Explore, Learn, Experience: Berwick Campus News

Joining the DoTS to Success

Thousands of students from around Victoria will receive their university offers this month. For many it will be a successful end to a year of hard work and persistance. For others, it will be a day met with disappointment as they discover their ENTER has fallen short of their preferred university course.

Former St Francis Xavier School Captain, Tristan Vogrig, remembers only too well how anxious he was to receive his VCE results. He'd pinned all his hopes on four numbers, the all-important 'clearly in' score that he needed to secure his place in the Bachelor of Business and Commerce at Monash University. "I worked really hard but I didn't get the ENTER score that I wanted. I panicked at first because I really wanted to do this course. I could have done it somewhere else but I didn't want to," said Tristan.

Too many students pin all their hopes on one course, institution and most importantly, an ENTER score. They feel like their dreams have been cut short when they don't reach this goal. Monash Univesity is giving students with an ENTER above 50 a second chance to study at a university ranked in the world's top 50.

The Diploma of Tertiary Studies (DoTS) is a one-year program that provides students with additional study support and allows them to undertake subjects from the degree courses in Arts, Business & Commerce, Information Technology, Nursing and Education at the Berwick campus.

For many students, DoTS allows them to continue studying, expore university and gain extra support. "DoTS is a great social atmosphere, everyone is on the same page in class. It means you've got a second chance to get into the course you want, at the university you want. I'm starting 2nd year of the degree this year and I know that I've worked for it," said Tristan.

Post-ENTER DoTS applications close Friday 15 January.

To find out more about the course, click here

To download an application form, click here

The Yanyuwa Songlines team, Brent McKee, Dr John Bradley and Tom Chandler are collaborating to preserve the vanishing Yanyuwa language and culture.

A still from one of the Songlines animations by Tom Chandler, Brent McKee, Chandara Ung and Dr John Bradley.

Using Multimedia to Save a Lost Culture

Researchers from Monash University are using animation to preserve a dying culture. The Songlines project coordinated by Dr John Bradley and Berwick School of Information Technology researcher, Tom Chandler, is fighting against time to produce a series of animated films that will assist with the cross-generational transfer of the Yanyuwa culture.

The Yanyuwa people live in Borroloola in the south west Gulf of Carpentaria, 1000 Kilometeres south east of Darwin. As with many Indigenous groups in Australia they are faced with issues associated with language decline. When Dr John Bradley began working with the community more than 30 years ago there were 200 speakers of the langauge. Now, there are four.

"The content is sacred and with loss of language comes the loss of culture. What do we do?" said Dr Bradley.

Tom Chandler and Research Assitants, Brent McKee and Chandara Ung entered the project at a critical point for the community. With permission from the community elders they worked from illustrations and maps of the land to create animated songlines that could capture the mythological past and the present.

The team are working closely with the community to make sure that their work is accurate and represents the dreamtime stories appropriately. The response from the Yanyuwa people has been incredibly positive, "when they see the work they say, do more, do more!" said Dr Bradley.

"It's an amazing job. Watching the adults watching their kids is exciting. A 9 year old boy can now sing all verses of the songline. The animations are making something incredibly intangible, tangible," said Dr Bradley.

To find out more about the Animated Songlines project, click here

To find out more about studying multimedia at Monash University, click here

Celebrating the new cross-faculty, campus-based research group are; (back row from left) Ass. Prof. Gil Soo-Han, Mr Lindsay Smith, Mr Tom Chandler, Dr Daniel Black & Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Phillip Steele. (Front from left) Mrs Lucie Joschko, Dr Marian Quigley, Mr Derrick Martin & Mr Mark Power.

New Campus-Based Research Group is Launched at Berwick

Berwick celebrated the launch of the Animation and Visualisation Research Group (AVRG) in December. The new campus-based, cross-disciplinary group draws together reserachers from the Faculties of Information Technnology, Arts and Business and Economics to explore the various domains of animation.

The new group emerged from research and teaching collaborations between the Faculties of Arts and Information Technology in the shared undergraduate unit 'Animation Cultures' and from the 2005 Animation Symposium and 2007 Animated Dialogues Conference events hosted at the Berwick campus.

Founding member, Lucie Joschko said the group holds an important place in research at Monash University as animation is gaining increased critical attention amongst scholars. "It is a ubiquitous and versatile mode of communication, expression and simulation which permeates the creative and entertainment industries and the fields of virtual heritage, visual communication, advertising and marketing, visualisation and ismulation studies, inforamtion graphics, computer science, geo-science and archaeology," says Mrs Joschko.

