Report : wireless data throughput testing on a mobile device using WiFi and GPRS

This project report presents the results of a study on wireless communication data transfer rates for a mobile device running a custombuilt construction defect reporting application. The study measured the time taken to transmit data about a construction defect, which included digital imagery and text, in order to assess the feasibility of transferring various types and sizes of data and the ICT-supported construction management applications that could be developed as a consequence. Data transfer rates over GPRS through the Telstra network and WiFi over a private network were compared. Based on the data size and data transfer time, the rate of transfer was calculated to determine the actual data transmission speeds at which the information was being sent using the wireless mobile communication protocols. The report finds that the transmission speeds vary considerably when using GPRS and can be significantly slower than what is advertised by mobile network providers. While WiFi is much faster than GPRS, the limited range of WiFi limits the protocol to residential-scale construction sites.

Report : enabling team collaboration with pervasive and mobile computing : cost benefit analysis methodology

Construction is an information intensive industry in which the accuracy and timeliness of information is paramount. It observed that the main communication issue in construction is to provide a method to exchange data between the site operation, the site office and the head office. The information needs under consideration are time critical to assist in maintaining or improving the efficiency at the jobsite. Without appropriate computing support this may increase the difficulty of problem solving. Many researchers focus their research on the usage of mobile computing devices in the construction industry and they believe that mobile computers have the potential to solve some construction problems that leads to reduce overall productivity. However, to date very limited observation has been conducted in terms of the deployment of mobile computers for construction workers on-site. By providing field workers with accurate, reliable and timely information at the location where it is needed, it will support the effectiveness and efficiency at the job site. Bringing a new technology into construction industry is not only need a better understanding of the application, but also need a proper preparation of the allocation of the resources such as people, and investment. With this in mind, an accurate analysis is needed to provide clearly idea of the overall costs and benefits of the new technology. A cost benefit analysis is a method of evaluating the relative merits of a proposed investment project in order to achieve efficient allocation of resources. It is a way of identifying, portraying and assessing the factors which need to be considered in making rational economic choices. In principle, a cost benefit analysis is a rigorous, quantitative and data-intensive procedure, which requires identification all potential effects, categorisation of these effects as costs and benefits, quantitative estimation of the extent of each cost and benefit associated with an action, translation of these into a common metric such as dollars, discounting of future costs and benefits into the terms of a given year, and summary of all cost and benefit to see which is greater. Even though many cost benefit analysis methodologies are available for a general assessment, there is no specific methodology can be applied for analysing the cost and benefit of the application of mobile computing devices in the construction site. Hence, the proposed methodology in this document is predominantly adapted from Baker et al. (2000), Department of Finance (1995), and Office of Investment Management (2005). The methodology is divided into four main stages and then detailed into ten steps. The methodology is provided for the CRC CI 2002-057-C Project: Enabling Team Collaboration with Pervasive and Mobile Computing and can be seen in detail in Section 3.

Report : enabling team collaboration with pervasive and mobile computing : a review of existing mobile computing technologies

The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in construction industry has been recognised widely by some practitioners and researchers for the last several years. During the 1990s the international construction industry started using with the increasing confidence information and communication technology. The use of e-mail became usual and web-sites were established for marketing purposes. Intranets and extranets were also established to facilitate communication within companies and throughout their branches. One of the important applications of the ICT in construction industry was the use of mobile computing devices to achieve better communication and data transmission between construction sites and offices.

Construction defect reporting using mobile and digital workbench technologies

Sending data between the construction site and an off-site design office is one of the more problematic areas in information technology for construction automation, particularly for construction defect management. The aim of this research is to investigate how mobile computing and new forms of human-computer interaction can be brought to bear on specific problems in construction management. The construction defect reporting system is one such application. Combining mobile and wireless computing technologies with a digital workbench, we have developed a system to facilitate remote telecollaboration between a construction site and an off-site engineering office. The application reported in this paper demonstrates how construction defect reporting can be streamlined by field collection of construction defect information using a mobile device and visualising the defect in a CAD model on a digital workbench in an engineering office. This paper reports on the design of the system and our tests of sending images from the construction site to the engineer’s office and positional accuracy of GPS for localization of the defect.

