Enrolments open for first globally accredited Green ICT course

Enrolments are now open for the new elective subject "Green ICT" within the Australian Computer Society ’s Computer Professional Education Program (CPeP). This subject looks at how computer and telecommunications professionals can deal with sustainability, energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions in planning hardware and software projects.

Enrolments close 11 January 2009 for Study Period 1, which commences 18 January and runs to 19 April 2009. The ACS CPeP program is the first in the world to be globally accredited by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), a non-governmental, non-profit umbrella organisation created under the auspices of UNESCO for national societies working in the field of information processing.

Enrolments can be in the Green ICT subject alone, or as part of the full CPe Program. Credit towards Graduate Diploma and Master courses are offered by articulation with: Chifley Business School, Australian Catholic University, Central Queensland University, Curtin University of Technology and Swinburne University of Technology.

ICT Sustainability at Petersham NSW TAFE

The Australian Computer Society hosted a presentation from TAFE NSW last night on their new ICT sustainability courses. This was an inspirational evening showing the excellent work on green ICT being carried out at the Petersham Campus of NSW TAFE

Máire Sheehan, Manager Public Sector Programs, TAFE NSW gave a overview of climate change issues and programs such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. She illustrated this with experience working on sustainability as a Councillor, at Leichhardt Council. This presentation was a little too long and detailed as we were a room full of computer nerds wanting to hear about computers, not climate change. However, this was a good plain English explanation. Máire also mentioned that she had purchased a low power Eee PC netbook computer and a solar panel for a visit to a developing country (I happened to have my Eee PC with me and handed it up to the podium for a demo).

Franco Salaun, Program Manager, Curriculum Centre, TAFE. Briefly introduced the modules developed by TAFE NSW:

1. Install and Test Power Saving Hardware
2. Install and Test Power Management Software
3. Install and Test Renewable Energy System for ICT Networks
4. Implement Server Virtualisation for a sustainable ICT System
5. Install and Test Web 2.0 OS and Applications on a Low Powered Workstation Fed by Power Over Ethernet
   

I would liked to hear more about the the design and development of courses (I was consulted on the outline for some modules).

Stanley Tonkins, Chartered Professional Engineer, NSW TAFE teacher and course developer talked about what the students learnt in the courses. He showed two fascinating videos with students working on PCs replacing components with lower power ones, including low power motherboards and flash drives.

The students also installed a solar panel on the roof of the TAFE and a wind generator and modified PCs to run from batteries. It is not clear why you would run your PC from batteries at a city campus, but assume this might have something to so with Máire Sheehan visiting a developing nation, where such a system would be ideal.

As well as hardware, the students learn about using software utilities to configure energy saving settings on PCs. They also learn how to virtualise servers, including the complexities of running both Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems simultaneously on the one server.

Some of the very valuable practical insights given were:

1. Via PC3500 Mainboard: AFter searching the options for low power components, the students of the TAFE course identified the new VIA board as being a good trade off between power consumption and usability. The Zonbu NetTop PC I have on my office desk also uses a low power Via processor. It is an interesting question as to if it is worth upgrading a conventional desktop PC with a low power board, or better to replace it with a small form factor NetTop.
   

2. Power Management Tools, such as LocalCooling can be useful for teaching about power saving as well as implementing it.

3. ROI: The return on investment for power saving software and hardware upgrades can be calculated.
   
4. Learning by Doing: Students can learn by carrying out work such as upgrading PCs and explaining what they are doing while working in teams.
   

This was the best part of the evening's presentations and I would have liked to hear more about what is being done on Green ICT at Petersham Campus of NSW TAFE.

The most frustrating part of the evening was that there were no details of the actual courses. I was expecting at the end someone to say: "go to this web age at NSW YAFE for course details and how to enrol". However, there were no details given and I have been unable to find any details of the course on the TAFE NSW web site.

There is potential for collaboration between ACS and NSW TAFE on green ICT courses. I am preparing a course on Green ICT Strategies for Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society (for progress see my blog entries). This is intended as a postgraduate management unit and will not get into the level of technical and practical detail which the TAFE provide. There is therefore scope for the ACS and TAFE courses to complement each other. Some ACS memebrs will want to undettake the TAFE courses, while others just need to know that they can call on people with those skills. Also hopefully other TAFE around Australia will contact NSW TAFE and arrange to use the developed syllabus, rather than duplicate this work.

Some links from the TAFE:

1. Sustainability Project Presentation 2nd July 2008
2. Certificate IV in IT Semester 2 2007: VirtualServerImplementation
3. and Case Study - Low energy deshtop system Patjarr School
4. Certificate IV in IT Semester 1 2008: low energy desktop design considerations and Operating system on USB flash drive
5. Ubuntu server with renewable energy system supply - design.ppt
6. Diploma in IT Semester 1 2008: Solar Panel and Wind Generator
7. Solar Panel Installation and System Testing Presentation: Low Energy Consumption PC Cary

Green ICT ACS & TAFE NSW, 17th November 2008

The Australian Computer Society and TAFE NSW are having a free Green ICT event, 17th November 2008 in Sydney, with TAFE detailing their new ICT sustainability courses: "How will the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme affect me, my job and my business?":

Two polls taken in 2008 show that while well over 70% of the population agree that Australia should act now to on climate change less than 10% understand the Australian government’s master plan for tackling climate change, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and how it will affect businesses and individuals.