The groups' research portfolio is already impressive with high profile virtual herigage and 3D reconstructive archaeology projects being undertaken in Egypt, Cambodia and within Australia, visual simulation work assisting geographers in local councils and study into animation and digital cultures, digital arts and sciences.

To find out more about AVRG, click here

For a list of AVRG's current projects, click here

Members of the World-beating Team Baldwin.

Virtual Business Proves Successful for Berwick Students

Five final year Business and Commerce students from Berwick have used their business nous to beat more than 2082 teams from some of the world's leading universities in an online business simulation program . Team Baldwin competed in the program as part of their third year business studies.

"The students run their own companies in a simulated buisness world environment. Every team begins the contest with $40 million virtual cash and a simulated company. Over twelve-weeks, scaled to represent eight years of trading, the players plotted corporate expansion, launched products, resisted take-overs and fought share market slumps," said Subject Coordinator, Professor Sonja Petrovic-Lazarevic.

Berwick's Team Baldwin members, Gabor Kiss, Joel Sloane, Jaimie Chicic, Andrei Fagarasan and Svend Alexander Eriksen said it was a great learning experience. "It complemented our course. We realised how one decision can affect other things," said Alex.

The competition for undergraduates attracts players from 500 universities around the world, including teams from the prestigious USA and UK univerisities Harvard, Oxford and Yale. Monash University was the first Australian university to enter the competition in 2004 and this is the first time the subject has been offered at Berwick. While Monash students have always performed admirably, Team Baldwin have been the most succesful to date. "Students have demonstrated a high level of performance. It is a great success for the Department of Management and Monash University," Professor Petrovic-Lazarevic said.

Team Baldwin ranked fourth based on final profit achieved. "It wasn't luck; it was a better product at a better price. We performed better and sold more, a pretty simple equation really,"

Some of the final year students before the exhibition opens.

Guests explore the students' folios on the Apple computers.

Most Outstanding Student in Third Year Studio, John Treseder.

Top Multimedia Students Honoured in Exhibition and Awards Ceremony

The Berwick School of Information Technology celebrated the talent of their final year students with an exhibition and awards evening at the Caulfield campus last month.

More than 30 graduating students presented their work to industry peers, academic staff and supporters through portals on a row of Apple computers. Guests were treated to a diverse range of multimedia work including 3D, animation, game design, digital video, educational applications, web applications, database programming and Flash Development.

Students were on-hand to discuss their work and provide demonstrations before taking their seats for a dynamic retrospective of their work and the 2008 Berwick School of Information Technology Awards .

Key note speaker and former Monash University Master of Multimedia Program Coordinator, Dennis Messina, congratulated the students on their outstanding work and highlighted the healthy state of the industry they will be entering.

The evening culminated in the presentation of awards to the top performing students in their final year subjects and two awards for outstanding acheivement by a first and second year student.

John Treseder was awarded the top honour of Outstanding Student in Third Year Studio for his project, 'The Tea Lady.' Studio Coordinator, Matthew Butler said there was tough competition in this category with many students producing innovative and accomplished projects throughout the year. It was Mr Treseder's creativity and bold ambition that stood out from his peers when Mr Butler was assessing his work.

'The Tea Lady,' created in Flash, processes custom made cups of tea for the fastidious tastes of the tea connoisseur. "I did it out of sheer love for tea and my own need to have the perfect cup while studying. I also knew that it wasn't going to be easy but I wanted to challenge myself," said Mr Treseder.

"When John first came to me with this project, I thought he was crazy. It was incredibly ambitious and I just didn't know whether it could be pulled off, but he did it!" said Mr Butler.

The recipients of the 2008 Berwick School of Information Technology Awards are;

Outstanding First Year Student Award: Trent Gwillim

Outstanding Second Year Student Award: Jeremie Delbosc

Outstanding Student in Animation and FX: Bennett Owen

Outstanding Student in Digital Video Post Production: Jamie Dunbar

Outstanding Student in Interactive Environments: Sarah Jonas

Outstanding Student in Principles of Educational Multimedia: Jared Yeo

Outstanding Student in Third Year Studio: John Treseder

Outstanding Student in Advanced Website Authoring: Keegan Street

Outstanding Student in Information Visualisation: Jared Yeo

To find out more about the multimedia major at Berwick, click here.

Previous issues of Berwick Campus News available here