that, as propositions for engagement, activate simple movement patterns or observations. The aim is to allow responsive noticing of the immediate environment, but also to enliven it in unexpected ways. Individuals who are participants and observers, dedicated or incidental (passers-by), become part of the disclosure of the physical and the social. The rigid structure of the city is re-imagined as a fluid, choreographic entity invested with organic qualities. Performances move between a series of city locations, each with differing activities. Designated ‘nodes’ in the city grid (certain streets, a square, a doorway, footpath, a hole in a wall or a particular tree), have been chosen for their imaginative, affective, or energetic resonances. These are ‘mapped’ by the perambulatory, physical, sensory, and relational engagement of all participants. This is a collective dance created through noticing the feelings and patterns of the physical self in the built, natural, and social environment. In some sites, the artists perform, while in others they lead a participative performance. Ephemeral, self-led, performance experiments designed to disappear into the fabric of the city, will also be invited. A mobile app enables audience participation. The app employs GPS data to trigger information specific to that site (written prompts, sounds and scored provocations).