This presentation will provide a Plain English overview of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, its effects on businesses and individuals and hints on how you can act now to reduce its impacts on you and your business.

You will also hear about the new Accredited TAFE course starting in Feb 2009 "Sustainability in ICT Systems"

As with all TAFE courses you gain not only Technical knowledge but the practical backup.

The modules are:-

1. Install and Test Power Saving Hardware
2. Install and Test Power Management Software
3. Install and Test Renewable Energy System for ICT Networks
4. Implement Server Virtualisation for a sustainable ICT System
5. Install and Test Web 2.0 OS and Applications on a Low Powered Workstation Fed by Power Over Ethernet
   

Biography:

Stanley Tonkins

Chartered Professional Engineer NSW TAFE Stanley is currently teaching students about Telecommunications and Networks, Information Technology and developing new course units including assessment and practicum delivery strategies for the Advanced Diploma, Diploma and Certificate IV and III courses.

Máire Sheehan

Is the Manager Public Sector Programs, TAFE NSW and Councillor, Leichhardt Council.

Franco Salaun

Program Manager - Curriculum Centre at TAFE and is responsible for the design and development of courses in Telecommunications and IT Networking.

About this Event

Venue:

Mitchell Theatre Level 1, 280 Pitt St Sydney (Sydney Mechanics School of Arts- In between Park & Bathurst St)
Date: Monday 17th November 2008
Time: 6 pm -8 pm

Register

Members: $0.00
Non Members: $0.00

From: "How will the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme affect me, my job and my business?", ACS, 2008

Voting online in the ACS Elections

Some years ago, when I was on their governing council, the Australian Computer Society changed its rules to allow for electronic voting. But the ACS doesn't have many elections and many of those, such as for the council itself, were done during a face to face meeting. The ACS therefore sensibly decided not to rush into e-voting. This year e-voting is being used for positions on the new national congress (which replaces the council) and for branches. Recently I voted electronically for the ACT Government in Canberra and last year for the Federal election. Voting for the IEEE and ACM are already electronic, so it may be that I never vote with a piece of paper again.

I wasn't involved with the selection of the ACS voting system. This uses a company called Bigpulse.com. They have an Australian office in Sydney, but I don't know anything more than that about them. The process is much the same as for ACM and IEEE elections. I was sent a message by the ACS with a link to the independent e-voting company. This then brings up an introductory message from the ACS returning officer explaining the voting system. The next screen than displays a form which looks like a traditional voting paper. There is a link next to each candidate to display their supporting statement (some you don't get with a traditional paper ballot or the systems used for the ACT and federal elections). The statements include a photo (if the candiate supplied one) which is handy if you can't rememebr exactly who is who. The statment appers on the ballot paper under the candidate's name which is easier than the previous ACM and IEEE systems, where you are referred to a separate web page.

As with other e-voting systems, this system checks the ballot is valid (the ACT and federal systems check for valid ballots but still permit the voter to cast one which is invalid). The system also invite comments on the vote (after warning the voter not to identify themselves). I submitted a comment suggesting the system require some form of identification of the voter (such as their member number or having logged in via the member section fo the ACS web site. This would be to allow for the unlikely situation where someone other than the ACS member received the email message and can so cast the vote. The ACM and IEEE systems get around this problem by sending the member a paper ballot which includes a code to enter for e-voting. This sending a paper ballot is a nuisance and I often have difficulty entering the codes provided, so such a solution has its won problems.

Open Source for Australian e-Health

Ian Bull from ACT Health delivered an excellent talk on ICT in Health Delivery in the 21st Century at the ACS Canberra meeting, 11 November. The state and federal health authorities have been working on a $165M project over the last three years to produce integrated e-health standards for Australia. I suggest this work be expanded with an additional $50M to produce open source software implementing these standards.

Ian discussed the work of the National EHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA) and intermeshed with state health authorities, including the ACT. This is a complex project involving data standrads, changes to medical business processes and issues of access to health data accross state boarders. While a high risk project, it has large potential benefits for improved health and savings in health care costs.

One interesting aspect is that this project avoided being mired in the failed health and social services access card project of the previous federal government. There are no plans to issue a standard health card as part of the project, although this would be done for identifying doctors and other health workers.

The techncial standards being developed are available free online for use by Australian medical system developers. However, I suggest that the project could go further and develop open source software implementing the standards. This could be used to prove operation of the standrads, to aid Australian software developers in implementation, to help developing nations with implementing e-health systems and to boost the Australian e-health export industry.

The Australian medical software industry is fragmented with very many small companies producing software packages for doctors and other health professionals. Producing software to interface to the new national standards will be a large burden for this firms. Instead, the government (Medicare Australia in particular) could fund development of open source software which would proud a proof of concept of the new standards. The companies could then incorporate this software in their systems to produce commercial packages. As well as providing for the domestic market, this could create an export industry in e-health. Exports could concentrate on new markets in developing nations using new technologies, such as mobile phones to replace doctor's computers.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 9 Books

In Part 8 I revised the outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. While I have found some online references to use in the course there appear to be few books on "Green ICT". So far I have found four. Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line (by Toby Velte) I have managed to buy a copy of. Green IT For Dummies, by Carol Baroudi, does not appear to be available until early 2009. The other two books, Green Computing and Green IT Best Practices (Jason Harris) and Green IT in Practice (Gary Hirdare) are both from 2008, but I can't find out much about them.

