federation university australia - federation university australia - … · 2020. 2. 2. · zehra,...

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VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4 - SPRING 2008 ITMS GRADUATES OF DISTINCTION

THIS ISSUE Mega University

Women in Action

Looking Deeper -IT and Art

IIBIT Sydney -

the Inside Story

International Recruiter

IBM Expansion Excites and

Energises

\ --1';> ..

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CAIO Chat

Comings, Goings and Doings

1800 811 711 www .ba Ila rat.edu.a u

ITMS Graduates of Distinction

News and Views for Alumni School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences

"ITMS making a difference"

ITMS dares to be different

The winner of the 2008 Melbourne Cup is "Viewed", trained by Bart Cummings. Viewed was not one of the favourites to win the Cup. But Bart Cummings, aged 81, is the most successful trainer in Australian racing history. He knows how

to be strategic and win the biggest of the prizes. At a time when the world financial meltdown is causing other universities to be very conservative and to downsize, the University of Ballarat - like its motto - Dares To Be Different! UB believes that by being strategic it too can win big.

UB and IBM have just announced a $10 million expansion of IBM activities on the UB Technology Park. The new IBM Services Centre will employ 300 staff. That many people, together with their families, will have a significant impact on Ballarat' s growth. The co-operation between IBM and UB, especially the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences, has paid great dividends. The UB Technology Park is rapidly moving towards having 2,000 persons employed by its many tenants .

But this is but the beginning! UB has recognized the incredible growth of ITMS in research and teaching by elevating the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences to the Graduate School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences - the first of its kind in Australia. This elevation is based on the fact that ITMS has a research output ten times what it had 7 years ago, five times as many students, and one of the largest cohorts of postgraduate IT students in Australia .

What will becoming a Graduate School mean? The University will invest $3 million over the first 5 years to guarantee its success. This investment will fund a large number of well paid scholarships for students from around the world to come to Ballarat to do advanced research in Mathematical Sciences and Information Technology. At a time when computing and mathematics departments in universities across Australia are shrinking, this Graduate School is a remarkable and exciting development not only for Ballarat but also Mathematics and Computing in this country. The University of Ballarat is already one of the biggest players in the International student market. The University is renowned for producing industry-ready graduates and is well known for its strong and ever expanding co-operation with IBM. This Graduate School builds on the existing strengths in teaching and research by expanding collaborations with universities around the world, which like the University of Ballarat, Dare To Be Different.

Professor Sid Morris, Head of School.

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4-SPRING 2008 ITMS GRADUATES OF DISTINCTION

Turkish Colleagues

Visit from a mega university

Dr Gurkan Ozturk (on sabbatical) and Mrs Zehra Kamisli Ozturk hail from the world's second largest university, Anadolu University in Turkey, with some 1.2 million students and its own campus airport providing daily Airbus flights to Istanbul, They were nevertheless were very impressed with ITMS research and teaching programs during their recent visit to UB in August/September.

Anadolu University - Turkey

The visit was funded though Fellowships won from the Turkish Government (The Science & Technology Research Council). This enabled Dr Ozturk to undertake a research paper with ITMS colleagues (principally Dr Adil Bagirov) that compared and contrasted their respective optimization methodologies. The results of this work will hopefully be published in a corning international refereed journal. Zehra, who is completing her PhD at Eskisehir Osmangazi University, was able to usefully confer on a range of Data Mining and Optimization issues with ITMS colleagues at the same time.

Gurkan and Zehra gained a good impression of UB's PhD programs where continuous progress can be made on an exegesis, in contrast to their own University's requirement for two years of course work (seven units) followed by at least two years of full-time research. In addition, research staff are also required to teach (some four 2-4 hours lectures per week in Gurkan's case).

The academic Ozturks became aware of ITMS and CIAO's research reputation through Dr Refail Kasimbeyli from Izmir University of Economics, Turkey in his capacity as Gurkan's PhD Supervisor. Dr Kasimbeyli met CIAO researchers at various international conferences (e.g. Dr Musa Mammadov in Iceland, Lithuania & Prague and Sasha lvkovic in

Ankara, Turkey). He recently made his third visit to UB where he collaborated with Dr Musa Mammadov on an ARC Discovery Grant funded project.

