Australian World Wide Web conference starts

Queensland Minister for Innovation and Information Economy, Paul Lucas, will give the opening address at this year's Eighth Australian World Wide Web conference on the Sunshine Coast, on Sunday, July 7, at 2pm.

The AusWeb02 conference, which runs until Wednesday, July 10, is an initiative of Southern Cross University (SCU), which has campuses in Lismore, the Tweed/Gold Coast and Coffs Harbour. SCU Vice-Chancellor Professor John Rickard will officially welcome the minister at the conference.

"AusWeb is recognised as the nation's major annual conference for Web users and developers," said conference chair, Associate Professor Allan Ellis, from SCU.

In addition to papers by more than 50 experts from around Australia and overseas, there will be 14 half-day workshops (costing $100) and full-day workshop (costing $200) covering a wide range of topics presented by experts from the conference. They are open to the public and being held mainly this  weekend, July 6-7, at the conference venue, the Novotel Twin Waters Resort in Maroochydore.

The four keynote speakers are:

Dr Hoylen Sue, Senior Research Scientist, Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC), a Cooperative Research Centre based at the University of Queensland: "The Next Web Revolution", Sunday, 7 July, 2.30pm-3.30pm. His expertise is design and development in the areas of databases, computer graphics, network management, and Internet solutions;

Tessa Court, Senior Vice President Global Sales and Marketing, Hitwise, Melbourne: "The Web and Internet Measurement and Metrics", Sunday, 7 July, 4pm-5pm. Ms Courtís career includes working for multinational advertising agencies in the US. She moved to Australia and joined Hitwise in June 2000;

David Rosenbaum, WebCT (a corporate training and university course delivery system used in 1,500 institutions around the world), from Massachussetts, USA: "The Future of Higher Education Online: Academic Enterprise Systems", Monday, 8 July, 9am-10am. David has 18 years of software industry experience as engineer, product manager, and alliance manager, and has been involved in the development of industry leading products;

Shane Donnelly, eLearning Consultant, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney: "Books: A Revolution in Publishing, Consuming and Reading, or a Solution in Search of a Problem?" Tuesday, 9 July, 9am-10am. Pearson Education is a considerable Web publisher with several groups of Web products representing some thousands of educational titles.

Conference delegates at dinner on Sunday night are taking part in a quiz on the history of the world wide web, using wireless computers linked to a server in the US, with a new iMac as the prize, at about 8pm.

For conference details see website: http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/