Educating for digital futures : what the learning strategies of digital media professionals can teach higher education

This article explores how universities might engage more effectively with the imperative to develop students’ 21st century skills for the information society, by examining learning challenges and professional learning strategies of successful digital media professionals. The findings of qualitative interviews with professionals from Australian games, online publishing, apps and software development companies reinforce an increasing body of literature that suggests that legacy university structures and pedagogical approaches are not conducive to learning for professional capability in the digital age. Study participants were ambivalent about the value of higher education to digital careers, in general preferring a range of situated online and face-to-face social learning strategies for professional currency. This article draws upon the learning preferences of the professionals in this study to present a model of 21st century learning, as linked with extant theory relating to informal, self-determined learning and communities of practice.

Built heritage management systems : the framework of a digital tool for the conservation of Brisbane City Hall

Brisbane City Hall (BCH) is arguably one of Brisbane’s most notable and iconic buildings. Serving as the public’s central civic and municipal building since 1930, the importance of this heritage listed building to cultural significance and identity is unquestionable. This attribute is reflected within the local government, with a simplified image of the halls main portico entrance supplying Brisbane City Council with its insignia and trademark signifier. Regardless of these qualities, this building has been neglected in a number of ways, primarily in the physical sense with built materials, but also, and just as importantly, through inaccurate and undocumented works. Numerous restoration and renovation works have been undertaken throughout BCH’s lifetime, however the records of these amendments are far and few between. Between 2010 and 2013, BCH underwent major restoration works, the largest production project undertaken on the building since its initial construction. Just prior to this conservation process, the full extent of the buildings deterioration was identified, much of which there was little to no original documentation of. This has led to a number of issues pertaining to what investigators expected to find within the building, versus what was uncovered (the unexpected), which have resulted directly from this lack of data. This absence of record keeping is the key factor that has contributed to the decay and unknown deficiencies that had amassed within BCH. Accordingly, this raises a debate about the methods of record keeping, and the need for a more advanced process that is able to be integrated within architectural and engineering programs, whilst still maintaining the ability to act as a standalone database. The immediate objective of this research is to investigate the restoration process of BCH, with focus on the auditorium, to evaluate possible strategies to record and manage data connected to building pathology so that a framework can be developed for a digital heritage management system. The framework produced for this digital tool will enable dynamic uses of a centralised database and aims to reduce the significant data loss. Following an in-depth analysis of this framework, it can be concluded that the implementation of the suggested digital tool would directly benefit BCH, and could ultimately be incorporated into a number of heritage related built form.

Why does analogue still feel good in a digital world?

Is analogue better than digital? Is digital better than dialogue? Though the source of much heated debate, it would seem digital is now virtually unstoppable...

Studio-quality digital music? It’s only as good as your set-up

There’s a diagram that does the rounds online that neatly sums up the difference between the quality of equipment used in the studio to produce music, and the quality of the listening equipment used by the consumer...

Professional development and social networks in digital content industry micro businesses

This study explores the professional development strategies of digital content professionals in Australian micro businesses. This thesis presents the argument that as these professionals are working in cutting edge creative fields where digital technology drives ongoing change, formal education experiences may be less important than for other professionals, and that specific types of online and face-to-face socially mediated informal learning strategies may be critical to currency. This thesis documents the findings of a broad survey of industry professionals' learning needs and development strategies, in conjunction with rich data from in-depth interviews and social network analyses.

The culture of the digital : Pinterest and digital sociology

As the boundaries between public and private, human and technology, digital and social, mediated and natural, online and offline become increasingly blurred in modern techno-social hybrid societies, sociology as a discipline needs to adapt and adopt new ways of accounting for these digital cultures. In this paper I use the social networking site Pinterest to demonstrate how people today are shaped by, and in turn shape, the digital tools they are assembled with. Digital sociology is emerging as a sociological subdiscipline that engages with the convergence of the digital and the social. However, there seems to be a focus on developing new methods for studying digital social life, yet a neglect of concrete explorations of its culture. I argue for the need for critical socio-cultural ‘thick description’ to account for the interrelations between humans and technologies in modern digitally mediated cultures.

A framework for identifying associations in digital evidence using metadata

Digital forensics concerns the analysis of electronic artifacts to reconstruct events such as cyber crimes. This research produced a framework to support forensic analyses by identifying associations in digital evidence using metadata. It showed that metadata based associations can help uncover the inherent relationships between heterogeneous digital artifacts thereby aiding reconstruction of past events by identifying artifact dependencies and time sequencing. It also showed that metadata association based analysis is amenable to automation by virtue of the ubiquitous nature of metadata across forensic disk images, files, system and application logs and network packet captures. The results prove that metadata based associations can be used to extract meaningful relationships between digital artifacts, thus potentially benefiting real-life forensics investigations.

Firm-customer mobile digital connectedness : conceptualization, measurement and implications

Firm-customer digital connectedness for effective sensing and responding is a strategic imperative for contemporary competitive firms. This research-in-progress paper conceptualizes and operationalizes the firm-customer mobile digital connectedness of a smart-mobile customer. The empirical investigation focuses on mobile app users and the impact of mobile apps on customer expectations. Based on pilot data collected from 127 customers, we tested hypotheses pertaining to firm-customer mobile digital connectedness and customer expectations. Our test analysis using linear and non-linear postulations reveals those customers raise their expectations as they increase their digital interactions with a firm.

