Computing and ICT - OU Community Online

The Systems Group held a book launch on 31 May 2011 in The Open University’s London regional centre to celebrate five books edited and authored by academics from the Systems Group, Maths Computing and Technology Faculty. Four of these books were co-published by The Open University with Springer. These books form core reading in the Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) post-graduate modules TU811 Thinking strategically: systems tools for managing change and TU812 Managing systemic change: inquiry, action and interaction. The fifth book, written by Dr Rosalind Armson, was published by Triarchy Press.

Dr David Lane and Helen Wilding were welcomed as guest speakers. Dr David Lane is a Reader in Management Science at the London School of Economics, President of the System Dynamics Society and is a Fellow of the Operational Research Society and was awarded the System Dynamics Society's Jay Wright Forrester Award. Helen Wilding lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne and her work entails facilitating and coordinating partnership working in the city to improve wellbeing and health, particularly addressing health inequalities. Helen is amongst the first group of students to complete the two core modules in the Systems Thinking in Practice programme and is one of the first students to gaint he OU's new Graduate Diploma in Systems Thinking in Practice. Other speakers included Dr Chris Blackmore, Professor Ray Ison and Dr Martin Reynolds who are some of the academic staff at the Open University involved in the Systems Thinking in Practice initiative.  

Systems Thinkers authored by Dr Magnus Ramage and Dr Karen Shipp presents a biographical history of the field of systems thinking, by examining the life and work of thirty of its major thinkers. It discusses each thinker’s key contributions, the way this contribution was expressed in practice and the relationship between their life and ideas. This discussion is supported by an extract from the thinker’s own writing, to give a flavour of their work and to give readers a sense of which thinkers are most relevant to their own interests. Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide edited by Dr Martin Reynolds and Dr Sue Holwell provides revised versions of tools from traditions of systems thinking in practice for dealing with a world of increasing complexity, instant information availability and constant flux. The five approaches outlined in the book – system dynamics, viable systems model, strategic options development analysis, soft systems methodology, and critical systems heuristics, offer a range of interchangeable tools with rigorous frameworks of application tried and tested in the ‘real world’. The books form core reading in TU811 Thinking strategically: systems tools for managing change.

Systems Practice: How to Act in a Climate Change World authored by Professor Ray Ison is structured into four parts. Part I introduces the societal need to move towards a more systemic and adaptive governance against the backdrop of human-induced climate change. Part II unpacks what is involved in systems practice by means of a juggler metaphor; examining situations where systems thinking offers useful understanding and opportunities for change. Part III identifies the main factors that constrain the uptake of systems practice and makes the case for innovation in practice by means of systemic inquiry, systemic action research and systemic intervention. Part IV critically examines how systems practice is, or might be, utilised at different levels from the personal to the societal. Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice edited by Dr Chris Blackmore is a collection of classical and contemporary writing associated with learning and systemic change in contexts ranging from cities, to rural development to education to nursing to water management to public policy. Starting with twentieth century insights into social learning, learning systems and appreciative systems from Donald Schön and Sir Geoffrey Vickers, the book goes on to consider the contemporary traditions of critical social learning systems and communities of practice, pioneered by Richard Bawden and Etienne Wenger and their colleagues. A synthesis of the ideas raised, written by the editor, concludes this reader. These books form core reading in TU812 Managing systemic change: inquiry, action and interaction.

Dr Rosalind Armson's book, entitled Growing Wings on the Way: Systems Thinking for Messy Situations drew on work she carried out as part of the PersSyst project which she led at the OU over several years.

For further information on the Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) modules, please see the Study at the OU website.

With two billion people online, the internet today is an essential infrastructure which underpins the economy and society - but it was designed in the 1970s for purposes which bear little resemblence to those of today.

John Domingue, Professor of Computer Science with The Open University's Knowledge Media Institute, delivered an inaugural lecture at the OU's HQ in Milton Keynes in which he stressed the social and communicative power of the internet - so much so that governments have sought to shut it down - and an overview of the reasearch he's been leading to define the future of the internet, the semantic web.