To see how useful Velte's book was, I looked for reference to Australia.There three useful ones. The first, on page 33 says that at the time of writing (the book was published 2008-09-08), there were no government mandated rules for the management of e-waste (which is still the case). On the next page is gives a reasonable description of the Byteback program. The next reference is to CD and DVD recycling programs. This all seems reasonable enough.

But I will have to wait until I have actually read the book for a full assessment (I am writing this in the State Library of NSW). While in Sydney, I visited the Apple store and checked the Green ICT Strategies e-Learning course web site worked okay on an Apple iPhone. You obviously have to zoom in to read the text, but the web based course interface of Moodle works fine on the iPhone. This would allow students to do m-Learning. In reality you will want a larger screen to read on, but even that is possible, with the i-Phone (and i-Pod Touch having the capability of plugging in an external large screen).

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 8 Revised Outline

In Part 7 I loaded the draft course outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. into the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). The outline then needed some further work on the weekly schedule of work.

David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education, had originally suggested dividing the course up into four modules, with three topics in each, followed by a revision, to make 13 week. I had neglected to do this and had weekly topics following no particular order. So I have spent a few hours attempting to group modules under the SFIA topics. This proved extremely difficult to do.

With some structure to the weekly topics, I then tried to find some more content for each week. Most useful for this were the online open source course-ware on sustainability from the Natural Edge Project (NEP). One frustration with this is that the NEP's web site is not well formatted, making it difficult to read the materials and when I copied references to it I ended up with poorly formatted HTML in my document.

Green ICT Strategies

Prepared by Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Version 0.2, 7 November 2008. Draft for comment. Not Approved for delivery of a Course.

Welcome to our elective subject Green ICT Strategies (GICTS) within the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society.

When preparing this subject, as with all the subjects in the Computer Professional Education Program, we have assumed that you and your fellow students are over-achievers; self-motivated, disciplined, and determined to succeed. You have extensive prior knowledge and experience relevant to your study; you are open-minded about sharing your work and educational experiences; and you accept critical thinking as part of the learning process. Further, you are comfortable with, and competent in, written communications; and you recognise that effective learning can occur outside a traditional classroom. Most importantly, you want to control how, when, and where you learn.

Critical to your success in this subject is a regular and disciplined study routine. Only through consistency will you keep up-to-date. Every week there will be specific tasks to complete and, if you fall behind, it will be difficult to catch up.

Also important is that you correspond; at least twice every week; with your fellow students and tutor. Your correspondence must be intelligent and investigative. You will answer questions posed by your tutors, and then debate your answers with your classmates.

Learning Outcomes

Green ICT Strategies is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. Qualification schemes and accreditation are yet to be established and it is possible those completing this subject may be involved in that development.

The ACS course on Green ICT Strategies is based on:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. Professor Garnaut's "Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report, 2008

3. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

4. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

Competencies based on Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information & Communications Technology (ICT).

Green ICT Strategies will target SIFA Level 5 competencies: "ensure, advise: Broad direction, supervisory, objective setting responsibility. Influences organisation. Challenging and unpredictable work. Self sufficient in business skills". With the following skills:

Category/Subcategory/Skill

At the completion of this subject the student can:

• Strategy & planning

  • Technical strategy and planning

    • Emerging technology monitoring: Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse.

    • Methods and tools: Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

  • Business/IS strategy and planning

    • Business process improvement: Recommend alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches.

    • Enterprise Architecture: Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits.

• Procurement & management support

  • Supply management

    • Procurement: Write green ICT requirement documents for to products and services.
      

  • Quality management

    • Compliance audit: Assess the conformity of systems to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

Pre-requisites, Co-requisites

Business, Legal and Ethical Issues should be completed prior to undertaking this subject.

Content

Week1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies

Objective: Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries.

1. Politics, Science and Business of Sustainability

   Investigate the principles of environmental sustainability and the science of climate change. Objective: You are asked to reduce the ecological footprint of an ICT organization. This organization could be the one you are currently working with or any other organization. How would you go about measuring the ICT system's demand on the Earth's ecosystems and developing a plan (strategy) to reduce the impact?

   1. Week 2: Professor Garnaut's "Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report"
   2. Week 3: Introduction to Sustainable Development for Engineering and Built Environment Professionals, Natural Edge Project, 2008
   3. week 4: Sustainable Engineering: Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program Whole Systems Design Suite, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. Technical strategy and planning

   Emerging technology monitoring

   Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse.

   1. Week 5: Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
      

      Objective: Computers and telecommunications equipment contributes about 2% to greenhouse gas emissions. Look at how data centres and client equipment can be made more efficient. Reference: The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

   2. Week 6: Materials Use

      Objective: Energy reduction is only part of making a Green ICT system, there is also the issue of use of materials and hazardous substances. How does the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) deal with material use? Reference: E-Waste Education Courses, Natural Edge Project, 2008
      

   3. Week 7: Methods and tools

      Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

3. Business/IS strategy and planning

   1. Week 7: Business process improvement

      Recommend alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches.

      Objective: ICT has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones. How do you analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches?

   2. Week 8: Business of Government

      The review of government ICT provides a useful example of where Green ICT Principles can be applied. How would you implement the Review of the Australian Government's Use of Information and Communication Technology by Sir Peter Gershon, October 2008.