Dr Kasimbeyli is also developing with Dr Ozturk an approach based on polyhedral conic functions for solving supervised data classification problems. These problems are one of the most important problems in data mining and have wide variety of application areas from banking to spam categorization and from diagnosis of disease to chemistry. Dr Bagirov also has his approach called max-min separability which is the one of the best mathematical programming approaches in the literature for the same problem. During the last two months Dr Bagirov, Dr Ugon, Dean Webb, Dr Ozturk and Dr Kasimbeyli have combined superior aspects of these two approaches to develop a new piecewise linear classifier. This classifier has been applied to the well known test problems in the literature and very competitive results are being obtained.

The Ozturks, as a youthful couple, were delighted with the Australian lifestyle and particularly enjoyed the native fauna at Ballarat's Bird World and The Ballarat Wild Life Park. They were also impressed with the diversity and enthusiasm of the higher degree students they met at ITMS. These included Liping Jin (China), Asef Nazari Ganjehlo (Iran), Shamsul Hudd (Bangladesh) and Dean Webb.

Ongoing collaboration between UB and Turkish colleagues has been ensured through this visit. For further information visit the Anadolu University website at www.anadolu.edu.tr or email the Ozturks at [email protected]

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Women in JCT as Role Models

VIC ICT for women network roundtable luncheon

ITMS and the Ballarat ICT Cluster recently sponsored 6 women who are studying ICT related courses, to attend a Round-Table Networking lunch in Melbourne. Wendy Burke, ITMS Lecturer, accompanied the students who lunched with women from the Victorian ICT for Women Network, a great opportunity to meet and network with the ICT industry's most accomplished women and get an insight into what is required to have a successful career in ICT. Many students made valuable contacts on the day and received valuable information about ICT careers, issues in the ICT working environment, and the benefits of focussing on education.

Students met a variety of ICT Industry employees ranging from ICT Managers to Business Analysts. Students heard that juniors usually start on projects with limited scope under the guidance of an experienced person. Students also met women who were mothers returning to work and women returning to study to re-educate themselves in a different area of work

Students found the lunch very beneficial saying that it helped to 'bridge the gap' between studying and working by giving an insight into the processes to go through to succeed in the ICT profession. ITMS students in attendance at the lunch were: Sharon Lavery, Ranisha Fernando, Jacinta Reid, Simin Mirhaghy Saatchi, Sae Ra Germaine and Julie Ross.

As one student participant said: "The Roundtable proved to be an inspiring event. We got

the feeling that ICT is not all a male dominated area. It

also encouraged me to be more focused on my own

education. It was exciting to meet many interesting women."

Graduate Skills in Action

Rajni Verma

Rajni Verma completed the Master of Information Systems course at IIBIT (Adelaide). It was a special experience. According to Rajni, IIBIT is a small campus making study more approachable and focused. The staff there were very supportive and gave Rajni confidence that someone would help whenever there was a problem. Rajni's campus manager proved the "best mentor" for students. She found that the MIS degree was very objective with the business approach well balanced with case studies and group research projects as well as individual tasks. Rajni found these methods "a really great way to learn".

The structure and professionalism that Rajni experienced in her degree program was a remarkable journey that she will never forget. Rajni says " .. . due to my encounters with such a diversity of

people and perspectives I have developed a broader

outlook on where I see my future career path and I feel ! have unlimited opportunities!"

.... and a good employment outcome Rajni was offered her first job by DATA Action as a Business Analyst, a role very relevant to her degree and she was able to utilize her educational experiences in gaining professional expertise.

Rajni was looking for an even better opportunity. She applied for a Federal Government job as IT Patent Examiner. With her confidence and credentials Rajni was able to get through the three interview rounds and was appointed to IP Australia.

Rajni comments: "As an IT patent examiner my role

would be to examine the most innovative inventions in

the field of IT and grant rights to new inventions if

applicable. This is quite challenging in itself as one is

required to be aware of the most modern day technologies,

but the exciting part is that you get to know the newest

technology before anyone else does and it entirely depends

on your analytical and logical reasoning to pass or reject

a new invention."

