What's New with AusWeb96?
In this section we bring you some of the news from the regular email
newsletter carried on the AusWeb-L mail list. To subscribe to AusWeb-L send
an email to listproc@scu.edu.au
with the text subscribe ausweb-l firstname lastname substituting
your name.
What's New with AusWeb96? (July '96)
We closed on-line, phone and fax registrations - come directly to Conrads (3 July)
All registrations must now be handled by walk-in at the AusWeb96 registration desk. On-line, phone and fax registrations cannot now be accepted.
What's New with AusWeb96? (June '96)
David Spenhoff is the Director of Product Marketing for JavaSoft. He is
responsible for marketing worldwide Sun's core Java products including the
Java Developer's Kit, HotJava, and JavaOS, as well as other new product
initiatives.
A New SIG for Queenslanders-Information
Technology and Telecommunications (IT & T) Awards
The Queensland Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT & T)
Awards were initiated by the Connecting Queensland Magazine and the Information
Industries Board to unify and develop the IT & T industry for the direct
benefit and prosperity of Queensland.
AusWeb96 has a full range of 16 (!!) workshops.
The Introductory Java, Advanced Java and Programming in CGI workshops are
now sold out. And Bebo White's
hypertext methods workshop has just 2 places left at time of
writing (10 June).
The Business Opportunities Update will
feature presentations from Microsoft and Sequent Computing as well as an
overview of Business on the Web from Business Opportunities Theme Editors
Adrian Vanyzl and Peter
Gilmour.
With the co-operation of Microsoft and Netscape we are providing two Developers
Forums.
New Sponsor and Supporter
The AusWeb96 team was very pleased to welcome Microsoft
as a sponsor joining Sun
Microsystems and Nornet.
AusWeb96 is also supported by Telstra.
We are happy to announce the prizes for best paper and best poster for AusWeb96.
Those that are voted to have prepared the best paper and poster at the conference
will receive an appropriate certificate and a complete suite of Sausage
Software's Web software courtesy of Sausage. For the person who is deemed
to have written the best paper, there will be in addition, an invitation
to present an updated version of the paper at the 6th International World
Wide Web conference in Santa Clara in April 1997. The winner will be a guest
of the Conference's Organising Committee - of course the winner will have
to get themselves to the Silicon Valley and pay for their accommodation!
Our thanks to Bebo White of Stanford and co-organiser of the Conference,
for organising this valued and valuable prize.
Judging will be by a team made up of the theme editors supported by some
of our key visitors including Bebo White, Rik Hall from Canada and Martin
Putterill from New Zealand as well as keynote speakers.
What's New with AusWeb96? (May '96)
A very busy month
May has been a very busy month for the AusWeb96 team. With our band of theme
editors we've been working hard on getting the papers and posters finalised
.. considerably exceeding our expectations, we've a total of 102 papers
and posters in the four themes. We're working on a business opportunities
theme which will bring some major presentations of interest to a business
audience. We announced a new Special Interest Group meeting on graphics
and the Web. Allan Ellis was in Paris to attend the 5th International WWW
conference and to talk with IW3C2. And while the rain in Lismore dampened
spirits, Roger enjoyed the beautiful spring weather in Yosemite valley!
We announced a SIG/discussion
on the possible formation of an Australian Association of Web Consultants
James Tauber, from the
University of Western Australia, has organised a SIG - or what will be more
of a forum - to dicuss the possible
formation of an Australian Association of Web Consultants. James says:
"The need for an Australian Association of Web Consultants really came
home to me when, in my capacity as CWIS Officer for the University of Western
Australia, I had to completely rewrite a set of pages that a department
had hired an external consultant to do. In short, the "Web consultant"
had no idea what he was doing. He had bought a book and was now charging
lots of money to write Web pages." More details on the Web SIG page.
New Registration Options
We have introduced new registration options for AusWeb96. for those that
wish to come only for a day, there is now a day rate. And for full time
students there is a very attractive student rate. Check out the cost
page for full details.