   3. Week 9: Enterprise Architecture

      Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits.

      Objective: The business of business is business, so any environmental goals have to fit into the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. How do you incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits?

4. Procurement & management support

   1. Week 10: Procurement

      Write green ICT requirement documents for to products and services.

      Objective: Much of the environmental benefits come about by selecting the right products and services. How do you ensure that your hardware, software and services suppliers provide green products?

   2. Week 11: Quality management

   3. Week 12: Compliance audit: Assess the conformity of systems to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

Week 13: Revision and discussion for assignment 2

Objective: Let us revisit the Service Life Cycle. Let us discuss about the specific process you are going to improve in your organization through the assignment 2.

Workload

To complete the subject you will need to spend 8-10 hours each week reading, communicating with colleagues and tutors, and preparing assignments.

Review/Evaluation Methods

There are 2 areas of assessment in the subject;

• Contributions to the 13 weekly discussion forums, worth 20% of your total assessment.

• 2 assignments, worth 40% each.

To pass the subject overall, it is necessary to pass in both areas of assessment.

Teaching Strategies

By distance education through online learning methods plus one text book. Online learning is the main delivery method, moderated and supported by a tutor, mentor, student discussion forums and weekly feedback through ACS Education. Students are grouped in cohorts of 20. The students are also supported by the Registrar with email, phone, and fax contact.

Specialist Features or Equipment

The subject is supported by a website ACS Education hosted by Moodle where the online learning takes place. All learning materials plus discussion forums are available through this site, apart from the text book.

Course Designer

Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University, where he teaches the design of web sites, e-commerce and professional ethics. In addition, he has an interest in environmental design, and is the founding chair of the ACS Green ICT Group. In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a past president, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

References

There is no set text for this course. Online references will be used, including:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

4. ACS Policy Statement for Green ICT, Australian Computer Society, 16 August 2007

5. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008.

6. ROI Analysis: Reducing 856,000 Pounds of CO2 Emissions through Remote Services and Off-Hours Power Management, Government Case Study: Power Management and CO2 Reduction, Intel, 2008





Green ICT Strategies Course Outline by Tom Worthington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 7 Setting up in the LMS

In Part 6 I prepared a draft course outline for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The next step is to prepare detailed material for each week of the course: "Green ICT Strategies".

It happens that I have my own copy of Moodle installed on my web site and this is the same Learning Management System (LMS) used by the ACS for e-learning (the ANU is currently selecting a new LMS for use in 2009). As I am familiar with Moodle, I decided to skip a step and compose the course using the LMS, rather than prepare documents for an educational technician to create the course from.

Creating a course using a web based LMS is much like setting up a web site, or a blog, but with a few extra steps. It is daunting the first few times and helps to have an example to work from. You start by giving the name, abbreviation and course code for the course, a short description of the course, when it is and how people enrol. The new course is then created. Remember to switch off the option which allows people to enrol, until the course design is completed and approved, or everyone will get confused (many courses don't use Moodle's in-built enrolment process anyway). Normally a course would be restricted to enrolled students in the same group, but I will make my draft design public, so the details are available for comment.

As I did with the course outline, I used the ACS Service Management subject, created by Murali Ramakrishnan, as a template. While the ACS subjects are in e-learning format, they are still semester based with a fixed starting date and weekly work schedule. This is so the student is not on their own, but progressing through the work with a "cohort" of fellow students at the same level. A "Weekly outline" format is used for the course structure in the LMS. Given the starting date and the number of weeks, the LMS creates a skeleton of the course with space for each week's material.

As well as the weekly material, there is a Chatroom Forum for students to discuss issues online (created with Moodle's chat facility), Terminology List (using Moodle's Glossary) and a Introductory Overview (a linked document). Features such as chatrooms and glossaries make the LMS particularly useful for education. Not only do they allow contributions from the students but have features to allow the teacher to assess the student's contribution.

Moodle allows documents to be placed in its own repository or external web documents to be linked. Normally the course notes will be stored in the LMS, with links to external reference material. Many course documents are in PDF, but I will attempt to do them as web page,as I find this easier to read on screen.

With the weekly topics set I now need to create for each:

1. Readme 1st
2. Work Notes
3. Seminar
4. Weekly Discussion Forum
5. end of Week Message
6. Discussion question
   
7. Assignments and notes

As always, comments, contributions and corrections are welcome.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 6 Course Outline

In part five I selected SIFA Level 5 competencies for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies", to be offered as part of the ACS Computer Professional Education Program. The next step was to relate the competencies to learning outcomes and then schedule the weekly content to help the students achieve them. Here is the first draft of the course description (comments and suggestions welcome):

Green ICT Strategies

Prepared by Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Version 0.1, 30 October 2008. Draft for comment. Not Approved for delivery of a Course.

Welcome to our elective subject Green ICT Strategies (GICTS) within the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society.

When preparing this subject, as with all the subjects in the Computer Professional Education Program, we have assumed that you and your fellow students are over-achievers; self-motivated, disciplined, and determined to succeed. You have extensive prior knowledge and experience relevant to your study; you are open-minded about sharing your work and educational experiences; and you accept critical thinking as part of the learning process. Further, you are comfortable with, and competent in, written communications; and you recognise that effective learning can occur outside a traditional classroom. Most importantly, you want to control how, when, and where you learn.

