Development of a Remote Sensing Core Curriculum submitted for the sessions on educational initiatives in Geoscience and Remote Sensing

A Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) development project is currently underway. This project is being conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). RSCC is an outgrowth of the NCGIA GIS Core Curriculum project. It grew out of discussions begun at NCGIA, Initiative 12 (I-12): 'Integration of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems'. This curriculum development project focuses on providing professors, teachers and instructors in undergraduate and graduate institutions with course materials from experts in specific subject matter for areas use in the class room.

Internet teaching foundation for the Remote Sensing Core Curriculum program

The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) was initiated in 1993 to meet the demands for a college-level set of resources to enhance the quality of education across national and international campuses. The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing adopted the RSCC in 1996 to sustain support of this educational initiative for its membership and collegiate community. A series of volumes, containing lectures, exercises, and data, is being created by expert contributors to address the different technical fields of remote sensing. The RSCC program is designed to operate on the Internet taking full advantage of the World Wide Web (WWW) technology for distance learning. The issues of curriculum development related to the educational setting, with demands on faculty, students, and facilities, is considered to understand the new paradigms for WWW-influenced computer-aided learning. The WWW is shown to be especially appropriate for facilitating remote sensing education with requirements for addressing image data sets and multimedia learning tools. The RSCC is located at http://www.umbc.edu/rscc. The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) was initiated in 1993 to meet the demands for a college-level set of resources to enhance the quality of education across national and international campuses. The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing adopted the RSCC in 1996 to sustain support of this educational initiative for its membership and collegiate community. A series of volumes, containing lectures, exercises, and data, is being created by expert contributors to address the different technical fields of remote sensing. The RSCC program is designed to operate on the Internet taking full advantage of the World Wide Web (WWW) technology for distance learning. The issues of curriculum development related to the educational setting, with demands on faculty, students, and facilities, is considered to understand the new paradigms for WWW-influenced computer-aided learning. The WWW is shown to be especially appropriate for facilitating remote sensing education with requirements for addressing image data sets and multimedia learning tools. The RSCC is located at http://www.umbc.edu/rscc.

Working in partnership to develop engineering capability in energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is a complex topic to integrate into higher education curricula, with limited success internationally or in Australia. This paper discusses one of the successful initiatives within the Energy Efficiency Training Program, which was jointly managed and implemented by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage and Department of Education and Communities. The state government initiative aimed to increase the knowledge and skills of the New South Wales workforce, help business to identify and implement energy efficiency projects, and provide professional development for the training providers. Key sectors targeted included property, construction, manufacturing and services. The Program was externally evaluated over the three years 2011 to 2013 and a range of insights were gained through these facilitated reflective opportunities, confirming and building upon literature on the topic to date. This paper presents lessons learned from the engineering part of the program (‘the project’), spanning government agencies, academic institutions, and academia. The paper begins with a contextual summary, followed by a synthesis of key learnings and implications for future training initiatives. It is intended that sharing these lessons will contribute to literature in the field, and assist other organisations in Australia and overseas planning similar initiatives.

Design Minds Refresh Toolkit

The Design Minds Refresh Toolkit was one of six K7-12 secondary school design toolkits commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Asia Pacific Design Library (APDL), to facilitate the delivery of the Stage 1 launch of its Design Minds online platform (www.designminds.org.au) partnership initiative with Queensland Government Arts Queensland and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on June 29, 2012. Design Minds toolkits are practical guides, underpinned by a combination of one to three of the Design Minds model phases of ‘Inquire’, ‘Ideate’ and ‘Implement’ (supported by at each stage with structured reflection), to enhance existing school curriculum and empower students with real life design exercises, within the classroom environment. Toolkits directly identify links to Naplan, National Curriculum, C2C and Professional Standards benchmarks, as well as the student capabilities of successful and creative 21st century citizens they seek to engender through design thinking. Inspired by ideas from a design project for second year Interior Design students at QUT School of Design, this toolkit explores, through five distinct exercises, different design tools and ways to approach the future design of environments (bathrooms) to facilitate the daily washing ritual, while addressing diverse and changing social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. The Design Minds Refresh Toolkit particularly aims to promote ‘Lateral Thinking’ attitudes and empathy as an approach to create unusual and sustainable solutions to future problems that may affect our daily behavioural routines, and the spaces that facilitate them. More generally, it aims to facilitate awareness in young people, of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve basic to complex systemic challenges, as well as to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. The toolkit encourages students and teachers to develop sketching, making, communication, presentation and collaboration skills to improve their design process, as well as explore further inquiry (background research) to enhance the ideation exercises. Exercise 1 focuses on the ‘Inquire’ and ‘Ideate’ phases, Exercise 2 and 3 build on ideation skills, and Exercise 4 and 5 concentrate on the ‘Implement’ phase. Depending on the intensity of the focus, the unit of work could be developed over a 4-5 week program (approximately 10-12 x 60 minute lessons/workshops) or as smaller workshops treated as discrete learning experiences. The toolkit is available for public download from http://designminds.org.au/refresh/ on the Design Minds website. Exercise 2 (Other People’s Shoes) and Exercise 3 (The Future Bathroom) of the toolkit were used as content for the inaugural Design Minds Professional Development Workshop on June 28, 2012 to pre-launch the website to Queensland teachers.

Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit

The Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit was one of six K7-12 secondary school design toolkits commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Asia Pacific Design Library (APDL), to facilitate the delivery of the Stage 1 launch of its Design Minds online platform (www.designminds.org.au) partnership initiative with Queensland Government Arts Queensland and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on June 29, 2012. Design Minds toolkits are practical guides, underpinned by a combination of one to three of the Design Minds model phases of ‘Inquire’, ‘Ideate’ and ‘Implement’ (supported by at each stage with structured reflection), to enhance existing school curriculum and empower students with real life design exercises, within the classroom environment. Toolkits directly identify links to Naplan, National Curriculum, C2C and Professional Standards benchmarks, as well as the student capabilities of successful and creative 21st century citizens they seek to engender through design thinking. Inspired by the Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific Generation Workshop 2010 (http://eprints.qut.edu.au/47762/), this toolkit explores, through three distinct exercises, ‘design for the other 90%’, addressing tools and approaches to diverse and changing social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. The Design Minds The Big Picture Toolkit challenges students to be active agents for change and to think creatively and optimistically about solutions to future global issues that deliver social, economic and environmental benefits. More generally, it aims to facilitate awareness in young people, of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve basic to complex systemic challenges, as well as to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. The toolkit encourages students and teachers to develop sketching, making, communication, presentation and collaboration skills to improve their design process, as well as explore further inquiry (background research) to enhance the ideation exercises. Exercise 1 focuses on the ‘Inquire’ phase, Exercise 2 the ‘Inquire’ and ‘Ideate’ phases, and Exercise 3 concentrates on the ‘Implement’ phase. Depending on the intensity of the focus, the unit of work could be developed over a 4-5 week program (approximately 4-6 x 60 minute lessons/workshops) or as smaller workshops treated as discrete learning experiences. The toolkit is available for public download from http://designminds.org.au/the-big-picture/ on the Design Minds website.

Design Minds Tomorrow's Classroom Toolkit

The Design Minds Tomorrow’s Classroom Toolkit was one of six K7-12 secondary school design toolkits commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) Asia Pacific Design Library (APDL), to facilitate the delivery of the Stage 1 launch of its Design Minds online platform (www.designminds.org.au) partnership initiative with Queensland Government Arts Queensland and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, on June 29, 2012. Design Minds toolkits are practical guides, underpinned by a combination of one to three of the Design Minds model phases of ‘Inquire’, ‘Ideate’ and ‘Implement’ (supported by at each stage with structured reflection), to enhance existing school curriculum and empower students with real life design exercises, within the classroom environment. Toolkits directly identify links to Naplan, National Curriculum, C2C and Professional Standards benchmarks, as well as the student capabilities of successful and creative 21st century citizens they seek to engender through design thinking. This toolkit explores, through four distinct exercises, different design tools and ways to approach the future design of environments (classrooms/schools) to facilitate the Reggio Emilia philosophy of learning, while addressing diverse and changing social, cultural, technological and environmental challenges. The Design Minds Tomorrow’s Classroom Toolkit encourages students to explore architecture and interior design, and to think about their (life-long) learning as a product of inspiring interactions with people and the environments around them, and that their potential role in contributing to both delightful and functional design solutions requires a deep understanding of the user experience. More generally, it aims to facilitate awareness in young people, of the role of design in society and the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve basic to complex systemic challenges, as well as to inspire post-secondary pathways and idea generation for education. The toolkit encourages students and teachers to develop sketching, making, communication, presentation and collaboration skills to improve their design process, as well as explore further inquiry (background research) to enhance the ideation exercises. Exercise 1 focuses on the ‘Inquire’ and ‘Ideate’ phases, Exercise 2 on the ‘Inquire’, Exercise 3 builds on ideation skills, and Exercise 4 concentrates on the ‘Implement’ phase. Depending on the intensity of the focus, the unit of work could be developed over a 2-5 week program (approximately 4-10 x 60 minute lessons/workshops) or as smaller workshops treated as discrete learning experiences. The toolkit is available for public download from http://designminds.org.au/tomorrows-classroom/ on the Design Minds website. This toolkit inspired the authorship and facilitation of a 2-day design workshop entitled Learning Environment 2050 at John Paul College, Daisy Hill, Brisbane on the 15-16 August 2013. 120 Grade 7 students and their teachers, under the mentorship of two design academics, 3 QUT design students and a professional architect, as part of a QUT School of Design Project Week community engagement activity, explored the formulation of a participatory design brief for the redesign of the school’s Wesley Precinct (including classrooms, a sustainable farm and recreation areas).

