Alternative systems for Intellectual Property in the digital age

This paper investigates the current turbulent state of copyright in the digital age, and explores the viability of alternative compensation systems that aim to achieve the same goals with fewer negative consequences for consumers and artists. To sustain existing business models associated with creative content, increased recourse to DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies, designed to restrict access to and usage of digital content, is well underway. Considerable technical challenges associated with DRM systems necessitate increasingly aggressive recourse to the law. A number of controversial aspects of copyright enforcement are discussed and contrasted with those inherent in levy based compensation systems. Lateral exploration of the copyright dilemma may help prevent some undesirable societal impacts, but with powerful coalitions of creative, consumer electronics and information technology industries having enormous vested interest in current models, alternative schemes are frequently treated dismissively. This paper focuses on consideration of alternative models that better suit the digital era whilst achieving a more even balance in the copyright bargain.

Changing user behaviour using a digital repository system

Griffith University is developing a digital repository system using HarvestRoad Hive software to better meet the needs of academics and students using institutional learning and teaching, course readings, and institutional intellectual capital systems. Issues with current operations and systems are discussed in terms of user behaviour. New repository systems are being designed in such a way that they address current service and user behaviour issues by closely aligning systems with user needs. By developing attractive online services, Griffith is working to change current user behaviour to achieve strategic priorities in the sharing and reuse of learning objects, improved selection and use of digitised course readings, the development of ePrint and eScience services, and the management of a research portfolio service.

Rethinking public service media and citizenship : digital strategies for news and current affairs at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)

This article considers the concept of media citizenship in relation to the digital strategies of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). At SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, there is a critical appraisal of its strategies to harness user-created content (UCC) and social media to promote greater audience participation through its news and current affairs Web sites. The article looks at the opportunities and challenges that user-related content presents for public service media organizations as they consolidate multiplatform service delivery. Also analyzed are the implications of radio and television broadcasters’ moves to develop online services. It is proposed that case study methodologies enable an understanding of media citizenship to be developed that maintains a focus on the interaction between delivery technologies, organizational structures and cultures, and program content that is essential for understanding the changing focus of 21st-century public service media.

Designing participation : Reconsidering agile ridesharing with evolutionary distributed design thinking

This paper explores design thinking from the perspective of designing new forms of interaction to engage people in community change initiatives. A case study of an agile ridesharing system is presented. We describe the fundamental premise of the design approach taken—deploying simple interactive prototypes for use by communities in order to test the design hypothesis, evolve the design in use and grow the community of participants. Real-time use data and feedback from participants influences our understanding of the design approach and feeds into the gradual evolution of the prototype while it continues to be used. We then reflect upon this form of evolutionary distributed design thinking. In contrast to the conventional IT wisdom of building systems to automate ride matching and fare calculation using structured forms, our initial phase of design revealed a preference for informal messaging, negotiation and caution in the sharing of specific location information.

Augmenting public urban spaces : the impact of the digital future on the design of public urban spaces

Social media digital and technologies surround us. We are moving into an age of ubiquitous (that is everywhere) computing. New media and information and communication technologies already impact on many aspects of everyday life including work, home and leisure. These new technologies are influencing the way that we develop social networks; understand places and location; how we navigate our cities; how we provide information about utilities and services; developing new ways to engage and participate in our communities, in planning, in governance and other decisions. This paper presents the initial findings of the impacts that digital communication technologies are having on public urban spaces. It develops a contextual review the nexus between urban planning and technological developments with examples and case studies from around the world to highlight some of the potential directions for urban planning in Queensland and Australia. It concludes with some thought provoking discussion points for urban planners, architects, designers and placemakers on the future of urban informatics and urban design, questions such as: how technology can enhance ‘place’, how technology can be used to improve public participation, and how technology will change our requirements of public places?

Digital storytelling around the world

‘Digital storytelling’ is a workshop-based practice in which ‘ordinary’ people are taught to use digital media to create short audio-video stories, usually about their own lives. The idea is that this puts the universal human delight in narrative and self expression into the hands of everyone in the digital age; and potentially brings individual experience, ideas, creativity and imagination to the attention of the whole world. It gives a voice to the myriad tales of everyday life as experienced by ordinary people in their own terms. Despite its use of the latest technologies, its purpose is simple and human.