Critical to your success in this subject is a regular and disciplined study routine. Only through consistency will you keep up-to-date. Every week there will be specific tasks to complete and, if you fall behind, it will be difficult to catch up.

Also important is that you correspond; at least twice every week; with your fellow students and tutor. Your correspondence must be intelligent and investigative. You will answer questions posed by your tutors, and then debate your answers with your classmates.

Learning Outcomes

Green ICT Strategies is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. Qualification schemes and accreditation are yet to be established and it is possible those completing this subject may be involved in that development.

The ACS course on Green ICT Strategies is based on:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

At the completion of this subject the student can:

• Describe need for Green ICT Strategies and its relevance to business and the community

• Articulate the benefits of implementing Green ICT, in financial and environmental terms

• Apply the Green ICT Strategies practices in their organisation

• Explain the environmental context and the technical developments shaping contemporary Green ICT Strategies;

• Explain the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on Green ICT Strategies processes;

• Explain the need to address Green ICT in the marketing, commercial, operational and technical viability of projects throughout their lives;

• Apply specific Green ICT Strategies techniques such as impact analysis, estimation techniques, energy and material life cycle analysis;

Competencies based on Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information & Communications Technology (ICT).

Green ICT Strategies will target SIFA Level 5 competencies: "ensure, advise: Broad direction, supervisory, objective setting responsibility. Influences organisation. Challenging and unpredictable work. Self sufficient in business skills". With the following skills:

Category/Subcategory/Skill

• Procurement & management support

  • Supply management

    • Procurement: Clarify sustainability specifications for products and services. Investigates the technical and commercial options, including possible sources of supply, and agrees the preferred options and potential suppliers with the business. Ensures that suppliers are approved in accordance with company procedures. Manages the tender, evaluation and acquisition process with expert assistance as required. Negotiates with preferred suppliers, drafts contracts and technical schedules, develops acceptance procedures and criteria. Places contracts. Implements, maintains and disseminates procurement strategy, policy, standards, methods and processes.

  • Quality management

    • Compliance audit: Assess the conformity to environmental standards, such as ISO 14000 series, Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), and Energy Star Program.

• Strategy & planning

  • Business/IS strategy and planning

    • Business process improvement: Analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches. Contribute to evaluating the environmental impact of alternative strategies. Help establish requirements for the implementation of changes in the business process.

    • Enterprise Architecture: Contribute to the sustainability of the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits. Takes responsibility for investigative work to determine requirements and specify effective business processes, through improvements in information systems, data management, practices, procedures, organisation and equipment.

  • Technical strategy and planning

    • Emerging technology monitoring: Identify new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies for energy saving and materials reuse. Products, methods and techniques and the assessment of their relevance and potential value to the organisation. The promotion of sustainable technology awareness among staff and business management.

    • Methods and tools: Ensure that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

Pre-requisites, Co-requisites

Business, Legal and Ethical Issues should be completed prior to undertaking this subject.

Content

Week 1: Introduction to Green ICT Strategies

Objective: Understand environmental, social and business context for sustainability, and overview of background, boundaries.

Week 2, 3: Methods and tools

Objective: You are asked to reduce the ecological footprint of an ICT organization. This organization could be the one you are currently working with or any other organization. How would you go about measuring the ICT system's demand on the Earth's ecosystems and developing a plan (strategy) to reduce the impact?

Week 4: Energy saving

Objective: Computers and telecommunications equipment contributes about 2% to greenhouse gas emissions. How can energy ratings programs be used to guide procurement and reduce energy use. Explore the benefits and some of the limitations of the US EPA's Energy Star Program.

Week 5: Materials Use

Objective: Energy reduction is only part of making a Green ICT system, there is also the issue of use of materials and hazardous substances. How does the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) deal with material use?

Week 6: Environmental Auditing

Objective: Environmental standards, such as the ISO 14000 series, include processes for certifying and auditing organisations to environmental standards. In this module we will explore how to engage environmental auditors .

Week 7, 8: Procurement

Objective: Much of the environmental benefits come about by selecting the right products and services. How do you ensure that your hardware, software and services suppliers provide green products?

Week 9, 10: Business Process Improvement

Objective: ICT has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones. How do you analyse business processes to identify alternative solutions which reduce environmental impact, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches?

Week 11, 12: Enterprise Architecture

Objective: The business of business is business, so any environmental goals have to fit into the systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. How do you incorporate Green ICT into the models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance, as well as environmental benefits?

Week 13: Revision and discussion for assignment 2

Objective: Let us revisit the Service Life Cycle. Let us discuss about the specific process you are going to improve in your organization through the assignment 2.

Workload

To complete the subject you will need to spend 8-10 hours each week reading, communicating with colleagues and tutors, and preparing assignments.

Review/Evaluation Methods

There are 2 areas of assessment in the subject;

• Contributions to the 13 weekly discussion forums, worth 20% of your total assessment.

• 2 assignments, worth 40% each.

To pass the subject overall, it is necessary to pass in both areas of assessment.

Teaching Strategies

By distance education through online learning methods plus one text book. Online learning is the main delivery method, moderated and supported by a tutor, mentor, student discussion forums and weekly feedback through ACS Education. Students are grouped in cohorts of 20. The students are also supported by the Registrar with email, phone, and fax contact.