We announced a new Special Interest Group on Gender and the Web
Glenda Slingsby and Spider
Redgold, have organised a Special Interest Group meeting on "Maidens
of the Universe" - A 'Women and the Internet' Special Interest Group
for Women and Men. The SIG will be chaired by Keng
Chua and Glenda and Spider will make an opening presentation. We're
sure that an intensive discussion will follow. Email Glenda
or Spider if you'd like to contribute
to the discussion, raise some issues or for more information.
AusWeb96 has a full range of 16 (!!) workshops.
The Introductory Java workshop
is now sold out. There are 8 places left in the Advanced
Java workshop. And Bebo White's
hypertext methods workshop has just 5 places left at time of
writing (23 May).
We released details of posters and papers in all four streams
There will be 102 papers and posters at AusWeb96. We have now released
full details of all papers and posters in the Business
Opportunities, Education and Learning,
Media, Community and Cultural and Technical
Futures themes. The papers and posters will be progressively loaded
to the AusWeb96 server from early June.
Background Information on Papers
As well as the full papers, we are also providing background information
on a number of papers. We've asked the authors to give us some information
on themselves and on the backgound to the paper or poster. Check out the
Technical Futures theme for the first examples
of this new service.
Hermann Maurer - Update to Hyper-G and new book
As many of you will know, keynote speaker Hermann Maurer is a leader in
the team which produces the web management software, Hyper-G. Hermann's
team have recently released at the 5th WWW conference in Paris, a new version
and a new book "HyperWave:The Next Generation Web Solution", Addison
Wesley Longman, UK (1996). Hermann is also presenting an interesting workshop
at AusWeb96 on Advanced Web Site
Management. He will be providing a copy of the book for all registrants
in the workshop.
This SIG has been developed by Fiona
Musgrove, Project Manager for the Multimedia Unit of the University
of South Australia and Mary Melilli,
Lecturer with the Faculty of Art, Architecture & Design. Fiona has recently
worked on the www site for MFP Australia. Mary has created a CD ROM which
is an interactive study guide for a new post-graduate subject in multimedia
which is delivered on-line.
The focus of this SIG is to discuss how the proliferation of electronic
technology has changed the professional status of visual artists and designers.
Fiona and Mary
seek your input to the SIG prior to the Conference. Or just come along ...
Allan Ellis at the 5th International World Wide Web Conference in Paris
Co-organiser of AusWeb96, Allan Ellis has been attending the 5th
International World Wide Web Conference in Paris. He had a busy time
meeting representatives of the IW3C2 committee, attending the conference
and soaking up the Parisian atmosphere. He carried his Apple QuickTake camera
and PowerBook laptop, so we're able to show you some nice photographs of
Allan with Barbara Kucera, Executive
Director of IW3C2 (53kb) and the CNIT building
(45kb) in the La Defense area of Paris where the committee was held.
As our friend Peter Gilmour of Monash University says, the mark of a good
conference is the "goodies" that come with the conference. So
here is a photo of the WWW5 "goodies"
(42kb) Note the CD-ROM distributed with the conference proceedings.
We announced details of Papers and Posters - Technical Theme
We announced details of the first batch of papers and posters to be presented
at AusWeb96. They are the 20 papers and 4 posters
from the Technical Futures theme. There is an excellent range of papers
from a number of countries. Watch this space for details on the other three
themes.
More on Keynote Speakers - Christine Arms
Keynote speaker, Bill Arms, will be accompanied by his wife Caroline. Caroline
is also in the libraries business and works in the digitisation project
at the Library of Congress. Here is an item on Caroline in the latest issue
of Current Cites:
Arms, Caroline. "Historical Collections for the National Digital Library:
Lessons and Challenges at the Library of Congress" D-Lib Magazine (April
1996) [http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april96/loc/04c-arms.html]
-- The Library of Congress is embarked on a massive digitization program
to make much of the cultural heritage of the United States available to
its citizens through computer networks (and thus to the world as well).
