Nigel Stanger (Information Science)
Rodney Tamblyn/ Rob Griffiths (OceanBrowser/external)
Paola Voci (Languages and Cultures
*Brendon Woodford (infosci)
Antonie Alm (Languages & Cultures)


[* = no bio received]
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Russell Butson
I am involved in exploring learning approaches that have an impact on the learner’s life. I am particularly interested in more engaging, collaborative learning experiences that are consistent with the idealism, imagination and expectations of learners within higher education. The substance of this approach lies with the cultivation of the learner’s personal autonomy. This requires an understanding of the learner’s experiences if we are to situate the learner’s activities within a meaningful event. This is where we move into the unfamiliar, where we have the opportunity to become innovative and creative in our search for alternative and effective ways to change how we think and act in the process of education. This requires scrutiny of the nature of the mechanisms that have formed our educational system, and examination of whether or not there is another point of view.

Areas of Interest 2007
-Networked Learning
-Web 2.0 technologies
-Personalised Learning Environments (PLEs)
-Student engagement
-Student voice
-Student use of Technology
-Extreme Learning
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Dawn Coburn
I am doing PH D studies through Information Science. The title of my proposal is "Gone Tomorrow" which reflects concerns I have about the fate of digital photographs being taken by this generation. Expanding on this I am investigating the role of photography in contributing to personal identity and the possible impacts of technological obsolescence which will affect what can be readily accessed by future generations. The internet has relevance as a repository for photographs which allows access from multiple sites and can backup material from other sources which may be lost, damaged, or become inaccessible. Associated with the internet are competing questions relating to metadata, which will enable ready access, and privacy.
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Stephen Cranefield
Information Science
Bio online here.
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Murray Downes
Upstart Business Incubator
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John Egenes
Department of Music:
Music & music technology, internet media (audio/visual, podcasting/webcasting), film scoring, digital rights/copyright issues, creative commons & public domain, folk music, songwriting
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Lance Elder (Business/IS)
Principally interesting in the use of the Internet to support learning, including: gaming, user-generated content, and social networking.
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Ralf Hebecker
Design
Bio online here.
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Faisal Hasan (Computer Science)
I 'm a PhD student working on congestion control for Streaming Media on the Internet. The user experience of streaming is not always satisfactory. This is largely due to the inefficiency of TCP's congestion control algorithm which proactively controls the sending rate of applications to ensure fairness and avoid congestion. When ever there is a packet loss TCP takes it as an indication of congestion and cuts the sending rate by half. I 'm designing a rate control algorithm which will provide early congestion notification to the streaming application for adaptive streaming.

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Alec Holt
Director of the Health Informatics Program
I am primarily interested in Health Informatics. Part of that is the Internet and Health care. Part of that is Web 2.0 and on-line communities. For on-line communities I am interested in self-care and well-health type communities and their interactions. I am also interested in how consumers are being empowered by information and on-line communities is one area where information is shared as well understanding the guidelines for providing e-health (eHealth Code of Ethics, Health on the Net Code (HONCode), Health Internet Ethics (Hi-Ethics), American Accreditation Healthcare Commission (URAC))