Rajni's advice to other students considering studying at an ITMS partner site is that studying in another country is a big decision, but the support system provided at places like IIBIT Adelaide makes it easy. She is very happy to recommend the experience at this ITMS partner site to others


"Looking Deeper"

Digital prints on canvas and interactive multimedia)

The newly rebadged Art Gallery of Ballarat, now with free access to the public, encouraged many visitations to ITMS Lecturer Marijke Groothuis' digital exhibition which continued to November 2008. Her powerful use of contemporary imagery which creatively blends computer skills with visual art echoes the quality of the very earliest photographic exhibitions in the Lydiard Street Gallery.

Proudly opened in late September by UB's Vice Chancellor, Professor David Battersby, the exhibition was a journey below the surface of the mind, taking the viewer to a place that cameras cannot access, but which has been given life through a process of manipulation and the skillful blending of the pixels contained within the superimposed images.

Marijke comments "I have a passion for photography and computers.

Photography because it showed me at an early age that

the world is even more beautiful through the lens of a

camera than via the naked eye; computers because I like

the speed with which a computer can accomplish mundane

tasks, leaving me free to do more creative things.

In the past I have manipulated my photos in the

darkroom, but the process was very laborious rather than

creative. The computer responds immediately to any

changes I wish to make and the whole process is an

enormously satisfying interaction between human and

machine. Being able to express myself in this way excites

me; the manipulations are not simply images but mind

journeys that I have completed but that others may

perhaps look at and use to begin their own journeys with,

if only for a short time".

Marijke commences with her digital camera which once downloaded to her computer begins the process of manipulation. This process is exhilarating but also exhaustion because of the speed with which the computer reacts; no waiting for wet paint to dry! Marijke confesses that she never knows how many layers that she will end up with beforehand; but knows when the point has been reached that no further work is necessary. While she is working on a piece she describes " .. . there is a constant dance of

pixels in front of me, creating imaginary worlds, worlds

that somehow live inside of me but that only becomes

visible via the manipulations".

The digital medium chosen by Marijke has the advantage in that it can be enjoyed on one's personal computer screen or (as is the case for this exhibition) set out handsomely as large prints on canvas in a major gallery space. Marijke looks forward to an advanced period when " .. . viewers may be able to step

into a iece o art to continue to ex lore".

To contact Marijke email: [email protected]

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CIAO CHAT about this and that

Two decades up for CIAO Director Professor John Yearwood

It takes stamina, determination and commitment to stay with an organization for twenty years (in this case UB/ ITMS and its predecessors) and still keep on producing outstanding professional research outcomes that remain relevant and contemporary. CIAO 'legend'

Professor John Yearwood, has consistently produced these qualities through a number of roles including, over recent years, as Deputy Director and to his most recent elevation as Director in 2007.

Professor Rubinov honoured The Inaugural Rubinov Memorial Lecture 2008 will be held on Monday 10 November 2008 at the Brewery Lecture Theatre, SMB Campus, with the uniquely qualified presenter Professor Barney Glover, formerly of ITMS, UB and responsible for first contact with Professor Alexander Rubinov. The purpose of the lecture is to honour the memory of the late Professor Rubinov, an internationally renowned mathematician and optimization specialist and the founding Director of CIAO,

Professor Glover is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), with responsibility for management of Curtin University's research and intellectual property, research training and strategic research planning. He is a member of the Senior Executive Group and also chairs the Singapore Advisory Committee and Capital Development Committee. He has held positions at several Australian universities and has an extensive research background in mathematics and mathematics education. He holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics.

CIAO team climbs the HIL (Health Informatics Laboratory) of health care

"- Providing adequate health care for all is a significant global issue that is stretching every nation's resources. There is no doubt that information technologies will be at

the centre of any progress. Researchers at UB's Health Informatics Laboratory (HIL), a group within CIAO, believe we must adopt new ways of thinking about health care. This involves new ways to apply information technologies that result in quality care and empower people to manage their health.

One 'new world' concept involves the integration of Western medicine with other forms. HIL researchers, Dr Long Jia, Dr Richard Dazeley and Dr Andrew Stranieri are working with universities in China to develop an interactive simulation system that trainee Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners can use to hone their diagnostic skills . In a similar vein, HIL's Dr Chris Turville, is working with a global team of researchers on one of the largest trials of homeopathy remedies for prevention of influenza.