Responses to 2008 Apology : Digital story collection

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology to Australia’s Indigenous People on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. The State Library of Queensland, with assistance from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, captured responses to this historic event in a collection of digital stories. Stories were created with: Tiga Bayles; Jeremy Robertson; Natalie Alberts; Sam Wagan Watson Jr; Nadine McDonald-Dowd; Anna Bligh; and Quentin Bryce.

The politics of 'dirt' in "Dirty Jobs"

Commercial television, particularly when associated with cable networks and global distribution, is often criticised for presenting us with a sanitised view of the world. This is particularly true when it comes to American programs which are targeted for their cliché Hollywood happy endings, idyllic families who lead overly materialistic lifestyles. This political denigration of TV is a complaint about how programs offer us an escape from the harsher, dirtier realities of life. But if we take the metaphor of dirt more seriously, it’s possible to find some interesting political meanings attached to its use on cable television. Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe is a reality-documentary style program about dirty, hazardous, strange or unconventional jobs. It uses the concept of dirt to address some significant taboos about class within America television culture.

Rethinking public service media and citizenship: digital strategies for news and current affairs at Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service

This article considers the concept of media citizenship in relation to the digital strategies of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). At SBS, Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster, there is a critical appraisal of its strategies to harness user-created content (UCC) and social media to promote greater audience participation through its news and current affairs Web sites. The article looks at the opportunities and challenges that user-created content presents for public service media organizations as they consolidate multiplatform service delivery. Also analyzed are the implications of radio and television broadcasters’ moves to develop online services. It is proposed that case study methodologies enable an understanding of media citizenship to be developed that maintains a focus on the interaction between delivery technologies, organizational structures and cultures, and program content that is essential for understanding the changing focus of 21st-century public service media.

aa-cell in practice : an approach to musical live coding

Live coding performances provide a context with particular demands and limitations for music making. In this paper we discuss how as the live coding duo aa-cell we have responded to these challenges, and what this experience has revealed about the computational representation of music and approaches to interactive computer music performance. In particular we have identified several effective and efficient processes that underpin our practice including probability, linearity, periodicity, set theory, and recursion and describe how these are applied and combined to build sophisticated musical structures. In addition, we outline aspects of our performance practice that respond to the improvisational, collaborative and communicative requirements of musical live coding.

Randomised controlled trial of an automated, interactive telephone intervention to improve type 2 diabetes self-management (Telephone-Linked Care Diabetes Project) : study protocol

Background: An estimated 285 million people worldwide have diabetes and its prevalence is predicted to increase to 439 million by 2030. For the year 2010, it is estimated that 3.96 million excess deaths in the age group 20-79 years are attributable to diabetes around the world. Self-management is recognised as an integral part of diabetes care. This paper describes the protocol of a randomised controlled trial of an automated interactive telephone system aiming to improve the uptake and maintenance of essential diabetes self-management behaviours. ---------- Methods/Design: A total of 340 individuals with type 2 diabetes will be randomised, either to the routine care arm, or to the intervention arm in which participants receive the Telephone-Linked Care (TLC) Diabetes program in addition to their routine care. The intervention requires the participants to telephone the TLC Diabetes phone system weekly for 6 months. They receive the study handbook and a glucose meter linked to a data uploading device. The TLC system consists of a computer with software designed to provide monitoring, tailored feedback and education on key aspects of diabetes self-management, based on answers voiced or entered during the current or previous conversations. Data collection is conducted at baseline (Time 1), 6-month follow-up (Time 2), and 12-month follow-up (Time 3). The primary outcomes are glycaemic control (HbA1c) and quality of life (Short Form-36 Health Survey version 2). Secondary outcomes include anthropometric measures, blood pressure, blood lipid profile, psychosocial measures as well as measures of diet, physical activity, blood glucose monitoring, foot care and medication taking. Information on utilisation of healthcare services including hospital admissions, medication use and costs is collected. An economic evaluation is also planned.---------- Discussion: Outcomes will provide evidence concerning the efficacy of a telephone-linked care intervention for self-management of diabetes. Furthermore, the study will provide insight into the potential for more widespread uptake of automated telehealth interventions, globally.