Specialist Features or Equipment

The subject is supported by a website ACS Education hosted by Moodle where the online learning takes place. All learning materials plus discussion forums are available through this site, apart from the text book.

Course Designer

Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the Australian National University, where he teaches the design of web sites, e-commerce and professional ethics. In addition, he has an interest in environmental design, and is the founding chair of the ACS Green ICT Group. In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy. He is a past president, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

References

There is no set text for this course. Online references will be used, including:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

4. ACS Policy Statement for Green ICT, Australian Computer Society, 16 August 2007

5. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008.

6. ROI Analysis: Reducing 856,000 Pounds of CO2 Emissions through Remote Services and Off-Hours Power Management, Government Case Study: Power Management and CO2 Reduction, Intel, 2008

Green ICT Strategies Course Outline by Tom Worthington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 5 SFIA and learning objectives

In part four I described the use of social networking for coordinating the ACS Computer Professional Education Program (CPE Program) with staff of for ACS Education. Now I need to details some learning objectives aligned with SFIA for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies". The most relevant SFIA categories are: Procurement & Management support and Strategy & planning.

Strategy & planning

The Strategy & planning seems more high level, so I will start with that. What I need are responsibility and accountability at SIFA Level 5: "ensure, advise: Broad direction, supervisory, objective setting responsibility. Influences organisation. Challenging and unpredictable work. Self sufficient in business skills".

Strategy & planning	Information strategy	Information management
	Advice and guidance	Consultancy
		Technical specialism

The first subcategory is "Information strategy" with skill "Information management" but this has no level 5 and does not seem that relevant. Similarly, "Advice and guidance" Consultancy has no level 5 and "Technical specialism" is proposed for deletion from the next version of SFIA, so there seems no point in using it.

Business/IS strategy and planning	Research
	Innovation
	Business process improvement
	Strategic application of information systems
	Business risk management
	Information security
	Information assurance

Research would be relevant for a university orientated course, but not for a practical one like CPEP. Business process improvement has the potential to provide significant environmental improvements, by replacing energy and materials consuming processes with more efficient ICT ones:

The identification of new and alternative approaches to performing business activities. The analysis of business processes, including recognition of the potential for automation of the processes, assessment of the costs and potential benefits of the new approaches considered and, where appropriate, management of change, and assistance with implementation.

SFIA 3: Use of this skill at this level

Analyses business processes; identifies alternative solutions, assesses feasibility, and recommends new approaches. Contributes to evaluating the factors which must be addressed in the change programme. Helps establish requirements for the implementation of changes in the business process. ...

From: Business process improvement: Level , SFIA Foundation, 2008

Strategic application of information systems can be used to translate environmental business vision, goals and strategy for the enterprise's future state. The SFIA version 3 description for this seems a bit short and vague, and I prefer the expanded proposed version 4:

Contributes to the creation and review of a systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Develops models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance. Takes responsibility for investigative work to determine requirements and specify effective business processes, through improvements in information systems, data management, practices, procedures, organisation and equipment.


From: Enterprise Architecture (replaces "Strategic Application of Information Systems"): Level 5 Proposed for SFIA 4, SFIA Foundation, 2008

Technical strategy and planning	Systems architecture
	Emerging technology monitoring
	Continuity management
	Software development process improvement
	Network planning
	Methods and tools

Systems architecture seems a little all encompassing for just Green ICT. Emerging technology monitoring is the first skill which looks relevant:

The identification of new and emerging hardware, software and communication technologies and products, services, methods and techniques and the assessment of their relevance and potential value to the organisation. The promotion of emerging technology awareness among staff and business management.

SFIA 3: Use of this skill at this level

Monitors the market to gain knowledge and understanding of currently emerging technologies. Identifies new and emerging hardware and software technologies and products based on own area of expertise, assesses their relevance and potential value to the organisation, contributes to briefings of staff and business management. ...

From: Emerging technology monitoring: Level , SFIA Foundation, 2008

Those working on Green ICT will need to know what new sustainable technologies are available.

Continuity management might be relevant where new green data centres are being planned, but is a peripheral issue. Similarly Software development process improvement might be used to make more efficient applications which therefore need less hardware to run on and less energy and Network planning could be used for greener networks, but these are also not central to the course.

Ensuring that appropriate methods and tools for the planning, development, testing, operation, management and maintenance of systems are adopted and used effectively throughout the organisation.

SFIA 3: Use of this skill at this level

Promotes and ensures use of appropriate techniques, methodologies and tools. ...

From: Methods & tools: Level 5, SFIA Foundation, 2008

Procurement & management support

	Supply management	Procurement
		Supplier relationship management

Procurement appears central to the Green ICT issues. One of the primary ways to make ICT sustainable is to use different criteria in the procurement of hardware, software and services. This looks like it might be the most important skill needed.

The management, or provision of advice on, the procurement of goods and services.

SFIA 3: Use of this skill at this level

Clarifies specifications for key products and services. Investigates the technical and commercial options for fulfilling the requirements, including possible sources of supply, and agrees the preferred options and potential suppliers with the business. Ensures that suppliers are approved in accordance with company procedures. Manages the tender, evaluation and acquisition process with expert assistance as required. Negotiates with preferred suppliers, drafts contracts and technical schedules, develops acceptance procedures and criteria. Places contracts. Implements, maintains and disseminates procurement strategy, policy, standards, methods and processes.