A key feature of the new world of health care involves collecting and learning from huge amounts of data. Over 300 gigabytes of data is recorded from one patient in an overnight sleep clinic yet methods to process this data are still largely manual. HIL researchers Dr Julien Ugon and Dr Nadezda Sukhorukova are working closely with data mining researchers, CIAO and the Tenon Hospital in Paris to automatically identify a patient's sleep stage. Other work in data mining, with Charles Sturt University involves predicting the onset of diabetes and cardio-vascular disease.

Another feature of health care in the new world involves making software systems such as those between a GP and a pathology laboratory, exchange requests and results accurately. The Australian Health Messaging Laboratory, within HIL, has developed the world's most advanced testing facility for software developers to use to test their Health Level 7 (HL7) messages sent from one healthcare information system to another. This facility is constantly accessed by software developers around the world. This laboratory also has an extensive training role, being the major provider of HL7 training in Australia .

Focus on four research themes UB has recently identified four Research Themes which represent existing research strengths and/ or opportunities for growth. The University will allocate some $800,000 from its Strategic Development Fund for this purpose in 2009, with the expectation for a similar quantum of support to continue for 5 years (after which it is expected that these research initiatives will prove self funding). The theme of special interest to CIAO is Informatics and Applied Optimization that can reasonably be assumed to attract substantial funding.


Comings, Goings & Doings

Leo leaps into international His name is Leo Brunelle, he hails from Florida and he has recently taken up the position as Senior Administrator in ITMS's International Office at Mt. Helen. Leo's area of expertise is domestic violence intervention and investigation and Leo remains a State of Florida certified law enforcement trainer/ instructor.

Leo's educational background includes: a Bachelor of Arts degree in Applied Behavioural Science, a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice and a Graduate Certificate for Command Officer Development. Leo is currently in the research and dissertation phase of his Doctorate in Business Administration and Homeland Security.

Leo married an Australian girl from Melbourne who was then living in the USA. They met while he was a rookie officer in 1994 and were married in Wendouree in 2004. Leo says "I decided that Australia

was the place I wanted to retire and spend the rest of my

life. We have a total of five kids, all of them grown."

Leo retains positive impressions of the 'Aussie' way of life: "I have found Australian life to much more

relaxed, simpler, and nicer than in the U.S. Virtually every

Australian I have had contact with has been extremely

nice, polite, and laid back which is the polar opposite

from people in Florida. It is the reason I came here, to

escape the increasingly negative, aggressive, and rude

behaviour that has taken root in much of America".

Leo in his early days in ITMS has been gaining an understanding of the responsibilities of the International Office. He anticipates that as he gains further knowledge he will be able to present approaches that will improve the ITMS International Office's service capabilities to third party providers and the student body generally.

Leo has been a lifelong fan of Star Trek and in 2006, with his brothers Leo travelled to Las Vegas to visit the Star Trek Experience

Siddhi takes over as program co-ordinator for MIS

Dr Siddhi Kulkarni joined UB's ITMS in January 2006. He has previously completed a Bachelor of Electronics Engineering from the University of Pune, India. After working for more than three years as a Research and Development Engineer in a sensor based company, Dr Kulkarni moved to Australia to pursue a MD in IT followed by a PhD from Griffith University.

Later, Dr Kulkarni joined Nipissing University as an Assistant Professor in Canada. Siddhi taught a wide variety of courses for second, third and fourth year undergraduate students. He also supervised five honours students for their research. Dr Kulkarni was a recipient of Nipissing University start-up and Internal grants for various research projects.

Siddhi' s main research interests include Contentbased Image and Video Retrieval, Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks and Biometrics. He has published around 25 papers in refereed journals, international conferences

and as book chapters. Siddhi has also served as a technical program committee member and reviewer for many national and international conferences and journals. He is presently supervising a Master of Computing research student. Siddhi has previously examined honours, masters and PhD theses from within Australia as well as from overseas.

Dr Kulkarni is especially enjoying his new role as a Program Co-ordinator for ITMS's MIS degree and related programs. He further is serving as a program committee member, a member of the academic progress committee and area warden for occupational health and safety at ITMS.