Arms outlines the program and provides background information, but the real
meat of this piece is the "lessons learned and challenges posed,"
of which this article is part one. Anyone involved with digitizing projects,
or who wishes to be, will find this
article fascinating and revealing reading. -- RT
What's New with AusWeb96? (April '96)
More on SIGs
We finalised our Special Interest Group programme
in April. There will be a SIG on graphics and the Web. And Sally-Anne Leigh,
the Program Manager-Training, Information Services Division at the University
of Canberra will be chairing a SIG on "The Web : A medium for Active
and Interactive learning, teaching and training."
Following an excellent suggestion from James Tauber in Perth, there will
be a meeting to discuss the formation of an Association of Web Consultants.
James says "An increasing number of people are offering their services
as Web consultants without the skills or knowledge to do the job properly.
This will no doubt have a negative effect on individuals' and companies
perceptions of the industry. The Australian Association of Web Consultants
would primarily exist to promote good practices amongst Web consultants.
The Association would run regular meetings, SIGs and training courses and
would offer certification through exams." More detail on this and the
other SIGs in the next update.
We extended the discount period for using our secure server
We had a few problems with our secure server .. so we're extending the payment
period for receiving a $200 discount until 31 May. So don't delay,
register now.
We made the the Administrative Systems and the Web workshop full day
The Administrative Systems and the
Web workshop previously scheduled for a half day on Saturday is now
scheduled as a full day workshop. Chris McDermott (Griffith University)
and Gene Kraybill (Curting University of Technology) have put together a
tremendous package which just does not fit into a half-day. This promises
to be one of the more popular workshops as administrators in student services,
IT, finance and other areas of Universities grapple with using the Web to
interact with their customers.
We announced our Keynote Address Followup Sessions
We introduced our "Keynote Address Followup Sessions" .. with
the relatively tight programme for AusWeb96 and the number of speakers,
we'll be organising followup sessions for each of the keynote addresses.
There will be only a short period for Q&A and discussion in the plenary
session, so the keynotes will also be scheduled into a smaller room following
their address. There will be opportunity in the followup session to pursue
issues raised in the address in an informal setting. Each followup session
will last approximately 30 minutes .. or more if there is lots of discussion!
We introduced the AusWeb96 FAQ List
We get a number of questions from attendees, so we've introduced the AusWeb-L
FAQ list.
We're pleased to announce our third Special Interest Group meeting, //WWW.HOLD.THE.FRONTPAGE/
is organised by Suellen Tapsall from the Queensland University of Technology.
Suellen notes:
"The development of the WWW and increasing public access to it presents
huge challenges for news makers, providers and publishers. There is no monopoly
of information or resources (no huge press barons or television networks).
So, how should news be presented on the web? Who should be doing the publishing?
This SIG will consider such issues and the implications for journalists,
journalism educators, news organisations, community organisations and other
interested groups. It will consider such issues as style (print, broadcast
or a mix of both?), mix of media (audio, video, text and graphics in the
one document?), layout (no longer a tabloid, A4 page, TV screen or radio
transmitter) and multi-level publications (through the use of HTML links)."
What's New with AusWeb96? (March '96)
Lots went on in March!!
AusWeb96 Announces Sun Microsystems And Nornet As Sponsor
The AusWeb96 team is very pleased to announce that network computing specialist
Sun Microsystems and Internet service
provider and content publisher, Nornet,
have become principal sponsors of the conference.
Sun Microsystems is well known to the Web community for the significant
number of Web servers which run on Sun workstations and particularly for
the release of the Internet Object-Oriented programming language of choice,
Java. Sun Microsystems technology will be on display right through the conference
venue. It will drive the presentations in the plenary sessions and the poster
demonstrations will use Sun technology. We will also be welcoming a Sun
speaker to talk about Java.
Nornet is part of the SCU family as it has been launched by Norsearch Limited
and the University's Learning and Information Centre.
Nornet is very capably managed by a good friend of the AusWeb96 team, Geoff
Hill <geoff@nor.com.au>. Nornet
will as part of the sponsorship program, be assisting AusWeb96 with providing
secure payments for the conference (see the next item), hosting the Virtual
Exhibition and setting up Internet connectivity at the Conrad Jupiters Hotel.
