Tanya McGill

Given the centrality of research and innovation to the information technology (IT) industry, teaching IT students about research is important and can potentially provide students with a range of benefits. This study investigated student perceptions of their achievement of the proposed benefits of explicit inclusion of research into undergraduate information technology degrees. Students enrolled in one or both of two dedicated research skills courses that first introduce them to information technology research and then allow them to undertake a complete research project were surveyed about their perceptions of the benefits of undertaking the courses. The results showed that they considered increased learning about information technology to be the major benefit, followed by improved lifelong learning and employability skills. The study also explored the factors proposed to determine whether students gain these benefits, and found motivation positively influenced whether students believed they had achieved these benefits. Beliefs and extent of participation in research also played a role in achievement of perceived benefits but influenced different subsets of them. This improved understanding of integration of research into information technology education should provide guidance to academics as they design courses and degrees that support achievement of these benefits.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this project was to explore the perceptions of information technology students about student-facing learning analytics dashboards that display ranking information, and whether they perceive that their motivation to study would be influenced by the use of dashboards that display their performance relative to other students. Background: While there has been a focus on the use of learning analytics dashboards by academics to inform their teaching, there has not been as much exploration of the use of student-facing dashboards, nor on the effect that students believe these dashboards will have on their motivation to study. Methodology: The research surveyed students enrolled in Information Technology courses at an Australian university. Data about students’ academic motivation was gathered using a short, online survey. Contribution: The paper adds to knowledge of the impact on students of student-facing learning analytics dashboards.

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) can be defined as the digital version of an individual’s medical history. EHRs are intended to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare, decrease costs and prevent medical errors. Previous studies have shown that achievement of the potential benefits from EHRs depends largely upon the adoption and continued use of EHR services by health care consumers (Esmaeilzadeh and Sambasivan 2017; Hanna et al. 2017). Further research, therefore, is necessary to better understand the factors that influence consumer EHR adoption. The proposed study aims to investigate the factors influencing consumer adoption of EHRs. A model based on the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) (Taylor and Todd 1995) provides the theoretical framework for the research. The goal is to improve understanding of how health care consumers perceive this technology and the factors that influence their intentions to use it.

Increases in routine data collection and surveillance in recent years have resulted in ongoing tension between citizens’ privacy concerns, perceived need for government surveillance and acceptance of policies. We address the lack of Australia focussed research through an online survey of 100 Australian residents. Data was analysed using PLS, revealing that privacy concerns around collection influence acceptance of surveillance but do not influence enactment of privacy protections. Conversely, respondents’ concerns about secondary use of data were unrelated to their levels of acceptance, yet were a significant determinant of privacy protections. These findings suggest that respondents conflate surveillance with collection of data, and may not consider subsequent secondary use. This highlights the multi - dimensional nature of privacy which must be studied at sufficiently granular level to draw meaningful conclusions. Our research also considers the role of trust in government, and perceived need for surveillance and these findings are discussed with their implications.

Information security is of universal concern to computer users from all walks of life. Though gender differences in technology adoption are well researched, scant attention has been devoted to the study of gender differences in information security. We address this research gap by investigating how information security perceptions and behaviours vary between genders in a study involving 624 home users. The results reveal that females exhibit significantly lower overall levels of security behaviour than males. Furthermore, individual perceptions and behaviours in many cases also vary by gender. Our work provides evidence that gender effects should be considered when formulating information security education, training, and awareness initiatives. It also provides a foundation for future work to explore information security gender differences more deeply.

Increasing use of online backup services, as well as the popularity of user-generated content, has increased the demand for bandwidth. However, traffic generated by these applications can impact on the responsiveness of delay-sensitive applications if they receive a 'fair-share' of the available bandwidth. Less-than-Best-Effort TCP congestion control mechanisms aim to allow lower-priority applications to utilise excess bandwidth with minimum impact to regular TCP traffic. We evaluated the performance of six Less-than-Best-Effort congestion control algorithms in different scenarios in a Linux testbed, only three of which had existing implementations for modern operating systems. The findings of this study suggest that Nice provides background throughput comparable to that of regular TCP, while maintaining low queuing delay, while CAIA Delay-Gradient (CDG) has the least impact on regular TCP traffic, at the expense of reduced throughput.

The majority of Internet traffic now involves wireless devices. Increasing use of online backup services and the popularity of user-generated content have increased the demand for bandwidth and may impact on delay-sensitive applications. Less-than-Best-Effort TCP congestion control mechanisms aim to minimise the impact of lower-priority applications on regular TCP traffic, but their performance over wireless networks is not well understood. We evaluate the performance of six Less-than-Best-Effort congestion control algorithms over 802.11n in a Linux testbed. We also consider the effect of high fixed-path delay on the performance of LBE mechanisms. The findings of this study suggest that Nice and CAIA Delay-Gradient (CDG) have the lowest impact on regular TCP traffic at low-delay settings, at the expense of reduced throughput. However, while CDG experiences even greater reductions to throughput in high-delay settings, Nice has a greater impact on regular traffic.

As new congestion control mechanisms are developed, their performance relative to existing mechanisms needs to be understood; in particular over wireless networks. This study aimed to evaluate existing TCP congestion control mechanisms using a comprehensive and reproducible methodology designed to be representative of real world usage of wireless networks. The study sought to investigate whether any existing mechanism could provide significant performance benefits over CUBIC and be recommended for adoption. The findings of this study showed that YeAH demonstrated an increase in throughput of 3%–5% over CUBIC, with no penalty to latency. While this small improvement may assist applications requiring the highest available performance, it is unlikely that it will provide a significant improvement over existing congestion control mechanisms. As such, it is the conclusion of this study that use of alternate congestion control mechanisms would not provide noticeable improvements in performance in most applications.

Flipped learning has been the subject of significant hype and attention but descriptions of the development and the evaluation of this pedagogical model are lacking. Flipped learning is an inverted teaching approach where students learn the basics via short videos at home, then come to class to complete challenges and clarify any misunderstandings. This paper describes how an IT unit was delivered using the flipped learning approach. A survey was used to determine how students perceived flipped learning. Students were generally positive about the approach, particularly the convenience and flexibility of the flipped videos. Although face to face teaching time was reduced in this flipped learning implementation, students felt that they interacted more with their instructors and peers. Students felt strongly positive to walkthroughs and were mixed as to the need for the instructors face. Significant efforts to produce high quality and engaging videos were made, but the survey suggested that students learnt the most during tutorial time. The relative importance of interactive tutorials is congruent with a large body of research and pedagogical approaches advocating the importance of active student-centred learning.

Passwords have long been the preferred method of user authentication, yet poor password practices cause security issues. The study described in this paper investigates how user perceptions of passwords and security threats affect intended compliance with guidelines and explores how these perceptions might be altered in order to improve compliance. It tests a research model based on protection motivation theory [24]. Two groups of internet users were surveyed, one of which received password security information and an exercise to reinforce it. This study suggests effective ways that trainers or employers can improve compliance with password guidelines. In particular, training programs should aim to enhance IS security coping appraisal. The research model proposed in this study has also been shown to be a useful model for explaining IS security behavioral intentions.