Siddhi lives w ith his wife Pradnya who works as a Software Developer at A viarc Australia, based in the Global Innovation Centre. Siddhi has a beautiful four year old daughter, Tejal. For recreation he enjoys weekends with his family, playing with his daughter, watching Indian movies, and tripping around regional Victoria.

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/TMS Partner Sites are Prospering

The IIBIT Sydney Success Story

The International Institute of Business and Information Technology (IIBIT) today is a premier educational institution providing relevant, quality education. Located in the heart of Sydney and Adelaide, IIBIT caters to the needs of today's business world by providing the best possible education and training in Information Technology, Business and Accounting.

IIBIT is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to help students achieve their goals. IIBIT provides both vocational education and training (VET) courses and tertiary education courses leading to University degrees.

IIBIT has offered a comprehensive range of UB's Bachelor, Graduate Diploma and Masters Programs in Business and Information Technology for over nine years at its Sydney location.

IIBIT prides itself on the range of services and facilities offered to students to make them feel at home in their new environment. The services offered include pre-departure information and assistance, airport reception, accommodation and settling in support, course advice and enrolment assistance, academic and English language support and counselling services.

IIBIT provides the ideal learning environment for the benefit of its students. Academic Staff at IIBIT are highly qualified with relevant teaching experience at University level. They provide students with all the academic support needed to enable students to succeed in their educational pursuit. All staff at IIBIT are involved with the overall welfare of its students and not with just study matters.

IIBIT also offers 'Extra Support Classes' to help students who are having difficulty with their studies and this additional study support is provided through classes run by lecturers at no additional cost.

IIBIT' s operations have grown rapidly over the years with a large proportion of the students pursuing Information Technology courses. Students are drawn from overseas locations such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, China and nearby ASEAN and European Countries.

IIBIT currently operates out of its locations at Castlereagh Street and George Street in Sydney and Rundle Mall in Adelaide. Whilst a long way from UB's Mt Helen Campus, IIBIT Sydney is an important link allowing ITMS's academic programs to reach many international students who may never visit Victoria.

For further information concerning IIBIT Sydney contact CEO and Director Kishore V allam.

Email: [email protected]

'Leffers to Home'

More from Mona Dhama, IIBIT Adelaide

...... "We are very proud to report that one of our

students - Mr Sanath Acharya (Third semester MIS

student) won the Letters to Home Competition. This

competition was open to all international students

studying in Adelaide. Sanath was awarded a cheque for

$500 by the Minister for Further Education, Hon. Paul

Caica, at the Adelaide Convention Centre. I am very

excited because he was competing against international

students from the three major universities in SA."

Brian Firth, Manager of ITMS International Programs, has further commented: "What a wonderful

achievement by the student and what a credit to your

institution. We are very proud."

For more information about IIBIT Adelaide contact Mona Dhama at [email protected]

Please, may we borrow your story? ITMS Graduates of Distinction would like to tell the story of your career achievements since you completed your ITMS course. Please, may we borrow your story?

ITMS Graduates ... would like to tell the story of your career achievements since you completed your ITMS course. Please email your 200-300 words telling your story, plus a digital image to the Editor for publication in a future edition. Contact the Editor: ITMS Graduates of Distinction

T Eugene Kneebone Email: [email protected]


International Recruiter Extraordinaire

Still selling mathematics

After a rich career involving teaching, travel and administration, Grahame Morris was invited to join the UB as a Senior Lecturer, with responsibility to support the international student recruitment activities of the University and its partners. He trusts that this position, for which

he is uniquely equipped, will continue for many years to come.

Academic background Grahame's story begins at Newcastle Boys' High School where he came 61st in Mathematics in the State. He was offered a cadetship in Chemical Engineering with BHP, and commenced working in 1965. However, when he obtained a Commonwealth Scholarship, he enrolled in a BSc at the University of Newcastle, graduating with Honours. He then moved to Wollongong University College of the University of NSW (later UoW) to do a PhD in Numerical Analysis. At the completion of his PhD Grahame was appointed as a Lecturer in Mathematics in 1973, and subsequently was promoted to Senior Lecturer.