Dry tropics water smart : a community based approach to residential outdoor water consumption

This paper discusses the Townsville City Council Dry Tropics Water Smart (DTWS) initiative, developed by TCC Integrated Sustainability Services (ISS) and Townsville Water, and informed by The University of Adelaide. The program draws on many years of experience by the TCC team to blend key community-based research approaches in order to develop this residential outdoor water conservation program. Several community pilots have been conducted to test different behaviour change strategies and messages. This paper outlines recent steps taken to develop the community trials, as guided by a combination of behaviour change theories including community-based social marketing and thematic communications methods. Some preliminary results are outlined focused on community uptake of different strategies, community perceptions of communication materials, and some insights into the effectiveness of outdoor water hardware.

Overview of building information modelling in healthcare projects

In this paper, we explore how BIM functionalities together with novel management concepts and methods have been utilized in thirteen hospital projects in the United States and the United Kingdom. Secondary data collection and analysis were used as the method. Initial findings indicate that the utilization of BIM enables a holistic view of project delivery and helps to integrate project parties into a collaborative process. The initiative to implement BIM must come from the top down to enable early involvement of all key stakeholders. It seems that it is rather resistance from people to adapt to the new way of working and thinking than immaturity of technology that hinders the utilization of BIM.

Beyond BIM: It’s not the end of the road!

Over several decades, academics around the world have investigated the necessary tools, techniques, and conditions which would allow BIM (building information modeling) to become a positive force in the world of construction. As the research results matured, BIM started to become commercially available. Researchers and many in industry soon realized that BIM, as a technological innovation, was, in and of itself, not the end point in the journey. The technical adoption of BIM has to be supported by process and culture change within organizations to make a real impact on a project (for example, see AECbytes Viewpoint #35 by Chuck Eastman, Paul Teicholz, Rafael Sacks and Kathleen Liston). Current academic research aims to understand the steps beyond BIM, which will help chart the future of our industry over the coming decades. This article describes an international research effort in this area, coordinated by the Integrated Design and Delivery Solutions (IDDS) initiative of the CIB (International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction). We hope that it responds to and extends the discussion initiated by Brian Lighthart in AECbytes Viewpoint #56, which asked about who is charting future BIM directions.

How do you ‘teach’ sustainability to engineers? introducing the engineering sustainable solutions program

Environmental engineers are increasingly being required to have knowledge about sustainability in their professional careers. Accreditation mechanisms for including sustainability in degree program requirements exist and are gradually being implemented by Engineers Australia. However, true integration of sustainability material into higher and vocational education curricula is still low, particularly outside the environmental engineering degree programs. In addition to environmental engineering, it is crucial for engineering across the specialisations, to be exposed to sustainability concepts and theories. This paper will demonstrate how sustainability as a ‘critical literacy’ can be designed for teaching within mainstream engineering education, using a current Australian project as a case study. The project demonstrates that sustainability education for all engineers is not only possible, but that there is international interest in collaborating in such an educational initiative. A pilot trial of the Introductory Module was undertaken in Semester 1 2004 and Version 2 trials are now proceeding with a number of universities and organisations nationally and internationally. Further modules are currently being developed in collaboration with Engineers Australia and UNESCO. The program is a finalist in the 2005 Banksia Awards (Category 11, Environmental Leadership Education and Training).

Entrepreneurship in the public sector : new possibilities?

