NEC is to support the University of Queensland's School of Information Technology in developing a pilot information system helping students plan their courses using the World Wide Web.
The system will provide academic advice to students enrolled in the new Information Management major in the University's bachelor of arts degree program.
School senior lecturer and project leader Dr Bob Colomb said provision of academic advice was a serious matter for universities.
'For students entering generalist courses such as arts or science, designing a study plan is a daunting task,' he said.
'For example, each year about 2500 students begin a bachelor of arts degree at the University.
'They must select 24 subjects from the 3000 on offer, and can organise their study around more than 1000 courses (there are more than 40 possible major concentration areas, and a student can combine two).'
He said personal advice was available from specialist faculty staff or academic staff.
'In 1996, in an effort to optimise the quality of student plans, Science Faculty staff personally interviewed each of 1300 new entrants,' Dr Colomb said.
'This major effort was found to reduce very significantly the number of students who encountered problems later in the year.
'But this method is very expensive, both in the time required to interview students and in the cost of training staff members so that they can provide the right advice.'
Dr Colomb said the Web-based adviser would incorporate an expert system to provide advice in the vast majority of relatively routine cases, so that human advisers could concentrate on the minority of complex cases. Human advisers could also use the system to perform routine tasks encountered while advising in complex cases.
According to Queensland manager of NEC's communication and networking group, Steve Scott, the company has long held a basic philosophy of developing technology to optimise the development of human potential and is keen to foster co-operation between business and academe.
'We believe this project will help us understand better how to organise complex information in a computer system so that people can use it. The World Wide Web provides a practicable and inexpensive way for a wide range of people to gain access to services like this,' Mr Scott said.
'Besides advising tertiary students, there are many other problems where a human needs computer support to make good selections from a complex set of options.
'These include: preparing menus in a hospital, restaurant or home environment; packaging news for a personalised newsletter or new products for a personalised catalogue; and planning holiday travel itineraries.
'Interestingly, the key problems in designing the advisory system are on the human side of computing, and are themselves information management problems, providing an example of the sorts of problems the students will encounter when they finish their studies.'
Dr Colomb is leading the project in co-operation with School lecturer Dr Helen Purchase, Associate Professor Joan Mulholland of the English Department and Arts Faculty executive officer Patricia Robinson. The support was facilitated by the University's Development Office.
For more information, contact Dr Colomb (telephone 3365 1190).