Nornet provides a full range of services to customers not only in our regional
area but to a wider group of customers throughout Australia. Check out their
home page at:
http://www.nor.com.au
Ask Geoff about his complete Web management system for Unix servers! Our
thanks indeed to Geoff and his team for joining to make AusWeb96 a success.
Nornet And AusWeb96 Provide On-Line Secure Payments For AusWeb96 Registrations
The Nornet team has worked hard to provide AusWeb96 with a secure server
for payment of conference fees and workshops. We think this is the first
conference in Australia that has provided on-line registration and payment
.. and the team at Nornet deserve a big thank-you.
The Nornet server provides three options for payment:
1 On-line registration and immediate credit card payment
2 On-line registration and fax the credit card details
3 On-line registration and mail the cheque
The early bird registration under the first option ends on 30 April
.. if you use Nornet's secure credit card payment system, you have an extra
month to take advantage of our early bird rate.
If you use either of options 1 or 2, you must register on-line by 1
April and we hold your registration open for two weeks to get us
the credit card details by fax or the cheque by mail.
The online payment system will be available from the AusWeb96 home page
from Monday 25 March at 10:00am.
Walk On The Beach With A Keynote Speaker
The AusWeb team tries to maximise participation at our conferences. We've
got a large group of distinguished keynote speakers coming to the conference
from North America and Europe, not to mention Canberra! As you may be aware,
the conference hotel, Conrad Jupiters is a short distance from the Broadbeach
beachfront on the Gold Coast.
It is a time honoured tradition on the Gold Coast to walk or run on the
beach in the morning. We're planning for keynote speakers to walk on the
beach with a small group of attendees - it's our "AusWeb96 Walk on
the Beach Programme"! The groups will meet at the lobby of the hotel,
hop in to a minibus to the beach and then walk on the beach for 40 minutes
or thereabouts and back to the hotel. No agenda, no plans .. just an opportunity
for a small number of delegates to interact with the keynote speakers on
subjects of their choice in an entirely informal setting. The beach is just
a magical place early in the morning and I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience.
We'll be taking bookings for the "AusWeb96 Walk on the Beach Programme"
at the registration desk at Conrad Jupiters on a first come, first served
basis.
Keynote Address Followup Sessions
Continuing with the participation theme .. with the relatively tight programme
for AusWeb96 and the number of speakers, we'll be organising followup sessions
for each of the keynote addresses. There will be only a short period for
Q&A and discussion in the plenary session, so the keynotes will also
be scheduled into a smaller room following their address. There will be
opportunity in the followup session to pursue issues raised in the address
in an informal setting. Each followup session will last approximately 30
minutes .. or more if there is lots of discussion!
A topic of perennial interest is how to market on the Internet. We're pleased
that the team at Sausage Software is organising a Special Interest Group
on Marketing on the Internet. The SIG will be lead by Steve Outtrim, the
founder and CEO of Sausage Software. Steve Outtrim is the 23 year old behind
his brain-child "Sausage Software." Steve wrote the "HotDog
web editor" in June last year. Sausage Software is now one of the success
stories of Australian software exporting and employs over 50 Australians.
The SIG will be discussing marketing issues on the Internet - how traditional
streams
and channels are no longer relevant and how to develop your own - what works
in cyberspace. There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss all the various
possibilities for marketing your product on the Internet.
The deadline for receipt of posters is 1 May. Please email your 500 word
abstract to the appropriate theme editor. Posters are particularly valuable
for reporting projects that are underway, Web sites that are undertaking
unusual and innovative tasks or to float ideas that will end up in other
forums and papers. As usual, full details on preparation of posters is at
the AusWeb96 home page.
Featured Keynote Speaker - Nick Arnett, Verity Corporation
Each month we feature a different keynote speaker. We ask the speaker to
furnish some information on what they have been working on recently and
to discuss the range of issues that they're planning on covering in their
keynote address. Nick tells me that apart from his work with Verity he's
"working quite hard on a book on JavaScript for O'Reilly & Associates."
