Research projects in Information Technology

Situation-awareness is the key to enabling intelligent IoT applications. Situation reasoning is used to aggregate multiple contextual information from physical and social sensors using reasoning methods, and convert them into useful high-level knowledge, i.e. situational intelligence. 

Recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence models have created exciting new possibilities for creative artists. But understanding how to work most effectively with these models is still a major challenge.

This research project is part of a DECRA fellowship funded by the Australian Research Council for a project titled, Everyday Insurtech: Impacts of Emerging Technology for Insurance. The fellowship will study the development, adoption, and implications of digital technology and insurance—such as tools for capturing individualised data about behavioural risk factors and automating enforcement of policy conditions.

A PhD scholarship is available as part of an exciting research collaboration between the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (MNHS) and indigenous communities in rural Victoria.

Timely access to information is essential to perform many economic and social activities. In today’s digital age, information is more and more often provided in digital form. However, the unreliability of Internet access can make it difficult for people living in rural areas to access information online, resulting in missed opportunities to pursue economic and social ventures.

The United Nations Development Programme has identified access to information as an essential element to support poverty eradication. People living in poverty are often unable to access information that is vital to their lives, such as information on their entitlements, public services, health, education or work opportunities. Timely access to information is essential to perform many economic, social and leisure activities. In today’s digital age, information is more and more often provided in digital form.

Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) has widely been recognised as an essential skill for success in the 21st century. Because of this, many researchers have focused on trying to better understand CPS in efforts to find out when it is effective, when it is not, and how to make it a teachable skill. 

People with disabilities are excluded from the assistive technology creation process because the methods and tools that are used are inaccessible. This leads to missed opportunities to create more accessible technologies for everyone including assistive technologies. This project will engage people with disabilities in the technology creation process at many levels, from engagement activities, input into designs and creation of technology and the facilitation of independent making of assistive technologies.

The Opportunity

This PhD scholarship is funded as an important collaboration between the Faculty of Information Technology and the ARC Laureate project Global Encounters and First Nations Peoples: 1000 years of Australian History, conducted by Professor Lynette Russell AM.