Over the years Grahame has been heavily involved in Student Administration, and the nature of the work saw him appointed as one of the initial SubDeans at the University (in his case, in the Faculty of Informatics. During his tenure at UoW Grahame spent large numbers of hours travelling around NSW visiting high schools, promoting Mathematics as a discipline, and encouraging students to choose Mathematics courses in their senior secondary school years as a means of developing thinking and analytic skills.

International connections Perhaps as a result of this activity, he was invited to go to Hong Kong in 1987 to attend the first Austrade Student Recruitment Exhibition there. Over the next 10 years his activity in this regard increased so that he usually had six such overseas trips each year, sometimes for up to six weeks in duration. Grahame travelled on the first Australian student recruitment 'roadshow' in India in 1992, where participants were confronted with several thousand applicants per day

- usually in non-air-conditioned environments and temperatures hovering in the low 40s!

Grahame also participated in the first Austrade student recruitment road-show in Pakistan in 1993. On this trip the first city was Karachi. There were so many potential students on the first morning that all brochures had disappeared within 30 minutes, and there was no breathing space in the hall of the A vari Hotel. The security staff decided that the exhibition should close, while order was restored. After the throngs were escorted outside, they became quite restless, and smashed in the hotel's glass doors.

Although there was never much free time on such trips, Grahame has been able to see some very interesting places, including the Taj Mahal, and the Terra-Cotta Warriors. Perhaps the most exciting excursion was the year Austrade staff in Pakistan arranged for the group to be taken "up the Khyber Pass"!

In 1998 Grahame was persuaded to leave academe, and took on the role of Manager of Admissions at the UoW.. A major overhaul of the processes was undertaken, and under his guidance, the development of a new Admissions system was started. Grahame streamlined application processing. This was instrumental in a significant increase in international students for the University, as frequently applicants would take the first reasonable offer made to them.

In 1993 Grahame was invited to go to Dubai on behalf of UoW to assist with the appointment of the foundation staff and the initial intake of students. Over the next seven years he was asked to go back to Dubai as Dean of Studies. In 2000, he finally relented and went - the next four years were among the happiest in his life. During his four years in Dubai, Grahame was again streamlining student administration systems, especially the proper implementation of UoW systems.

Grahame has maintained a lifetime interest in railways and buses, as well as planes, the former two being a much 'cheaper' interest than the latter.

Stop Press - Coup for UB The prestigious Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support (ACKMIDS) will be held at the University of Ballarat in December 2008.

http://www.ackmids.com.au.

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VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4- SPRING 2008 ITMS GRADUATES OF DISTINCTION

IBM Flexes ifs Muscles at UB's Technology Park

IBM still the 'anchor' tenant

The recent decision by IBM Australia to commence a major expansion with the development of a new IT Services Centre, led Premier John Brumby to describe it as " ... a big step forward for one of the nation's

most vibrant regional centres and a massive vote of

confidence in Ballarat" .

The proposed IBM IT Services Centre

• $10.8 M building development

• •

3500 sq metre facility

300 plus jobs created

• Business functions centre on: • Business processing and business

transformation services; • Software application development and

management; • Product operations (storage, security,

data base management); and • Call Centre and technical support.

• Expected construction to commence in October 2008

• Expected to be completed well within 12 months.

This IBM initiative comes together with the prospect of a further 'matching' project which follows from the landmark partnership between UB, IBM, Westpac, the State Government and the City of Ballarat. The project which involves the establishment of a state-of-the-art, internationally recognised Innovation and Enterprise Centre (IEC), in UBTP, is subject to the shortlisted Higher Education Endowment Fund (HEEF) grant application being successful in 2009.

$18.8M HEEF Proposal Summarised

• •

•

A major IBM IT Services Centre.

An Innovation and Research Hub incorporating UB's Centres and Laboratories for: • Informatics and Applied Optimization; • Internet Commerce Security; and • Health Informatics.

An IT Professional Practices facility for educational and pedagogical excellence for the education and training of TAFE, undergraduate and postgraduate students for professional practice in IT.

Of course all this exciting growth and expansion does not come by accident - it needs to be driven by dedicated and determined executives of which UB has been fortunate to have in abundance - some four visionary Vice-Chancellors and four hard working UBTP Directors (together with their talented teams) since UBTP' s inception.