The challenges of participatory research with ‘tech-savvy’ youth

This paper focuses on participatory research and how it can be understood and employed when researching children and youth. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretically and empirically grounded discussion of participatory research methodologies with respect to investigating the dynamic and evolving phenomenon of young people growing up in networked societies. Initially, we review the nature of participatory research and how other researchers have endeavoured to involve young people (children and youth) in their research projects. Our review of these approaches aims to elucidate what we see as recurring and emerging issues with respect to the methodological design of involving young people as co-researchers. In the light of these issues and in keeping with our aim, we offer a case study of our own research project that seeks to understand the ways in which high school students use new media and network ICT systems (Internet, mobile phone applications, social networking sites) to construct identities, form social relations, and engage in creative practices as part of their everyday lives. The article concludes by offering an assessment of our tripartite model of participatory research that may benefit other researchers who share a similar interest in youth and new media.

Optimal allocation of a cross-connection and sectionalizers in distribution systems

In this paper, the placement of sectionalizers, as well as, a cross-connection is optimally determined so that the objective function is minimized. The objective function employed in this paper consists of two main parts, the switch cost and the reliability cost. The switch cost is composed of the cost of sectionalizers and cross-connection and the reliability cost is assumed to be proportional to a reliability index, SAIDI. To optimize the allocation of sectionalizers and cross-connection problem realistically, the cost related to each element is considered as discrete. In consequence of binary variables for the availability of sectionalizers, the problem is extremely discrete. Therefore, the probability of local minimum risk is high and a heuristic-based optimization method is needed. A Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (DPSO) is employed in this paper to deal with this discrete problem. Finally, a testing distribution system is used to validate the proposed method.

Sustainable transport and the impact on the built environment : Future trends and directions

We love the automobile and the independence that it gives us. We are more mobile than we have ever been before in recorded history. In Australia 80% of journeys are by private motor vehicle. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that this era has a very limited lifespan. Fuel prices have skyrocketed recently with no end in sight. In spite of massive amounts of road construction, our cities are becoming increasingly congested. We desperately need to address climate change and the automobile is a major contributor. Carbon trading schemes will put even more upward pressure on fuel prices. At some point in the near future, most of us will need to reconsider our automobile usage whether we like it or not. The time to plan for the future is now. But what will happen to our mobility when access to cheap and available petroleum becomes a thing of the past? Will we start driving electric/hydrogen/ethanol vehicles? Or will we flock to public transport? Will our public transport systems cope with a massive increase in demand? Will thousands of people take to alternatives such as bicycles? If so, where do we put them? How do we change our roads to cope? How do we change our buildings to suit? Will we need recharging stations in our car park for example? Some countries are less reliant on the car than others e.g. Holland and Germany. How can the rest of the world learn from them? This paper discusses many of the likely outcomes of the inevitable shift away from society’s reliance on petroleum and examines the expected impact on the built environment. It also looks at ways in which the built environment can be planned to help ease the transition to a fossil free world. 1.

Five case studies applying soft systems methodology to knowledge management

Construction projects are faced with a challenge that must not be underestimated. These projects are increasingly becoming highly competitive, more complex, and difficult to manage. They become problems that are difficult to solve using traditional approaches. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a systems approach that is used for analysis and problem solving in such complex and messy situations. SSM uses “systems thinking” in a cycle of action research, learning and reflection to help understand the various perceptions that exist in the minds of the different people involved in the situation. This paper examines the benefits of applying SSM to problems of knowledge management in construction project management, especially those situations that are challenging to understand and difficult to act upon. It includes five case studies of its use in dealing with the confusing situations that incorporate human, organizational and technical aspects.

The appeal of the International Baccalaureate in Australia’s educational market: A curriculum of choice for mobile futures

In Australia there is growing interest in a national curriculum to replace the variety of matriculation credentials managed by State Education departments, ostensibly to address increasing population mobility. Meanwhile, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is attracting increasing interest and enrolments in State and private schools in Australia, and has been considered as one possible model for a proposed Australian Certificate of Education. This paper will review the construction of this curriculum in Australian public discourse as an alternative frame for producing citizens, and ask why this design appeals now, to whom, and how the phenomenon of its growing appeal might inform national curricular debates. The IB’s emergence is understood with reference to the larger context of neo-liberal marketization policies, neo-conservative claims on the curriculum and middle class strategy. The paper draws on public domain documents from the IB Organisation and newspaper reportage to demonstrate how the IB is constructed for public consumption in Australia.