He told the audience in the Berrill Lecture Theatre that there is a huge amount of data available online - expected to reach 767 exabytes by 2014, which is the equivalent of 32 million people continuously streaming Avatar in 3D. But the mismatches between original design goals and the way the internet is currently being used could hamper it's potential.

Professor Domingue's research is focused on semantic web services, helping the future development of the internet to sustain the networked society of tomorrow.

John describes his work as the "magic mirror" inbetween the user needs and the information discovery, helping to match the two. The main problem? Ambiguity in meaning, he says. When you search for Paris do you mean the French city, the socialite, the Star Trek character, the James Bond character, the song, the astroid, mythical character or plant?

And herein lies the future of the internet, and the semantic web - matching needs with the relevant data and distinguishing meaning along the way, using the magic mirror, or more formel term - service brokering.

But writing good software is a slow process. It's easy to write code, he says, but to write code that works, with no bugs, you could only write around 10 lines of code per day. Lots of code is needed everywhere, for example, did you know a car has two million lines of code, so would effectivley take 8,300 person years to creat? And Windows XP has 45 million lines of code which translates to 19,000 person years?

Professor Domingue's work to date has included the development of the SOA4ALL Real Estate Finder app for the iPhone and iPad which allowes users to search for properties and define their search in terms of proximity to bus stops, schools, and railway services, pulling data from mumerous sources.

With around 80 per cent of under 25s having some sort of online connection while they're watching TV, "social connections through the TV is part of the future internet landscape, says John. "We're contributing to the software layer of the future internet and the goal is to create a future internet specific to the needs of the people using it."

Watch or listen to John Domingue's inugural lecture in full here.


John Domingue is Professor of Computer Science and Deputy Director of the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi). He first came to the OU as a PhD student the 1980s studying Artificial Intelligence within the Psychology department and later moved to KMi when it was setup in 1995. His recent work has focused on the EU Future Internet Initiative, where he co-ordinates over 150 EU projects with a combined budget of over half a billion Euros aiming to develop a new global communications platform fit for Europe’s societal and economic requirements.


 

The Cyber Security Challenge UK has launched a new set of online games and competitions for anyone in the UK with an interest in computing and security to show their skills.

Candidates can now register for a new set of competitions designed by a range of leading organisations from across the cyber security industry. Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Challenge, in which more than 4,000 people registered, this year’s set of competitions aims to attract an even bigger audience and offer more career-enhancing opportunities to successful candidates including courses from The Open University.

This year’s challenge offers more competitions, more chances for players to prove their skills, and more ways to win prizes. It has been designed to provide both a great introduction for those making a first attempt, and something different for those testing their mettle for the second time.

Competition organisers this year include the SANS Institute, QinetiQ, SAIC, Sophos, DC3 from the US Department of Defence, Cassidian, and HP Labs - whilst the competitions will cover skills as diverse as penetration testing to malware forensics and network defence.

Useful links

• Find out more about The Cyber Security Challenge UK
• Winner of 2010 Cyber Security Challenge
• Study with the OU - Information security management (M886)
• Study with the OU - Computer forensics and investigations (M889)

 

 

The Open University has pledged its support to Race Online 2012 – the nationwide challenge to get everyone online by the end of the Olympic year, making the UK the world’s first ‘networked nation’.

With over a fifth of the UK population not using the internet, Race Online 2012 has been initiated to actively engage organisations across the UK and its 30 million daily internet users to pass their skills on to those who are yet to go online.

Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor, said: “We are proud to be supporting this project. Being online is integral to today’s society. Of the 10 million adults across the UK who have never used the internet, almost half are from socially excluded groups.

“The OU’s mission is to open access to education to everyone and our teaching provides students with the IT skills to help them learn effectively using technology and to access the vast resources online, such as educational resources freely available through the OU’s OpenLearn and iTunes U platforms. This makes our partnership with Race Online a great fit.
 
“We hope to tap into our large student and alumni population to encourage them to share their knowledge and learning with friends, family and neighbours as part of this valuable initiative.”

Race Online 2012 is fronted by the UK's Digital Champion and OU honorary graduate Martha Lane Fox, who today (Wednesday 11 May) launched Race Online’s ‘Digital Champions’ campaign in London. The campaign will formally develop a national network of digital champions to actively inspire, encourage and support the nine million offline adults in the UK to get started with the internet.

She said: “Today is a massive step forward in our ambition to create a truly remarkable digital UK where the internet is a tool that everybody can use for their benefit. Race Online 2012 always intended to solve the critical social and economic issues that arise when people are left behind as technology advances. By bringing together an extraordinary mix of cross-sector partners we aim to eliminate the three major barriers that we know prevent people from getting online – access, motivation and skills.”

With a student and alumni community numbering almost two million nationwide, The Open University has started its search for ‘digital champions’ who will share their knowledge and skills to encourage others to get online. The University is also donating a store of IT equipment to Age UK to help bridge the digital divide between the UK’s on and offliners.

Over 1,000 organisations have pledged support to Race Online 2012, including Microsoft, BBC, BT, Department for Work and Pensions, and UnionLearn.

Prime Minister David Cameron is supporting the campaign. He said: "Today there are nine million adults in the UK who have never used the internet - and nearly half of them are among our most disadvantaged people. That’s why the work Martha Lane Fox is doing as the UK’s Digital Champion is so important.And it’s also why I’m so keen for everyone to get behind Race Online 2012 and its ambition to get as many people online as possible by the time of the London Olympics.

“By supporting this vital campaign we really can become the first nation in the world to get everyone online and ensure that something the vast majority of us take for granted can be enjoyed by all of us.”
 

What you can do to become a Digital Champion...

• To find out more about how to be a digital champion,  including how to join the champion network, inspire people to start using the internet and how to signpost to great starter packages please go to www.helppassiton.co.uk
• Join Platform's RaceOnline group

 


 

Over the last few years, video games have become increasingly popular with a variety of audiences. We still have first-person shooters and adventure games for our PCs and the latest games consoles. But there is more than that. Plenty of families can now be found in their living rooms, waggling their Wiimotes as they play together. Add that to Farmville on Facebook and Angry Birds on our mobile phones and it seems that games have exploded into the mainstream.

There has been a lot of interest in academia about how we can harness this popularity for educational purposes, but my particular interest concerns the games we play during our leisure time. More specifically, I want to further our understanding of how and what we learn from our involvement with games and to consider exactly what it is we seem get out of our game-playing experiences.

If you’d like to help me out with my study, please click here to fill in my questionnaire. It’s about different kinds of game-play experiences – so whether you only play something like Angry Birds on your phone every now and again, or you regularly pull all-nighters playing Call of Duty, do please fill it in.

I’m interested in getting as wide a range of responses as possible, so feel free to pass this on to anyone you know, over the age of 18 and in the UK, who might play games. It should take about 20 minutes to complete. Your participation would be much appreciated.

Jo Iacovides
PhD student
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University

A recent position statement by the British Academy highlights the fact that Britain is becoming more and more mono-linguistic, and questions whether its lack of foreign language skills puts its competitiveness at risk both commercially and academically. But isn’t English the language of business, of technology, and the second language of most non-English speakers?

Perhaps, the paper argues, we should not rest so heavily on our laurels! It argues that 75% of the world’s population do not speak English and that within 20 years most pages on the internet will be in Chinese.

The proportion of internet usage conducted in English is already on the decline, falling from 51 to 29 per cent between 2000 and 2009.

Recently highlighted in the national press, and also pointed out in the position statement, there has been a staggering growth in research papers by Asian researchers, in particular the Chinese.

If China and India continue to rise as hot-beds for science and technology, and grow to become internationally renowned for their Universities and research, will English be usurped as the language of business and technology? Why not!?

Already the 2010 CBI Education and Skills Survey found that 71 per cent of employers are not satisfied with the foreign language skills of young people. Companies undertaking international business are already feeling the need for more language skills.