Proposed for SFIA 4: Use of this skill at this level

Clarifies specifications for key products and services. Investigates the technical and commercial options for fulfilling the requirements, including possible sources of supply, and agrees the preferred options and potential suppliers with the business. Ensures that suppliers are approved in accordance with company procedures. Manages the tender, evaluation and acquisition process with expert assistance as required. Typically as part of a wider commercial and legal team, assists with negotiations with preferred suppliers, drafting contracts and technical schedules, and developing acceptance procedures and criteria. Places contracts. Implements, maintains and disseminates procurement strategy, policy, standards, methods and processes. ...

From: Procurement: Level 5, SFIA Foundation, 2008

Supplier relationship management seems less relevant.

Quality management	Quality management
	Quality assurance
	Quality standards
	Compliance audit
	Safety assessment

The quality management Subcategory is relevant, in that there are many similarities between the software quality standards used in ICT and the ISO 14000 series environmental management standards. The Skill Compliance audit specifically refers to ISO 14,000:

The independent assessment of the conformity of any activity, process, deliverable, product or service with the criteria of specified standards, such as ISO 27001, local standards, best practice, or other documented requirements. May relate to, for example, asset management, network security tools, firewalls and internet security, real-time systems and application design.

SFIA 3: Use of this skill at this level

Evaluates and independently appraises the internal control of automated business processes, based on investigation evidence and assessments undertaken by self or team. Ensures that independent appraisals follow agreed procedure and advises others on the audit process. Provides advice to management on ways of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their control mechanisms. Compliance activity can include safety assessments of the design, testing and validation and verification methods used in given safety-related systems. Involves the identification and evaluation of associated risks and how they can be reduced. ...

From: Compliance review (Replaces "Compliance audit"): Level 5, SFIA Foundation, 2008

Safety assessment looks less relevant as it refers mostly to human safety, not that of the entire planet.

Resource management	Project office
	Asset management
	Information System co-ordination
	Client services management
	Professional development
	Resourcing

Resource management looks a little too operational for Green ICT.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 4 Online Social Networking Course Coordination

In part three I wrote some learning objectives for a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies" for the ACS Computer Professional Education Program (CPE Program). Last night I attended a weekly staff meeting of the coordinators, educational designers, tutors and mentors for ACS Education. This was held using an online text chat forum, which worked well.

About eight people attended the meeting for an hour. You can see the list of who is online, who is currently writing and who arrives and leaves. One person acts as the chair, introducing topics, but due to the asynchronous nature of this form of communication, the short text messages which arrive could well be referring to the previous item.

This system worked well and in many ways is better than a face-to-face meeting or a video/audio conference (such as the Green ICT video conferecne last week). In an audio event only one person can talk at a time and they can hold up proceedings by talking too much. With the text chat, everyone can contribute at once and long contributions can simply be ignored (not that there were any on this occasion).

One useful feature is the ability to include a web address in the text, with these being automatically converted to hypertext links. This is much more useful that the usual practice at a meeting where someone vaguely refers to a document and everyone tries to scribble down the details.

One problem is that the software used does not have a spell checker built in. Normally I spell check everything I write several times before sending. But this was not possible with the real time chat, so every third word I sent was misspelled.

Another issue is that text chat is written and therefore can be archived and may be treated as an official record. In theory an audio or video recording of a meeting may be similar kept, but in practice this is harder to do and harder to search.

e-Learning Course on Green ICT Strategies: Part 3 Corrections and Frameworks

In part two I started writing the description of a new e-learning course on "Green IT Strategies" for the ACS Computer Professional Education Program (CPE Program). My next task is to provide learning objectives and competencies based on the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) . The course and assessment then needs to be mapped out.

Corrections

David Lindley, Academic Principal of ACS Education, asked why I had titled the course "IT" (Information Technology) rather than the newer term ICT (Information and Communications Technology). It turns out that was a misunderstanding on my part, thinking IT was the term ACS used in its courses. So I have changed IT to ICT.

Chris Blackall pointed out I had duplicated one of the SFIA competences and had some useful suggestions for the content (covered in the next posting). We discussed this at a PPS (Purple Pickle Symposium).

One problem I had was the new Open Office 3.0 crashed about every third edit I did on my document. I suspect this is due to the mixture of HTML I had, from cutting and pasting my course outline document from several different sources. I attempted to report the problem but was unable to fathom the OOO error reporting system. To overcome the problem I cleaned the HTML with HTML Tidy.

One success I did have in terms of tools, is that I was able to install an Australian English dictionary and a Language Tool to check grammar, using the Open Office Extensions Facility. The spell checker in OOO underlines misspelling in red, whereas the grammar checker uses blue. The extension facility allows extra features to be easily added to the word processor.

While I was worrying about formatting details, I inserted a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License into the HTML and added a line to say this was a non approved draft, not a final document.

Learning Objectives and Frameworks

The seven learning objectives (as per Bloom's Taxonomy), I wrote were based on those from the ACS IT Service Management and Project Management subjects. David Lindley, liked the last of these:

Apply specific Green IT Strategies techniques such as impact analysis, estimation techniques, energy and material life cycle analysis;

He also suggested I look at the SFIA skill sets for SFIA Level 5 in the categories: Procurement & Management support and Strategy & planning. At this point I got a lost. SFIA is arranged by Category, Subcategory, Skill and then by level (starting from level 7 and going down). If you are looking for a particular level, this is difficult as you have to sift out all the other levels. David has produced a spreadsheet just for Level 5, to help, but there were so many cells in the table, it made my eyes water. I had put this to one side several days ago and then couldn't find it. Perhaps what is needed is a web based service which will extract a custom subset, as required.