Previous research has described potential roles for entrepreneurs in public sector organisations as either closely related to corporate entrepreneurship, or as normative prescriptions regarding the importance of entrepreneurship in the public sector (Ireland, Covin & Kuratko, 2009: Morris & Jones, 1999). While some might argue that entrepreneurship in the public sector context is an oxymoron, recent studies have demonstrated that entrepreneurship in the public sector is alive and well (Currie, Humphreys, Ucbasaran & McManus 2008; Kim, 2010). Entrepreneurship in the public sector can take many forms and generate a range of benefits but to date less attention has been given to the potential to generate new public value (Moore, 1995). The purpose of this paper is to increase our knowledge and understanding of the types of strategies and activities the public sector is using to capture initiative, create new public value, and generate new economic activity for the benefit of multiple stakeholders. This paper explores entrepreneurship in one public sector context. Findings indicate that entrepreneurship and commercialisation is more likely to be encouraged in contexts where contestability in develop and exploit capabilities.

A 5- versus 3-day course of oral corticosteroids for children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised : a randomised controlled trial

Objective To determine whether a 5-day course of oral prednisolone is superior to a 3-day course in reducing the 2-week morbidity of children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised. Design, setting and participants Double-blind randomised controlled trial of asthma outcomes following a 5-day course of oral prednisolone (1 mg/kg) compared with a 3-day course of prednisolone plus placebo for 2 days. Participants were children aged 2–15 years who presented to the emergency departments of three Queensland hospitals between March 2004 and February 2007 with an acute exacerbation of asthma, but were not hospitalised. Sample size was defined a priori for a study power of 90%. Main outcome measures Difference in proportion of children who were symptom-free at Day 7, as measured by intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol analysis; quality of life (QOL) on Days 7 and 14. Results 201 children were enrolled, and there was an 82% completion rate. There was no difference between groups in the proportion of children who were symptom-free (observed difference, 0.04 [95% CI, − 0.09 to 0.18] by ITT analysis; 0.04 [95% CI, − 0.17 to 0.09] by per-protocol analysis). There was also no difference between groups in QOL (P = 0.42). The difference between groups for the primary outcome was within the equivalence range calculated post priori. Conclusion A 5-day course of oral prednisolone confers no advantage over a 3-day course for children with asthma exacerbations who are not hospitalised.

The Medics - "Foundations"

The Medics “Foundations” is a full-length album of popular music completed over a 13-month period and released in 2012, with work taking place in Byron Bay’s 301 studios and Brisbane’s Airlock studios. “Foundations” contributes to studies in the field of music production, as well as furthering research into the place of Indigenous youth culture within contemporary rock music. The music draws on elements of folk, post rock and hardcore to create a dynamic and cinematic sound, framed by lyrics that focus on spirituality, nature and a connection to the land. Artists such as At the Drive In and Mars Volta were referenced in the production of the record. Scholars such as Joe Bennett have argued that the relationship between songwriting practice and song product is an under-explored area in popular musicology, and, by using a practice-led research methodology, the production of “Foundations” extends these creative inquiries. “Foundations” was produced with the assistance of a competitive grant, the Cultural Minister’s Council Breakthrough initiative, which assists emerging Indigenous contemporary musicians. The album was well received and positively reviewed, resulting in the band signing a record deal with Warner Music and a publishing deal with Albert’s Music. It was album of the week on Triple J and several singles were placed on high rotation. A review on Themusic.com.au highlighted the production work: “Producer Yanto Browning has captured the impassioned live intent the band have built their reputation on and bottled it into 11 impeccable tracks, the album maintaining their onstage vigour while polishing it just enough to allow it to burn brightly through the speakers.” As a result of the record, The Medics were invited to play Splendour in the Grass, the national Big Day Out tour and a series of shows in South America.

Livable housing design : the voluntary provision of inclusive housing in Australia

This paper reports on a study of the voluntary provision of inclusive housing. The impetus for the study is the Livable Housing Design initiative, an agreement among Australian housing industry and community leaders in 2010 to a national guideline and voluntary strategy with a target to provide minimum access features in all new housing by 2020. Situated in and around Brisbane, Australia, the study problematises the assumption that the housing industry will respond voluntarily; an assumption which this study concludes is unfounded. The Livable Housing Design initiative asks individual agents to consider the needs of people beyond the initial contract, to proceed with objective reasoning and to do the right thing voluntarily. Instead, the study found that interviewees focused on their immediate contractual obligations, were reluctant to change established practices and saw little reason to do more than was legally required of them. This paper argues that the highly-competitive and risk-averse nature of the industry works against a voluntary approach for inclusive housing and, if the 2020 target of the Livable Housing Design initiative is to be reached, a mandated approach through legislation will be necessary. The Livable Housing Design initiative, however, has an important role to play in preparing the Australian housing industry to accept further regulation.