Reconceptualizing digital service quality : a call-to-action and research approach

The nature of services and service delivery has been changing rapidly since the 1980’s when many seminal papers in services research were published. Services are increasingly digital, or have a digital component. Further, a large and heterogeneous literature, with competing and overlapping definitions, many of which are dated and inappropriate to contemporary digital services offerings is impeding progress in digital services research. In this conceptual paper, we offer a critical review of some existing conceptualizations of services and digital services. We argue that an inductive approach to understanding cognition about digital services is required to develop a taxonomy of digital services and a new vocabulary. We argue that this is a pre-requisite to theorizing about digital services, including understanding quality drivers, value propositions, and quality determinants for different digital service types. We propose a research approach for reconceptualising digital services and service quality, and outline methodological approaches and outcomes.

Digital Media Literacies in the Early Years

This chapter addresses children’s development of digital media literacies with iPads in preschool settings. The authors argue that children living in post-industrial societies participate in ‘transmedia’ experiences that call for new understandings of media literacy that recognise children’s ability to successfully participate in complex media ecologies. The chapter outlines a model for digital media literacies that includes the application of digital materials and media concepts through the processes of media production and media analysis. This model is then used as a framework to interpret children’s media production work across the preschools in our project.

Applying academagogy : the transference of an organised heuristic teaching approach to the digital realm

Much has been written about transferring class materials and teaching techniques to digital platforms, but less has been written about applying heuristic organizing constructs in the same manner. With the transformation of learning ecologies over the past decades as well as requirements to adjust to constantly shifting digital tools and environments, the challenges for learning facilitators are to readily adapt and change, as well as to engage a changing learner demographic. However, most importantly is to engage most effectively with learners in these online environments. This article reviews the existing literature in the heuristic construct of academagogy [1] and applies a case study methodology to discussion of the first application of academagogy to the online delivery of an undergraduate design unit. Through a focus on effective teaching and learning techniques, the transfer from face-to-face (f2f) to the digital realm is explored through four main focal points: Tools for teaching, teaching and learning, communicating with students, and effective teaching methods. These four focal points are then used to discuss ways to meet the challenges of teaching online including how they create new dimensions in teaching practice and how the digital experience changes learning experiences. The article concludes with reflection and consolidation of the similarities and differences between the face-to-face and digital deliveries, and by suggesting changes to the academagogic heuristic to enable its use more easily in a digital space.

A digital watermarking framework with application to medical image security

Dealing with digital medical images is raising many new security problems with legal and ethical complexities for local archiving and distant medical services. These include image retention and fraud, distrust and invasion of privacy. This project was a significant step forward in developing a complete framework for systematically designing, analyzing, and applying digital watermarking, with a particular focus on medical image security. A formal generic watermarking model, three new attack models, and an efficient watermarking technique for medical images were developed. These outcomes contribute to standardizing future research in formal modeling and complete security and computational analysis of watermarking schemes.

A digital airport experience : design-led innovation in support of airport strategy

The digital era is proving to be one of disruption, where new technologies matched with innovative business models can be harnessed to attack even the most established of companies. For businesses with the relative certainty of captive customer bases, such as airports, the ability to digitally diversify offers the opportunity to venture into new modes of operation. For an airport, this opportunity can also be leveraged to sustain superior customer support regardless of a customer’s location in the world. This research paper presents a case study of the development of an Australian Airport Corporation’s mobile application as part of a greater digital strategy initiative using a design-led approach to innovate. An action research method provides the platform for an intensive embedded practice and study of design-led innovation within the major Australian Airport Corporation. The findings reveal design-led innovation to be a crucial in-house idea generation and concept development capability enabling the bridging of distinct corporate domains associated with commercialisation, operations and customer experience. A Digital Innovation Checklist is presented as an output of this research which structures an organizational approach toward digital channel innovation. The practitioner’s checklist is designed to aid in the future development of digital channels within the broader spectrum of strategy by addressing business assumptions.

Digital image watermarking: its formal model, fundamental properties and possible attacks

While formal definitions and security proofs are well established in some fields like cryptography and steganography, they are not as evident in digital watermarking research. A systematic development of watermarking schemes is desirable, but at present their development is usually informal, ad hoc, and omits the complete realization of application scenarios. This practice not only hinders the choice and use of a suitable scheme for a watermarking application, but also leads to debate about the state-of-the-art for different watermarking applications. With a view to the systematic development of watermarking schemes, we present a formal generic model for digital image watermarking. Considering possible inputs, outputs, and component functions, the initial construction of a basic watermarking model is developed further to incorporate the use of keys. On the basis of our proposed model, fundamental watermarking properties are defined and their importance exemplified for different image applications. We also define a set of possible attacks using our model showing different winning scenarios depending on the adversary capabilities. It is envisaged that with a proper consideration of watermarking properties and adversary actions in different image applications, use of the proposed model would allow a unified treatment of all practically meaningful variants of watermarking schemes.