Digital processing of diffusion-tensor images of avascular tissues

Diffusion is the process that leads to the mixing of substances as a result of spontaneous and random thermal motion of individual atoms and molecules. It was first detected by the English botanist Robert Brown in 1827, and the phenomenon became known as ‘Brownian motion’. More specifically, the motion observed by Brown was translational diffusion – thermal motion resulting in random variations of the position of a molecule. This type of motion was given a correct theoretical interpretation in 1905 by Albert Einstein, who derived the relationship between temperature, the viscosity of the medium, the size of the diffusing molecule, and its diffusion coefficient. It is translational diffusion that is indirectly observed in MR diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI). The relationship obtained by Einstein provides the physical basis for using translational diffusion to probe the microscopic environment surrounding the molecule.

Reading nineteenth century schoolbooks online : user behavior in a digitized special collection

Special collections, because of the issues associated with conservation and use, a feature they share with archives, tend to be the most digitized areas in libraries. The Nineteenth Century Schoolbooks collection is a collection of 9000 rarely held nineteenth-century schoolbooks that were painstakingly collected over a lifetime of work by Prof. John A. Nietz, and donated to the Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh in 1958, which has since grown to 15,000. About 140 of these texts are completely digitized and showcased in a publicly accessible website through the University of Pittsburgh’s Library, along with a searchable bibliography of the entire collection, which expanded the awareness of this collection and its user base to beyond the academic community. The URL for the website is http://digital.library.pitt.edu/nietz/. The collection is a rich resource for researchers studying the intellectual, educational, and textbook publishing history of the United States. In this study, we examined several existing records collected by the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh in order to determine the identity and searching behaviors of the users of this collection. Some of the records examined include: 1) The results of a 3-month long user survey, 2) User access statistics including search queries for a period of one year, a year after the digitized collection became publicly available in 2001, and 3) E-mail input received by the website over 4 years from 2000-2004. The results of the study demonstrate the differences in online retrieval strategies used by academic researchers and historians, archivists, avocationists, and the general public, and the importance of facilitating the discovery of digitized special collections through the use of electronic finding aids and an interactive interface with detailed metadata.

Planning online : a community-based interactive decision-making model

The first use of computing technologies and the development of land use models in order to support decision-making processes in urban planning date back to as early as mid 20th century. The main thrust of computing applications in urban planning is their contribution to sound decision-making and planning practices. During the last couple of decades many new computing tools and technologies, including geospatial technologies, are designed to enhance planners' capability in dealing with complex urban environments and planning for prosperous and healthy communities. This chapter, therefore, examines the role of information technologies, particularly internet-based geographic information systems, as decision support systems to aid public participatory planning. The chapter discusses challenges and opportunities for the use of internet-based mapping application and tools in collaborative decision-making, and introduces a prototype internet-based geographic information system that is developed to integrate public-oriented interactive decision mechanisms into urban planning practice. This system, referred as the 'Community-based Internet GIS' model, incorporates advanced information technologies, distance learning, sustainable urban development principles and community involvement techniques in decision-making processes, and piloted in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Challenges of Malaysian developers in creating good interfaces for interactive courseware

There are many reasons why interface design for interactive courseware fails to support quality of learning experiences. The causes such as the level of interactivity, the availability of the interfaces to interact with the end users and a lack of deep knowledge about the role of interface design by the designers in the development process are most acknowledged. Related to this, as a creator for the interactive courseware, generally the developers expect the resources that they produced are effective, accurate and robust. However, rarely do the developers have the opportunity to create good interfaces with the emphasis on time consuming, money and skill. Thus, some challenges faces by them in the interface design development can’t be underestimated as well. Therefore, their perspective of the interactive courseware is important to ensure the material and also the features of the interactive courseware can facilitate teaching and learning activity. Within this context in mind, this paper highlights the challenges that faces by the Malaysian developer from the ten face to face interviewed data gathered. It discusses from the Malaysian developer perspectives that involved in the development of interface design for interactive courseware for the Smart School Project. Particularly, in creating such a great interfaces, the highlights challenges will present within the constraints of time, curriculum demand, and competencies of the development team.