Mr Thomas Worthington
Biography
Tom Worthington is a certified computer professional, who acts as a consultant, expert witness in court cases and advises governments and companies. He is a course designer and teacher for vocational and postgraduate university courses on green ICT, the design of web sites, e-commerce and professional ethics.
Tom's award winning e-learning course and e-book "ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future" is used by universities in Australia and North America. Tom blogs on education issues as "The Higher Education Whisperer".
Tom is a Past President of the Australian Computer Society, a Fellow, Honorary Life Member, Certified Computer Professional (Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation). Also he is a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy.
Available student projects
Cut City Air Pollution Using ICT
Research areas
Description
- Dematerialisation: use computers instead of physical goods. For example, replace traveling to meetings with teleworking.
- Smart Motor Systems: More efficient computer controlled motors to reduce energy use.
- Smart Logistics: More efficient good delivery to reduce truck use. These techniques might be used for example, for a parcel service using hybrid or electric trucks. Also an Uber-type service with electric vehicles could reduce pollution from private cars.
- Smart Buildings: Computer control of buildings to reduce energy use. This is normally thought of being applied to large corporate buildings and new apartment blocks, but increasingly can be applied to smaller, older, buildings.
- Smart Grids: Computer controlled electricity system to more efficiently use power, especially renewable energy. An example is Dr Lachlan Blackhall's Reposit Power in Fishwick.
Reference
Worthington, T. (2011). ICT Sustainability: Assessment and strategies for a low carbon future. Retrieved from http://www.tomw.net.au/ict_sustainability/introduc...
Goals
Investigate using the ICT Sustainability techniques usualy used for carbon dioxide pollution from a single company and apply them to other pollutants on a city-wide scale.
Requirements
Completion of ICT Sustainability (COMP7310) or equivalent.
BackgroundLit
Worthington, T. (2011). ICT Sustainability: Assessment and strategies for a low carbon future. Retrieved from http://www.tomw.net.au/ict_sustainability/introduction.shtml
Keywords
Green technology.; Telecommunication - Environmental aspects.; Energy consumption; atmospheric pollutants;
Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology
People
Supervisor
Research areas
Description
Learn how to take an idea and turn it into a business proposal and teach this to others. Students undertake practical work as part of an innovation competition, such as Innovation ACT to experience the process first hand. At the same time they explore the theory of commercialization and entrepreneurship to see how this could be incorporated in the training of Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students.
Goals
Learn the theory and practice of taking a technology idea and pitching it as a business proposal. Help develop course materials for teaching this to other STEM students.
Requirements
Completed at least one year of a computing degree. Some experience in training or teaching and as an online student would be useful.
BackgroundLit
Innovation ACT, Participant Handbook, 2014. URL: http://www.innovationact.org/iact2013/wp-content/u... Kruchten, P., Lawrence, P., Dahl, D., & Cubbon, P. (2011). New Venture Design–Interdisciplinary Capstone Projects at UBC. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association. URL: http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/PCEEA/arti... Worthington, T. (2014) Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology Course Proposal. URL: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2014/10/c... Worthington, T. (2015) Designing an Innovation Course: Part 3 - Introduction to Innovation. Blog Post: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2015/04/d...
Gain
Employers are increasing recognizing the need for STEM graduates to promote business ideas and have the ability to pass on knowledge to others.
Publications
- Worthington, T & Wu, H 2015, 'Time-shifted learning: Merging synchronous and asynchronous techniques for e-learning', International Conference on Computer Science and Education, ICCSE 2015, IEEE, TBC, pp. 434-437.
- Worthington, T 2014, Let Detroit dribble, p. 29.
- Worthington, T 2014, 'Chinese and Australian students learning to work together online: Proposal to expand the New Colombo Plan to the online environment', International Conference on Computer Science and Education, ICCSE 2014, IEEE, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 164-168.
- Worthington, T 2013, 'Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques', International Conference on Computer Science & Education ICCSE 2013, IEEE, Colombo, pp. 618-621.
- Worthington, T 2012, 'A Green computing professional education course online: Designing and delivering a course in ICT sustainability using Internet and eBooks', International Conference on Computer Science and Education ICCSE 2012, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Inc), Melbourne Australia, pp. 263-266.