Proposed IBM IT Services Centre

It has been recognised that large and successful Technology Parks across the globe have large and high profile anchor tenants residing within their precincts. IBM has been central to the success of UB's Technology Park, in that it has attracted and fostered many smaller technology based enterprises, facilitated government investment and been important to profiling the Park on the national and international stage. Mal Valance Technology Park's Director forecasts : "Our goal is to increase the overall

employment within the Park to over 2000 people within

the next 3 years. Further IBM will continue to play a

significant role in the achievement of the Vision for the

Technology Park and to be recognised nationally and

internationally as Australia's leading regional

Technology Park, characterised by a diversity of ICT and

related technologies, operating within a dynamic research

and development culture."

The relationship between IBM and UB is longstanding and strategically important to both organisations. The obvious and immediate benefits of the strong and enduring alliance with IBM include:

• Connecting University staff and students to industry and global thinking

• Sourcing graduates from the University (in excess of 50% of IBM's local employees are sourced through the University)

• Assisting with the retention of young, skilled people within regional Australia

• Facilitating the expansion of the JCT industry sector in regional Australia

• Attracting other enterprises to the UBTP • Providing a dynamic global context for the

application of knowledge

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 4- SPRING 2008 ITMS GRADUATES OF DISTINCTION

Newsflash

NewsFlashNewsFlashNewsFlash

Career fairs Troy Heland and Sue Jones have represented ITMS at a number of Career Expos this year; at both metropolitan and Victorian country venues. This provides ITMS with a

good opportunity to market the courses and facilities that it offers. Staff are actively involved in handing out University Course Guides and presenters discuss courses and University life with any interested prospective students and their parents.

Two of the most popular questions that are asked by students are:

"What are the pre-requisites for this course?"

"What career prospects does this course offer?"

The parent's interest is generally more focussed on accommodation and their concerns about their children moving away from home for the first time.

Jane appointed International co-chair Jane Gilbert, Senior Software Engineer for eHealth (CCEH) and Project Manager for UB' s Australian Healthcare Messaging Laboratory (AHML) has recently been elected as a Co-chair of the Health Level 7 (HL7) International

Implementation and Conformance Technical

'me atUB'

Committee. This honour will add to CCEH' s reputation and standing within the Australian and International Standards development community. AHML is seen as a very useful resource by the international community. Jane Gilbert reports: " ... the

knowledge from this meeting will lay the ground work to build

capacity in the new standards and to enable us to not only start

teaching these new standards but to also start planning and

development of new testing methods for them at AHML".

ICSL seminar The Internet Commerce Security Lab has commenced a series of guest lectures to raise awareness and advance the debate on security issues which are increasing coming onto the ICT agenda. Septembers lecture was delivered by Professor Josef Pieprzyk at the Greenhill Enterprise Centre.

Entitled 'The Current Status of Hash Functions' cryptologist Professor Joseph Pieprzyk was able to powerfully draw upon his extensive range of security related interests. These include the analysis and design of block ciphers, stream ciphers, public key cryptography, multiparty computations, hashing logarithms, digital signatures, key distribution, threshold cryptography, secret sharing, S-box theory, pseudo-randomness, authentication and quantum cryptography among others.

For further information concerning future guest lectures, contact Associate Professor Paul Watters email: [email protected]

UB's Open day is always a good opportunity to "strut its stuff' especially to potential students and their families . This year's Open Day was no exception with ITMS putting on a smorgasbord of IT Information Sessions, Career Information Sessions, IT Industry Representatives (IBM) and tours of the School and IBM facilities.

It was the demonstrations however that attracted much interested from potential undergraduates. Included were Artificial Intelligence demonstrations (with fun AI puppy dogs!) and those of Multimedia, 3D Modelling and the very popular Virtual Reality Laboratory demonstrations. Displays of Network Games and Student Projects added to the above to amply show that ICT studies can be fun, fascinating and functional.

Information seekers were no doubt also surprised to learn that present projections show that ICT skill shortages will grow by 29% to 14,000 by 2010 or a gap of some 25,000 _iobs by 2020 unless major changes occur in ICT employment and skills. These projections clearly show a challenging and profitable way forward for those who choose ICT careers today

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