The QUT innovation space : a trans-disciplinary learning environment for entrepreneurship education : final report

In the current climate of global economic volatility, there are increasing calls for training in enterprising skills and entrepreneurship to underpin the systemic innovation required for even medium-term business sustainability. The skills long-recognised as the essential for entrepreneurship now appear on the list of employability skills demanded by industry. The QUT Innovation Space (QIS) was an experiment aimed at delivering entrepreneurship education (EE), as an extra-curricular platform across the university, to the undergraduate students of an Australian higher education institute. It was an ambitious project that built on overseas models of EE studied during an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Teaching Fellowship (Collet, 2011) and implemented those approaches across an institute. Such EE approaches have not been attempted in an Australian university. The project tested resonance not only with the student population, from the perspective of what worked and what didn’t work, but also with every level of university operations. Such information is needed to inform the development of EE in the Australian university landscape. The QIS comprised a physical co-working space, virtual sites (web, Twitter and Facebook) and a network of entrepreneurial mentors, colleagues, and students. All facets of the QIS enabled connection between like-minded individuals that underpins the momentum needed for a project of this nature. The QIS became an innovation community within QUT. This report serves two purposes. First, as an account of the QIS project and its evolution, the report serves to identify the student demand for skills and training as well as barriers and facilitators of the activities that promote EE in an Australian university context. Second, the report serves as a how-to manual, in the tradition of many tomes on EE, outlining the QIS activities that worked as well as those that failed. The activities represent one measure of QIS outcomes and are described herein to facilitate implementation in other institutes. The QIS initially aimed to adopt an incubation model for training in EE. The ‘learning by doing’ model for new venture creation is a highly successful and high profile training approach commonly found in overseas contexts. However, the greatest demand of the QUT student population was not for incubation and progression of a developed entrepreneurial intent, but rather for training that instilled enterprising skills in the individual. These two scenarios require different training approaches (Fayolle and Gailly, 2008). The activities of the QIS evolved to meet that student demand. In addressing enterprising skills, the QIS developed the antecedents of entrepreneurialism (i.e., entrepreneurial attitudes, motivation and behaviours) including high-level skills around risk-taking, effective communication, opportunity recognition and action-orientation. In focusing on the would-be entrepreneur and not on the (initial) idea per se, the QIS also fostered entrepreneurial outcomes that would never have gained entry to the rigid stage-gated incubation model proposed for the original QIS framework. Important lessons learned from the project for development of an innovation community include the need to: 1. Evaluate the context of the type of EE program to be delivered and the student demand for the skills training (as noted above). 2. Create a community that builds on three dimensions: a physical space, a virtual environment and a network of mentors and partners. 3. Supplement the community with external partnerships that aid in delivery of skills training materials. 4. Ensure discovery of the community through the use of external IT services to deliver advertising and networking outlets. 5. Manage unrealistic student expectations of billion dollar products. 6. Continuously renew and rebuild simple activities to maintain student engagement. 7. Accommodate the non-university end-user group within the community. 8. Recognise and address the skills bottlenecks that serve as barriers to concept progression; in this case, externally provided IT and programming skills. 9. Use available on-line and published resources rather than engage in constructing project-specific resources that quickly become obsolete. 10. Avoid perceptions of faculty ownership and operate in an increasingly competitive environment. 11. Recognise that the continuum between creativity/innovation and entrepreneurship is complex, non-linear and requires different training regimes during the different phases of the pipeline. One small entity, such as the QIS, cannot address them all. The QIS successfully designed, implemented and delivered activities that included events, workshops, seminars and services to QUT students in the extra-curricular space. That the QIS project can be considered successful derives directly from the outcomes. First, the QIS project changed the lives of emerging QUT student entrepreneurs. Also, the QIS activities developed enterprising skills in students who did not necessarily have a business proposition, at the time. Second, successful outcomes of the QIS project are evidenced as the embedding of most, perhaps all, of the QIS activities in a new Chancellery-sponsored initiative: the Leadership Development and Innovation Program hosted by QUT Student Support Services. During the course of the QIS project, the Brisbane-based innovation ecosystem underwent substantial change. From a dearth of opportunities for the entrepreneurially inclined, there is now a plethora of entities that cater for a diversity of innovation-related activities. While the QIS evolved with the landscape, the demand endpoint of the QIS activities still highlights a gap in the local and national innovation ecosystems. The freedom to experiment and to fail is not catered for by the many new entities seeking to build viable businesses on the back of the innovation push. The onus of teaching the enterprising skills, which are the employability skills now demanded by industry, remains the domain of the higher education sector.