The purpose of this subject is to explore new technologies, to look at what is involved in them, how they can benefit business/lifestyle/underprivileged/etc. The two research assignments are to explore two topics in a reasonable depth to answer general issues.
You have free choice in topics to explore, as long as they can reasonably be called "emerging technology". They can be in any area, and are not restricted One topic should be IT related but the other can be on any topic. For example, within IT you might investigate network virtualisation, sensor networks, haptic interfaces etc. In a wider sphere, you might want to look at nuclear fusion or other alternative energy technologies, space travel, genetic modification, technologies to combat global warming, intellectual property rights in a digital age, space elevators, etc.
For each report, you should produce a discussion paper of about 3,000 words length. The paper should describe the technology and should have several sections with issues about the technology. The issues could be some (but probably not all, and possibly some extra) of the following
The two reports should be distinct, either in topic or in focus. For example, you could do one report on Web 3.0 and one on carbon dioxide sequestration as different technologies one in the IT area and the other outside of IT. Or you could do two reports on internet censorship, one concentrating on the technologies used to enforce or to evade censorship, the other to look at political, social and economic issues arising from the use of censorship at any level (e.g. school, home, business or country-wide censorship).
The report topics must be different from the presentation topics.
You should hand in the following
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Any occurrences of plagiarism will be heavily penalised. Students should become familiar with the Box Hill policies on plagiarism. Anyone in doubt as to the meaning of plagiarism should look at sites such as www.plagiarism.org or talk to any degree staff member.
Each report must be done individually.
The first assignment is due by the end of week 8 (Sept 20). The second assignment is due by the end of week 13.