Many of you will know that Nick works with disadvantaged kids in East Palo
Alto to bring the benefits of computers and the network to the area through
the organisation "Plugged In". For those of us outside of the
Bay Area who think of Palo Alto in terms of Stanford and PARC, it is difficult
to think of an area of Palo Alto that is disadvantaged, but there are parts
of the city which are run down and disadvantaged. Nick says:
"I've had a paper on the East Palo Alto project (epa.net)
accepted for Community
Networking 3 in Antwerp in the spring, so I'll be developing a lot more
information about it over the next month. At the moment, the staff and
volunteers at Plugged In are producing Web pages that profile several
community organizations and businesses. We decided that this would be the
best way for people in the community to get an idea of what the Internet
and Web are all about. Simply asking them what they might want to do via
the Internet did not seem practical, since most people in the area haven't
had any exposure to computers. Asking them what they'd do with Internet
would be like asking me what I would do with a particle accelerator.
Over the next few weeks, I'm planning (hoping) to build a fairly
sophisticated search interface to information about JavaScript, including
a
knowledgebase that is smart about searching scripts themselves. This will
be an interesting experiment; I'm not sure if anyone has ever used this
kind of technology to search code."
Then on his keynote address:
I grow ever more convinced that a new paradigm has to emerge for
agent-based systems that identify interesting and valuable resources on
the
Internet. The key ingredients seem to be:
An organic object model that removes many of the structural
obstacles to
the creation, division, merger, death and burial of on-line communities
of
interest with strong buy-in and altruistic behavior from their members
A social structure that assumes a relatively small number
of opinion leaders relative to the number of those who subscribe to their
opinions
Opinion pools that use double-blind techniques to allow
large numbers of people to share opinions about Internet resources anonymously
or in the open, as they wish
Standards that encourage a great deal of trial and error
in user interface design for contributing to and obtaining meaningful data
from the opinion pools
A range of revenue models from pure advertiser-driven
to pure subscriber-driven;
On the whole, a far greater balance between advertising
and subscriber revenue than is found in the popular media.
What's New with AusWeb96? (February '96)
We announced our first Special Interest Group meeting, told you about special
travel deals and gave some more URLs for those interested in travelling
within Australia.
Special Interest Group meeting on Developing and managing interactive
exhibitions, tours and seminars on the Web
A SIG is a meeting during AusWeb96 which is
designed to focus on an area of common concern to conference delegates.
We're working with conference attendees to put a program together which
will be discussion oriented. No formal papers .. some opening comments from
the organiser and perhaps a few comments from specialists. But the focus
is on discussion and on the sharing of experiences and ideas. The idea for
the first SIG came from Katy Bramich, Director of Public Programs at the
National Library of Australia (kbramich@nla.gov.au)
and will be on "Developing and managing interactive exhibitions, tours
and seminars on the Web".
Ansett Australia for flights inside Australia
An Ansett Australia Masterfile Number of MC01746 has been activated for
the conference. Passengers phone Ansett Australia Group Sales on 13 14 13
will be connected to thier nearest Group Sales office. By quoting the Masterfile
Number, the passenger will be offered the special conference fare. The Airfare
is a 50% discount off the full Adult Economy Class airfare, from their home
port to Gold Coast and return. Alternatively, the 'Best Fare of the Day'
will be offered subject to the advance booking period and various conditions
meet the needs of the individual travelling.
For travel from regional areas not serviced by Ansett the 'Best Fare of
the Day' will apply. Most regional carriers will offer a Group discount
of 15% off the Full Economy airfare for ten or more people travelling on
the same flight.
The fare requirements are:
- Subject to 'specific seat class' availability for fare to apply (early
reservations will ensure a wider choice of flight)
- Travel can be up to 7 days either side of your conference.
- Finalising payment of ticket is required within 72 hours of making
the reservation at either any travel agent or the nearest Ansett Office,
or payment can be made over the telephone.
- Flight reservations can be changed at any time subject to the same
'specific seat class' availability.