From a web search I found the SFIA consultation web site, which has drafts of new versions and a slightly easier to read format. I extracted and adapted the Procurement & Management support and Strategy & planning categories from there:

SFIA Procurement & Management support and Strategy & planning categories

Category	Subcategory	Skill
Procurement & management support	Supply management	Procurement
		Supplier relationship management
	Quality management	Quality management
		Quality assurance
		Quality standards
		Compliance audit
		Safety assessment
	Resource management	Project office
		Asset management
		Information System co-ordination
		Client services management
		Professional development
		Resourcing
Strategy & planning	Information strategy	Information management
	Advice and guidance	Consultancy
		Technical specialism
	Business/IS strategy and planning	Research
		Innovation
		Business process improvement
		Strategic application of information systems
		Business risk management
		Information security
		Information assurance
	Technical strategy and planning	Systems architecture
		Emerging technology monitoring
		Continuity management
		Software development process improvement
		Network planning
		Methods and tools

What I need to do now is to go through each of these, and see if the skill sets for SFIA Level 5 are applicable. Then I can write a description of a learning outcome which corresponds, followed by a suitable assessment to measure it and then the course content for it.

e-Learning Course on Green IT Strategies: Part 2 Learning Outcomes

In part one I decided I am going to use an Open Access licence for an e-learning course write a "Green IT Strategies" in the ACS Computer Professional Education Program (CPE Program). My next task is to provide a description of the course, including learning objectives and competencies based on the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) . The course and assessment then needs to be mapped out.

Fortunately I have the existing CPE Program subjects to use as a model:

1. Business, Legal and Ethical Issues
2. New Technology Alignment
3. Business, Strategy and IT
4. Project Management
5. IT Service Management
6. Adaptive Business Intelligence
   

The most relevant seemed to be IT Service Management, so used that as a start. The first step is to take a copy of the description of the course and paste it into an editing program (I use Open Office 3.0). Then I substituted "Green IT Strategies" for "IT Service Management".

Welcome Unchanged

The first introductory section of the description did not need any changes, apart from substituting the new the course name. This is really an introduction to the philosophy behind the ACS CPe Program, shared by all courses. Not all of this I agree with, as for example the assumption that the students are over-achievers". However, given courses at Australia's leading university, I guess I am surrounded by such overachievers, every day. ;-)

Welcome to our elective subject Green IT Strategies (ITSM) within the Australian Computer Society’s Computer Professional Education Program.

When preparing this subject, as with all the subjects in the Computer Professional Education Program, we have assumed that you and your fellow students are over-achievers; self-motivated, disciplined, and determined to succeed. You have extensive prior knowledge and experience relevant to your study; you are open-minded about sharing your work and educational experiences; and you accept critical thinking as part of the learning process. Further, you are comfortable with, and competent in, written communications; and you recognise that effective learning can occur outside a traditional classroom. Most importantly, you want to control how, when, and where you learn.

Critical to your success in this subject is a regular and disciplined study routine. Only through consistency will you keep up-to-date. Every week there will be specific tasks to complete and, if you fall behind, it will be difficult to catch up.

Also important is that you correspond; at least twice every week; with your fellow students and tutor. Your correspondence must be intelligent and investigative. You will answer questions posed by your tutors, and then debate your answers with your classmates.

Learning Outcomes

Obviously the learning outcome of a course on IT Service management did not fit a course on Green IT, so I started rewriting the text incorporating what someone who had done the course would be expected to be able to do. One difficulty with this was there was no set body of knowledge or accepted practice I could point to, as can be done with IT Service management, which can reference the well established ITIL. So I made the language less strong, pointing out that this is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach, practices being developed with methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested. Qualification schemes and accreditation are still being established. Those completing this subject may be involved in that development.

In the absence of an accepted approach and texts I had to cite what I considered the best sources available. The ones I have initially chosen are:

1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008

2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.
   

3. Energy Star Program , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007

The Sustainable IT Lecture Series, grew out of a series for engineers. At my suggestion, The Natural Edge Project then did a series specifically for IT professionals (Sponsored by HP Australia). The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is an implementation of IEEE 1680 Standard. The Energy Star Program, are from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. EPEAT and Energy Star are required for US Government purchasing and in RFT 0708-705 – Provision of Desktop, LAN, Helpdesk, and Midrange Services, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage, 7 August 2008. It is likely these will be adopted by the Australian Government.

The IT SM subject had only three learning objectives, which is possible as the ITIL system it is based on is so well defined. For something less established, more objectives were needed. So I copied in the thirteen objectives from the Project Management subject, eventually trimming this down to seven. The objectives will need to be refined and they use a very specific set of words, the subtleties of which I am not fully conversant with.

Green IT Strategies is an emerging discipline with no widely accepted approach. This subject is drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally. Implementation methodologies and assessment tools currently being field-tested are introduced. Qualification schemes and accreditation are yet to be established and it is possible those completing this subject may be involved in that development.

The ACS course on Green IT Strategies is based on: