EDNA

Tom Calma, Chair of the Steering Committee charged with establishing the new national Indigenous representative body, has today announced that the new organisation will be called the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples. Australian Human Rights Commission, 22 November 2009

Ministers meeting at Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment (MCTEE) agreed to strengthen the tertiary education sector and its capacity to meet Australia's future demands for a highly skilled workforce. Decisions include: a new national regulator for the VET sector, new National Foundation Programs Standards, a review of the Productivity Places Program, a new national National Green Skills Agreement, and more. DEEWR, 20 November 2009.

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, announced a new nonprofit group last week to promote the study of 'Web science,' arguing that his creation deserves its own specific research focus. The group, Web Science Trust, has set up a Wiki where universities offering Web-science programs can list their offerings and links to their course syllabi. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 November 2009

A major survey on Australian attitudes to climate change released by the United States Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney mirrors recent polling among Americans. Professor Simon Jackman, Visiting Professor at the USSC and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University in California, conducted the survey 'Australians, Americans and Climate Change' comparing attitudes of Australians with those of Americans. The University of Sydney, 20 November 2009

For those new to writing and developing strategy, a new JISC briefcase of resources is launched today to support people through the increasing scale of challenges facing universities and colleges. JISC News, 18 November 2009

Controversial plans by Google to digitise millions of out-of-print books to create the world's biggest online library have been approved by British publishing groups and authors. Times Online, 17 November 2009

A Washington-based educational institute says the number of university students who study abroad is on the rise. The Institute of International Education reports a 60 percent increase in the number of students studying outside their native country since the year 2000. VOA News, 18 November 2009

Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, has launched a new web site designed to gather and organise educational videos for students ages 3 to 18. The site, WatchKnow.org, currently features more than 11,000 videos across 2,000 categories on subjects such as math, science, and history. The nonprofit site features new software, developed specifically for the site by Sanger, that allows wiki-style collaboration among users. eSchool News, 18 November 2009

The Prime Minister and the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Nick Sherry, announced that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been approved to conduct the 16th national Census on 9 August 2011. Census 2011 will be the largest data collection ever undertaken by the ABS which has been allocated a total of 440 million dollars over seven years to conduct the survey. Assistant Treasurer Press Release, 19 November 2009

Tim Berners-Lee waved his iPhone playfully at the podium, then gave a boyish grin, touched its face, and instantly and wirelessly sent a message to the world, announcing the launch of the World Wide Web Foundation. If that doesn't seem amazing, you have to think about the context. ars technica, 16 November 2009

One of the largest surveys of academics undertaken has revealed how academics engage with wider society in their research and teaching. Conducted by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge, the survey elicited more than 22,000 responses, providing a picture of how and why academics are involved in knowledge exchange with external parties, and what encourages and discourages them from doing so. The Australian, 18 November 2009

Producing graduates with the technical skills to solve cybercrime is the focus of a new Masters program to be introduced at UniSA in 2010. The Master of Science (Information Assurance) will be offered by UniSA's Division of Information Technology, Engineering and Environment at Mawson Lakes Campus to tackle the increasing problems of computer hacking, botnets and threats to critical infrastructure. UniSA News, 16 November 2009

New web technologies are driving a revolution, not only in the way students consume and institutions deliver higher education, but in the very idea of what makes a university. At its heart is a move to make universities' educational materials, from seminar notes to podcasts and videos of lectures, available free online. The Guardian, 10 November 2009

Denmark is a country which has traditionally embraced modern technology. For over a decade pupils have been able to type up their exam answers on computers. The country's latest move sees the Danish government preach that the Internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations. The Next Web, 5 November 2009

Australia's most powerful supercomputer facility with the capacity to boost Australia's computational research capability into world ranking has been launched by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr at The Australian National University. ANU News, 16 November 2009

Iain Murray - Curtin University, Olearia on the iPhone; Cesar Ortega-Sanchez - Curtin University, Interfacing iPod Touches with FPGAs; Michael Bulmer - University of Queensland, Virtual Environment for Learning and Teaching Statistics; David Perry - University of Melbourne, iPhone OS-based Tools for Vestibular Diagnosis and Rehabilitation; Andrew Sorenson - Queensland University of Technology, Impromptu; Graeme Salter - University of Western Sydney, Educational Tools and Templates for the iPhone; Kuan Lun Huang - University of New South Wales, An Apple iPhone-based System for Participatory Sensing Networks; Ian MacColl - Queensland University of Technology, Tinker Tools: Using ubiquitous computing for environmental education.

Group of Eight (Go8) Vice-Chancellors call on the Senate to pass the Government's student income support legislation when Parliament sits next week. 'The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Income Support for Students) Bill 2009 will realise important changes to student income support announced in the 2009 Budget,' said Go8 Chair, Professor Alan Robson. Go8, 13 November 2009

Two universities - one in New York City and the other in Switzerland - are adopting Sun Microsystems technologies. Columbia University will use an open source Sun solution to manage storage of assets in its digital preservation project, and the University of Zurich is deploying Project Wonderland projects as part of a global e-learning initiative. Campus Technology, 12 November 2009

Plenty of colleges have a presence in Second Life. Pennsylvania State University is taking that a step further. Academic advisers at the university's online campus are now required to be available for meetings with students in the virtual world every week, a Penn State official said during last week's Educause. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 November 2009

In consultation with key stakeholders, the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education developed equity101: a site supporting dynamic collegial networks and providing opportunities to better locate information and scholarship. 9 November 2009