This applies to flights into Coolangatta only which is about a 15 minute
taxi ride from Conrad Jupiters. There is an Airport Transfer Coach from
Coolangatta which goes to all hotels, approximately $8 one way ($4 for kids)).
United Airlines
Delegates from the U.S. can ring 1800 538 2929 and state they are attending
the 'Norsearch Conference' and you will be eligible for discounted flights
to Australia. You will be best to fly to Brisbane and take a bus called
'Coach Trans-Airporter' to the hotel. This runs between the Gold Coast and
Brisbane Airports every half hour on the half hour. It costs $26 one way.
Alternatively fly to Sydney and you will be eligible for the Ansett domestic
discount to Coolangatta.
Want to know more about the Gold Coast or Australia?
Thanks to Joanne McMurtry on the AusWeb96 team we have some more URLs if
you are interested in more details about Australia:
Travelling Australia, Orbit
over Australia or the About
Australia: Lonely Planet Guide: http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/dest/aust/aus.htm
Many of you will also know that close to Southern Cross University is Byron
Bay, one of the jewels of Australia. Byron Bay is a little over an hour
by car south from Conrad Jupiters.
And just a little further on from Byron Bay is Lismore,
home of Southern Cross University.
What's New with AusWeb96? (January '96)
The first registrations for AusWeb96 started to flow in to AusWeb96 HQ in
the first week of January. If you'd like to get in early to register, please
email the team at ausweb96@scu.edu.au
And talking of registrations, we introduced in January the first of our
competitions for AusWeb96. We're going to be giving a bottle of Penfolds
Grange Hermitage red wine to the person who has the most correct estimate
of the number of fully-paid delegates at AusWeb96. Wine Spectator magazine
(31 December '95) declared the Grange as the best wine in the world for
1995 - the first time an Australian wine has won this coveted award.
Send your vote by email to AusWeb96@scu.edu.au
with the subject line including the text "AusWeb96 Registrations will
total xxx" where xxx is the number you estimate. Please use this exact
subject line so we can filter the mail. Only one vote per person allowed
and votes *must* be in by the close of early bird subscriptions on 1 April
.. you don't have to have registered by then, just sent in your vote!
The competition is only open to registrants of AusWeb96 and the award will
be made at the conference dinner on Sunday, 7 July. If you're not there
to pick up your prize, the organisers will drink it on the spot!
A new AusWeb96 brochure has been printed with full details of the conference.
Brochures are coming out to all those on the AusWeb mailing list and should
be in your hands in the next week or two. If you would like additional copies
please email Julie Burton or Joanne McMurtry at AusWeb96@scu.edu.au
What's New with AusWeb96? (December '95)
In December we made a formal call for papers
and poster submissions and finalised a number of our workshops.
What's New with AusWeb96? (November '95)
What was new in November was our announcement of the first five
confirmed keynote speakers at AusWeb96. We believe
that we have found five excellent keynote speakers who cover a full range
of community, educational, business and technical interests at AusWeb96.
Much more progress is also being made on workshops with more details of
a number of confirmed workshops (see
What's New with AusWeb96 for October).
What's New with AusWeb96? (October '95)
What was new in October was the number and variety (not to mention quality)
of the workshops that will be held in conjunction with the conference. More
than fifteen workshops will be held on topics ranging from copyright, to
interface design and from browsing with Netscape 2.0 to advanced Java programming.
Check out the workshop announcements.
We're also discussing a number of other workshops so come back and look
again!
Updated on 1 June 1996 by ausweb96@scu.edu.au
AusWeb96 - The Second Australian World Wide Web Conference, 7th
to 9th of July 1996, at the Conrad Jupiters Hotel, Gold Coast, Australia.
Contact: Ms Julie Burton, Norsearch Conference Services at Southern Cross
University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. Phone (066) 20 3000
(From outside Australia +61 66 20 3000) Fax: (066) 22 1954 (From outside
Australia +61 66 22 1954). Email: ausweb96@scu.edu.au.
Updated on 3 July
1996 by ausweb96@scu.edu.au