So how do we prepare ourselves for this possibility? The British Academy suggests re-establishing languages as core subjects within primary and secondary curriculum, but also that Universities in challenging times, need to continue to provide language provision.

They suggest all students should be encouraged to add an element of language acquisition into their qualifications, and ideally some time spent abroad. Perhaps the OU should insist that all science, technology, engineering, maths and business students should study at least one language module, perhaps Mandarin, or offer a new course in Hindi?

As an urgent precaution to bolster Britain’s research achievements, the report suggests the provision of intensive language courses for Masters and Doctoral students. This will foster stronger collaboration between British and the very best researchers from overseas.

But will learning Mandarin and Hindi, simply weaken the case for English to remain as the international language? Can Britain afford to take that risk? Or is the reality of the future that there will not be one international language? 

Useful links:

• British Academy Position Paper - Language Matters More and More
• Beginner’s Chinese
• Beginner’s German
• Beginner’s Spanish

 

 

"Once you stop learning you stop being listened to - and you deserve not to be heard." In such uncompromising terms one of the baby boomers' most enterpreneurial spokespeople laid down the gauntlet for her generation to get online and get relevant.

Julia Middleton, who set up the Common Purpose ('the street-smart MBA') programme in the cause of informed leadership was among a distinguished panel tasked with getting to grips with new technology and lifelong learning in an ageing society at this year's 2011 Naomi Sargant Memorial Debate: with the pension age rising, economic pressures growing, but 6.4 million UK citizens who've never tried the internet, what can we do to expand access to the online tools, learning and socialising that so many of us take for granted?

Reminding the audience that LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have been, by turns, laughed and sneered at, Julia referred to the recent example of the 'Arab spring'. "We need to be very careful for from these tools are coming forces that are changing the world.

"We talk about education as if it can only be something someone is doing for you. The cultural change we need is to be asking what shall I do? Young people acquire their skills by playing but we don't play enough. As baby boomers we have to reinvent the world around us."

Sharing the platform Age UK Director Michelle Mitchell was concerned about those who lack the confidence or the resources to do it for themselves. She said Age UK's online training programmes had had 'wonderful results' in tackling isolation but that with an increasing number of people in their 50s walking through the charity's doors,  increasing our ability us to work and live independently for longer.

"We have been working with a whole range of employers who are valuing and promoting older workers, including some of the big corporations such as Sainsbury's who are finding these employees are staying  for ten or more years - considerably longer than most of their younger workers."

For some members of the panel and audience, persuading people not currently online of its potential is about discovering the content and tools that reflect their interests and needs. Observed panellist Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission: "We can get too fixated by the technology. The place to start is with what it is that people want. The content and what they need to do."

Former Home Secretary (and now visiting Professor of Politics at UEA) Charles Clarke suggested that stronger cross-generational relationships may be part of the answer to what it is people want. "Family is very important in all this. The extent to which there is currently an older-younger person dialogue is very limited. One of the potentials here is for an explosion in relationships."

Link

• Listen to the full debate here

 

 

 

Dr Mathieu d'Aquin, a research fellow in the Open University's Knowledge Media Institute (KMi)  has been named as a rising star of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the prestigious 'AI’s 10 to Watch'  list,  compiled by the IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine. 

The award, given every two years, recognises 10 young researchers in artificial intelligence who promise to be the leaders of the field. 

Mathieu (pictured) is director of the LUCERO  project  which is pioneering the use of Linked Data at the OU. Linked Data, a term coined by web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, allows machines to explore and make connections between data on the internet, and greatly increases the power and flexibility of information access on the web. 

The OU is the first UK university to provide public data as Linked Data, which is a key building block of the next stage of web evolution, the semantic web. This will effectively turn the entire worldwide web into one huge database.

The potential of Linked Data is very exciting, said Mathieu. "Linked data principles are intended to transform the web into a single, distributed and open data space, where for example, course material from the OU can be related to relevant audio and video material, research data, and even connected and compared to other universities courses. Semantic Web technologies allow us to make use of this large data space to build more intelligent applications, serving students, teachers and researchers."
 
Read more about Mathieu's award and work here.