Participation & Communications Policy

Things are certainly looking up when you receive an email linking to the Minister for Broadband's press release, and then when you visit the site, you are able to use the ShareThis functionality on the page to automatically blog about the press release.

See: Draft Legislation Released for NBN Co Operations | Senator Stephen Conroy | Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

While there is still a long way to go, those interested in communications policy now have greater access to the policy process than in pre-Web 2.0 days. Nonetheless, it takes a great deal of discipline for the casual observer to keep abreast of issues as they arise.

For example, submissions on the Digital Dividend Green Paper close tomorrow. The submission guidelines are quite useful, especially the questions at the end of each section which provide some structure for potential submitters. But you would have to know that the Green Paper was being developed last year and that it opened for submissions in mid-January.

At least in theory, it would be quite possible for the non-expert to have their say in certain elements of the policy process. But industry knowledge is essential if you are to stay informed.

In addition, the available technologies make it possible for interested citizens to be involved, but the trick is to know how. A simple model for the casual observer is to subscribe to the Media Centre of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, monitor items of interest which appear from time to time, and then note the deadlines for submissions where relevant.

It is hard to imagine how the average citizen could ever have been involved in such a process in a paper-based system. However, there is still some way to go.

Being able to comment on the Green Paper is fine, but what about being involved in the drafting of the Green Paper? One of the biggest problems with public consultation is that it often occurs after the important decisions have already been made.

There were opportunities to participate in the Green Paper process through industry groups such as AMTA (and I am sure there were others). But how can we monitor all that is going on. And, how can the casual observer do this for free?

I am finding Feedly quite useful to monitor numerous websites in an easy-to-follow format. But I am not aware of a convenient 'map' of the industry to help others do this. Ideally, I would like to see something like LobbyLens freely available to citizens for relevant industries.

Nevertheless, participation in communications policy means much more than writing submissions. But should  it be the government's responsibility to enable participation in detail? Creating accessible resources for interested participants may be the most important contribution citizens can make to the policy process. I am currently working on such an industry 'map' and will make it available in the coming weeks.

University of Canberra goes 2.0

This year, the University of Canberra is introducing an intensive Winter Term to give students 'greater flexibility and opportunity' to either fast-track their degrees or spread their study load across three teaching periods.

A local initiative, born out of a combination of a growing local tech-savvy community (sharing ideas via local Web 2.0 tools such as yammer) and an institution-wide support program that is bringing the higher education sector kicking and screaming out of the dark (unlit) ages, means the University of Canberra is going 2.0.

I have been dreaming about introducing blogging and other social media tools into the curriculum to fill a growing gap in students' online communication skills for some time. Now, with the support of the institution, this dream will become a reality in the new Winter Term.

While I have been using Facebook and blogs in my teaching for many years, the intensive Winter Term presents some challenges to teaching delivery which are difficult to overcome using traditional teaching methods. Halving a traditional semester should not mean simply cramming traditional teaching and assessment methods into a shorter period - it calls for a change in how we deliver the educational experience. Enter Web 2.0.

This winter, I am replacing my standard face-to-face teaching with a fully-online subject. Typically, my subjects focus on generic skills such as written communication in addition to subject-area content. This does not necessarily mean that my subjects will be designed specifically for distance education (although being fully-online provides this option), but it means that I can expand the generic skills component to include written comunication online.

Given the increasing presence of Web 2.0 capabilities in traditional career streams, the opportunity to incorporate Web 2.0 assessment items in my curricula has been a long time coming. Nonetheless, Web 2.0's social element enables a deeper level of sharing and learning which will help to overcome the shorter timeframe.

The traditional essay will be replaced with students writing blog posts on subject-area topics, and being required to comment on their colleagues' blog posts. Media sharing applications such as Digg, ScribeFire and  ShareThis will be used to facilitate the sharing process. While many of these applications will be 'old hat' to inhabitants of the blogosphere, I am constantly surprised at the number of 'digital natives' who have not had a 'digital education'.

While I believe the traditional essay is the cornerstone of best-practice in developing formal written comunication skills, it would be a mistake to think that blogging is an 'easier' form of writing. Indeed, the added technical skills and the exposure to a wider audience require as much care and attention as an academic essay. Moreover, blogs and social media sites are gradually being recognised in academic referencing systems, even though in Australia blogs are ineligible for an ISSN. There is some way to go.

In addition to students blogging and sharing media articles, we will be developing a series of multimedia materials ourselves. This means we can overcome the problems of  incorporating multimedia  materials in teaching online due to restrictive copyright laws (or at least the constant threat of breaches of copyright). The Creative Commons  licencing regime provides an appropriate mechanism to share such resources without losing the all-important academic acknowledgement.

But how will we know if we are successful? Student feedback is the easiest measure:

Michael De Percy Feedback Summary 2004-2009

View more presentations from Michael de Percy.

But student feedback alone is insufficient. What will prove the usefulness of 'Teaching 2.0' is the longer term effect in the latter years of the student experience. For example, our focus on written communication skills in first-year units has paid dividends in second- and third-year subjects with many colleagues reporting that they can now focus on the subject content and concepts, rather than re-hashing skills which should have been learnt in the formative stages of higher education. 

One element of feedback which is difficult to obtain until after students graduate is feedback from employers. Next year, I am hoping to add a work-integrated learning aspect to my 'Subjects 2.0' by enabling employers to participate in the feedback process. This is much more difficult to implement than it appears.

Although I am generally opposed to centrally-controlled policies, what would be useful is a government-led initiative to encourage greater community participation in University 2.0 initiatives - something that Web 2.0 technologies enable in an efficient manner. 

In the meantime, the University of Canberra has gone 2.0, proving that while the institutional wheels turn slowly, they do turn.

Not-so-happy reaction to NBN in Mt Isa

Conroy digs himself a hole in outback | The Australian

While the rollout of the NBN on the Australian mainland is great national news, it seems that not everybody is happy about it. Never mind that Australia is already well behind most of the OECD in broadband connectivity. Surely the magnitude of this investment is begging for an educational program to promote the use of higher bandwidth?

The problem stems from the centrally-controlled and disengaged manner in which the NBN is being rolled out - another major program dominated by political and business elites. Nonetheless, to catch up on the opportunities lost by successive governments since the Net became widely available in 1992, there is little option but to get the infrastructure out as soon as possible.

Missing from the multi-billion dollar investment strategy is any attempt to educate potential users about the benefits of the NBN's capability. Users must be involved in the process if there is to be any national improvement in the lack of online skills which are surely the product of more than a decade of neglect.

The trouble with centrally-controlled approaches to network technologies is that the human element of the network is not viewed as an integral part of connectivity - which is ultimately the reason for the investment in the first place.