The shortage of ICT professionals is not a new phenomenon in New Zealand, nor in many other developed economies. Professional organisations such as NZTech and the NZ Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) are well aware of this issue. New Zealand… Read More
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Too much money chasing not enough IT grads
Too much money chasing not enough IT grads According the the government’s careers web site, taking data from TradeMe, 6 out of the top 10 paying jobs in New Zealand in 2013 were in Information Technology. The top paying job… Read More
Still the same old flux capacitor
‘Back To The Future’ was recently on TV again. According to the movie, I should now be driving a fusion powered flying car. Oh well. In another example of how things change more slowly than we may think, I just… Read More
Mobile devices in teaching and learning – Top 20 uses
I was recently asked to present some information to a committee about mobile devices in the future of teaching and learning. I made this into a ‘top 20’ list of things that mobile devices can be used for in education,… Read More
Information Systems versus Information Technology – Complementary to a ‘T’?
Recently, a colleague from the College of Business and I (in the College of Sciences) have been attempting to play football in the nomansland between the Information Technology and Information Systems disciplines, in an attempt to repair the damage of… Read More
Testing mobile apps with geolocation and i18n
Testing mobile apps can be tricky, particularly if they use geolocation. Sometimes there’s no substitute for manual testing with a mobile device in situ. For the last couple of years we have been developing a mobile learning game that uses… Read More
The Hotel California of Cyberspace
The Hotel California of Cyberspace A great article from the New Zealand Listener web site about how the British science fiction writer J.G.Ballard predicted social media back in 1977. He didn’t make it sound very appealing. we are all just… Read More
Outstanding exam answers
Exam marking time again. Always a joy to record some of the more esoteric exam answers from students. Here are some of my past favourites from our first year paper: Question: Briefly explain the term ‘wiki’. Answer: A wiki is… Read More
The future of the Performance Based Research Fund
The future of the Performance Based Research Fund An interesting article on the Tertiary Education Union web site about the future of PBRF, and comments made by Jonathan Boston, one of its original architects. Among other negative effects of continuing… Read More
Great new IT systems (not) Part 2
As editor of an international journal I have to manage submitted papers, authors, reviewers, reviews, editorial decisions, final materials and publication schedules. Doing this manually is very tedious so I was pleased when the publisher announced a new on-line submission… Read More