Planning mobile futures : the border artistry of International Baccalaureate Diploma choosers

This paper reports on a study of students choosing the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBD) over state-based curricula in Australian schools. The IBD was initially designed as a matriculation certificate to facilitate international mobility. While first envisaged as a lifestyle agenda for cultural elites, such mobility is now widespread with more people living ‘beyond the nation’ through choice or circumstance. Beck (2007) and others highlight how the capacity to cross national borders offers a competitive edge with which to strategically pursue economic and cultural capital. Beck’s ‘border artistes’ are those who use national borders to their individual advantage through reflexive strategy. The study explored the rationales and strategy behind the choice of the IBD curriculum expressed by students in a focus group interview and an online survey. This paper reports on their imagined transnational routes and mobile orientations, and how a localised curriculum limits their imagined mobile futures.

The information systems discipline in Australian universities : a contextual framework

This chapter presents the contextual framework for the second phase of a multi-method, multiple study of the information systems (IS) academic discipline in Australia. The chapter outlines the genesis of a two-phase Australian study, and positions the study as the precursor to a larger Pacific-Asia study. Analysis of existing literature on the state of IS and on relevant theory underpins a series of individual Australian state case studies summarised in this chapter and represented as separate chapters in the book. This chapter outlines the methodological approach employed, with emphasis on the case-study method of the multiple state studies. The process of multiple peer review of the studies is described. Importantly, this chapter summarises and analyses each of the subsequent chapters of this book, emphasising the role of a framework developed to guide much of the data gathering and analysis. This chapter also highlights the process involved in conducting the meta-analysis reported in the final chapter of this book, and summarises some of the main results of the meta-analysis.

Cipher cities

Cipher Cities was a practice-led research project developed in 3 stages between 2005 and 2007 resulting in the creation of a unique online community, ‘Cipher Cities’, that provides simple authoring tools and processes for individuals and groups to create their own mobile events and event journals, build community profile and participate in other online community activities. Cipher Cities was created to revitalise peoples relationship to everyday places by giving them the opportunity and motivation to create and share complex digital stories in simple and engaging ways. To do so we developed new design processes and methods for both the research team and the end user to appropriate web and mobile technologies. To do so we collaborated with ethnographers, designers and ICT researchers and developers. In teams we ran a series of workshops in a wide variety of cities in Australia to refine an engagement process and to test a series of iteratively developed prototypes to refine the systems that supported community motivation and collaboration. The result of the research is 2 fold: 1. a sophisticated prototype for researchers and designers to further experiment with community engagement methodologies using existing and emerging communications technologies. 2. A ‘human dimensions matrix’. This matrix assists in the identification and modification of place based interventions in the social, technical, spatial, cultural, pedagogical conditions of any given community. This matrix has now become an essential part of a number of subsequent projects and assists design collaborators to successfully conceptualise, generate and evaluate interactive experiences. the research team employed practice-led action research methodologies that involved a collaborative effort across the fields of interaction design and social science, in particular ethnography, in order to: 1. seek, contest, refine a design methodology that would maximise the successful application of a dynamic system to create new kinds of interactions between people, places and artefacts’. 2. To design and deploy an application that intervenes in place-based and mobile technologies and offers people simple interfaces to create and share digital stories. Cipher Cities was awarded 3 separate CRC competitive grants (over $270,000 in total) to assist 3 stages of research covering the development of the Ethnographic Design Methodologies, the development of the tools, and the testing and refinement of both the engagement models and technologies. The resulting methodologies and tools are in the process of being commercialised by the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design.

Unleashing creative writers : situated engagement with mobile narratives

The emergence of sophisticated multimedia phones in combination with improvements to the mobile Internet provides the possibility to read texts and stories on mobile handsets. However, the question is, how to adapt stories in order to take advantage of the user’s mobility and create an engaging and appealing experience. To address these new conditions, a Mobile Narrative was created and access to individual chapters of the story was restricted. Authors can specify constraints, such as a location or time, which need to be met by the reader if they want to read the story. This concept allows creative writers of the story to exploit the fact that the reader’s context is known, by intensifying the user experience and integrating this knowledge into the writing process. Interviews with authors and creative writers and two user studies explored the effects of this way of writing on both parties. The paper presents our preliminary research findings discussing this new experience that was found to be exciting and interesting by both sides.