I also keep an eye on convergence of technologies - this Internet environment gets pushed to Mobile phones etc.
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Zhiyi Huang, PhD
Dept of Computer Science
My research interests are computer networks, operating systems, parallel and distributed computing. I am interested in using Internet to create new software systems.
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Graham A Hambleton
Innovative Learning
Our organisation based in Dunedin provides online education and has a joint venture with a US based organisation. You can see what we have to offer by going to our website.
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Alistair Knott
Computer Science
My work is in the area of web-based human-computer dialogue systems. One of my research projects is to develop a web-based dialogue system that helps students learn a foreign language. The system 'plays' one or more characters, each with their own knowledge and interests; the student can hold a simple conversation with these characters in the language being learned. The system-played characters can also take teaching actions - for instance, correcting students' errors or asking questions that elicit targeted syntactic constructions. Our current prototype works for Maori, and is used in the introductory Maori course here at Otago (MAOR110). I'm considering extending the system to allow several students to participate in this type of language-learning dialogue - hence my interest in online communities centred around chat forums.
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Andrew Long
Information Science
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Erika Pearson
Media, Film and Communication
Current Convener, IRGO
I am interested in social networking behaviours on the internet – particularly trust relations in community formation and complexity in social networking. I am currently engaged in a project researching visual literacy in online social groups (such as uses of avatars and icons) and vlogs, with a particular focus on visual codes as linked to identity formation. I have previously conducted research in political activism and hacktivism.
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Dr. Lesley Procter,
Sociology Programme, Anthropology Department,
I am particularly interested in examining the overlay of
* social capital,
* patterns of interaction between individuals,
* presentation of self(ves), and
* identity
between the "two sides" of the computer screen in virtual reality "games" like Second Life and The Sims. In other words I am fascinated by the ways in and through which "real life" social patterning becomes transferred to, transcended in, or transformed through the creation and manipulation of avatar "selves".
My interest in these phenomena translate into teaching a suite of courses in micro-sociology where case studies used include the sociology of cyberspace (broadly defined).
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Martin Purvis
Professor of Information Science
Bio online here.
I am one of those people interested in the social aspects of the Internet, and I have some PhD students pursuing research in this area.
I would be interested in participating with others or learning about the interests of others in this area.
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Holger Regenbrecht
Information Science
Holgeris a Senior Lecturer at the department of Information Science at Otago University and has been working in the fields of Virtual and Augmented Reality for over ten years. He was initiator and manager of the Virtual Reality Laboratory at Bauhaus University Weimar (Germany) and the Mixed Reality Laboratory at DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology (Ulm, Germany).
His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), (collaborative) Augmented Reality, 3D teleconferencing, psychological aspects of Mixed Reality, and three-dimensional user interfaces (3DUI).
He is a member of IEEE, ACM, and igroup.org and serves as a reviewer and auditor for several conferences and institutions, including the European Commission.
Further information about his research can be found at www.igroup.org/regenbre and www.hci.otago.ac.nz.
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Gordon Sanderson
Senior Lecturer
Ophthalmology Section
Otago Medical School
The use of the internet for post graduate medical teaching seems to be an ideal solution for delivering up-to-date information to students who are often geographically dispersed and who work unsociable hours. It can be used to provide access to expertise from throughout the world. Complex concepts can be simplified using animations or RLOs. Rare specimens such as anatomy prosections can be exhibited using 3D technology; thus providing information that may be hard to achieve even in the real environment, on demand.
My research interests lie in further developing this technology and endeavouring to make it as user-friendly and accessible as possible.
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Straylight Studios
Tim Nixon (CEO)

Straylight Studios are pioneering new efforts into the realm of Interactive Narrative, using Web 2.0 as a basis for audience feedback and interaction with content developers, whether the format be film, tv, television (YouTube), comics, or whatever. Essentially we’re developing a set of tools and methodologies that allow traditional entertainment formats to utilise the power of audience response, giving viewers the opportunity to define the world in which a broadcasted story exists.

One project of ours at the moment is The Vision Quest, in partnership with a Hollywood production firm we are giving readers the opportunity to actually become part of a trilogy of novels. An online website gives readers the tools to establish a character, blog about their characters life in this alternate universe, and develop the skills of their character through mini-games and challenges. The top player/reader at the end of June will actually become a minor character in the second of three novels in the series.

Straylight are also working on multiple game development, animation, web development, and serious game projects, with a current 18 staff and a rapidly growing export contribution.
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Professor Kerry Shephard
Director: HEDC

Kerry Shephard is Professor and Director of the University of Otago’s Higher Education Development Centre. He has long-term research interests in education for sustainability, science communication and in the general area of affective learning. His interests focus around eLearning and educational development. Kerry is currently researching how higher education achieves affective learning outcomes, how online learning-resources and environments can support the broad range of student learning and how best to support staff to make use of these resources. Kerry has a background in the biological sciences.
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Nigel Stanger

Information Science

Bio online here.

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Rob Griffiths/OceanBrowser
We teach aviation medicine, occupational medicine and health (the latter non-medical), and aeromedical retrieval & transport through our non-University (Oceanbrowser) software to students worldwide and have 20 years experience in this area of teaching now. We are interested in research methods of teaching and assessment that cross language and cultural distinctions and also to be independent of student numbers, for commercial rather than academic reasons!
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Chris Paton