Immersive underwater experience for high school students
"The Virtual Reef is a life-sized marine ecosystem expanding across two levels of the new Science and Engineering Centre. Multi-touch technologies enable the user to manipulate, intimately explore and interact with the reef world, specific behaviours and relationships.
Australia's leading marine science and interactive and visual design organisations, QUT and the Queensland Museum, bring knowledge and research of the underwater world to your fingertips through multi-touch screens and projectors.
Users will have the opportunity to go beyond the cinematic experience and interact with the marine world. Each interaction has associated content designed to complement the aims of the National Curriculum and provide an exploratory learning experience."
(Jeff Jones, the Cube, QUT)
Fig.1 "The Virtual Reef" project team: Professor Jeff Jones (Cube Project Leader), Associate Professor Michael Docherty (Project Leader), Warwick Mellow (Principal Animator/Art Director), Joti Carroll, Paul Gaze, Sean Gobey, Ben Alldridge, Sophia Carroll, Sherwin Huang, Bryce Christensen.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Life Drama: Participatory Action Research
"Action Research is generally considered a process for achieving change and research at the same time. It is viewed as a spiralling, iterative process, with each cycle feeding into the next.
At the 'Plan' stage, the researchers determine the problem to be solved, the steps to be taken to solve the problem, and the methods to be used to evaluate how successful the solution has been. At the 'Act' stage, the agreed steps are taken. At the 'Collect' stage, the researchers collect data to determine whether change has occurred. At the 'Reflect' stage, the researchers analyse the data, discuss the findings, and determine to what extent the 'action' has helped to solve the problem. As a result of this reflection, further planning occurs, to decide what needs to happen next, and the cycle begins again.
Participatory Action Research places specific emphasis on power relationships, advocating for power to be deliberately shared between the 'researchers' and the 'researched'. Ideally, the 'researched', or the people who are expected to benefit from the action research project, are not 'objects' or 'subjects' or research but partners in the research process. They participate in planning, acting, collecting data, reflecting, and deciding how the action research cycle should continue in the next phase. In particular, the participants or co-researchers play a major role in nominating indicators, or criteria by which the project can be said to have succeeded."
(Life Drama, 2010)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
PhD artistic practice as a theoretical thesis or artwork and exegesis
"The main purpose of research graduate study is to encourage independence and originality of thought in the quest for knowledge. The Doctor of Philosophy degree is awarded in recognition of a student's erudition in a broad field of learning and for notable accomplishment in that field through an original and substantial contribution to knowledge. The candidate's research must reveal high critical ability and powers of imagination and synthesis, and may be in the form of new knowledge, or of significant and original adaptation, application and interpretation of existing knowledge. ...
15. Presentation of PhD Theses by Creative Works
15.1.1 In the case of a thesis submitted in the area of artistic practice, presentation may be in one of two forms: a theoretical thesis or artwork and exegesis. The artwork may be in the form of exhibition, performance, literary work, film, CD Rom or other approved format. The artwork and exegesis will be examined as an integrated whole. The artwork should provide a coherent demonstration that the candidate has reached an appropriate standard in the research and has made a significant and original contribution to knowledge in the area. The exegesis should describe the research process and elaborate, elucidate and place in context the artistic practice undertaken. In the case of visual or performing arts, the examiners will attend the exhibition/performance, at which time they will be given a copy of the exegesis in temporary binding. A final copy of the exegesis will be provided to the examiners within three months of their viewing the artwork.
15.2 Examination of a Creative Work Other Than a Printed Thesis
15.2.1 Where other materials are to be examined, such as in the areas of visual, performing, literary or media arts, the candidate must seek approval from Research Degrees Committee for the form and presentation of the thesis at the time of the Stage 2 application for entry to the PhD program.
15.2.2 Artistic practice may be examined by a theoretical thesis or by artwork and exegesis. The artwork and the exegesis will not be examined separately but as an integrated whole constituting the original and substantial contribution to knowledge required from doctoral candidates.
15.2.3 A theoretical thesis is a written document which would conform in all respects to the remainder of this policy.
15.2.4 Studio-based inquiry may result in a thesis presented by artwork and exegesis. The artwork should be the research outcome, while the exegesis should describe the research process and elaborate, elucidate and place in context the artistic practice undertaken.
15.2.5 The exegesis would normally not exceed 50,000 words and would conform in all respects to the remainder of this policy. It should also contain a description of the form and presentation of the artistic practice which constitutes the remainder of the thesis."
(Queensland University of Technology, Manual of Policies and Procedures, 12.10.2007)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
This Way Up: QUT Communication Design final year exhibition
"This Way Up presents the work of graduating students from the Bachelor of Creative Industries, Communication Design and the Bachelor of Fine Arts, Animation degrees in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT. The exhibition features final year projects, including experimental tangible media installations, virtual environments and animation. The tangible media projects by communication design students build on years of knowledge acquisition in visual and interactive media design and are a site of innovation in embodied interfaces. The animation show-reel features progressive and major new works in motion graphics, character animation, visual effects, computer graphics, visualisation and 3D animation. And the virtual environments projects combine the forces of the two cohorts in an exploration of the design potential of interactive 3D space."
(Jillian Hamilton, Queensland University of Technology)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Australian Technology Network (new universities, Post-1992 universities, land-grant colleges)
"The Australian Technology Network (ATN) comprises Curtin University of Technology, University of South Australia, RMIT University, University of Technology, Sydney and Queensland University of Technology. All were established as universities between 1987 and 1992. This group of universities has a common technology heritage, a common research focus on solving real world problems (73 per cent of all research income sourced from industry), and a willingness to learn from each other at all levels. The members of the group have worked together for more than 20 years."
(Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth of Australia)
[The Australian Technology Network Universities in Australia are equivalent to the new universities (mainly ex-polytechnics and technical colleges) in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, and Post-1992 or 'Plate Glass' universities in the United Kingdom and land-grant colleges in North America.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
