The School of Network Computing has two interrelated roles: the provision of
quality courses and the conduct of research in network computing.
The school offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programs in the
area of network computing. The postgraduate courses offered are the Graduate
Certificate/Diploma in Network Computing, the Master of Computing by research,
the Master of Network Computing and the Doctor of Philosophy.
The school is housed in modern accommodation and offers excellent computing
facilities both for teaching and research. It is geared to the needs of
international students, with a significant proportion of its students coming
from overseas countries.
Further information can be obtained on the School of Network Computing website
at http://www.netcomp.monash.edu.au
Much
computing is now done in a networked context and relies on access to hardware
and software resources that reside on many geographically-dispersed computers.
Current research concerns fundamental methods and techniques in network
computing, together with novel applications that solve real problems.
Application areas range from industrial, governmental and financial sectors to
health care sectors.
Network computing draws on knowledge of data communications, computer equipment
and operating systems, computer networks, internet and web technologies,
distributed computing, internetworking, software engineering, computer security
and information systems. Within the networking computing initiative, research
is carried out in the following principal areas/groups.
The school has recently established a research centre, which is housed in a
separate building on campus. This facility is solely dedicated to research and
postgraduate study, and includes office accommodation, computer laboratories
and is a 24-hour facility.
This
research group conducts research in information security, cryptography and
security engineering. Current projects are probably secure private key
encryption systems, one-way hashing algorithms, secure public key encryption
systems, hierarchical information access control, security in databases,
digital cash, electronic commerce, multimedia watermarking and intellectual
property protection, security issues in smart cards, information sharing and
dispersal, and security in mobile computing and communications.
Research in this group is conducted at the newly established Laboratory for
Information and Network Security (LINKS), which is partially funded by
Canon Corporation.
This group is undertaking research in two main areas: methods of developing units for flexible delivery and models of web-based off-campus learning. A methodology has been developed for approaching the development of new units for delivery in flexible modes. The model aims to provide a series of steps or phases that course developers can follow in preparing the delivery of courses using various electronic and print-based media. A prototype is under development and testing for the delivery of a unit over the world wide web. The prototype includes innovative features such as real-time video and audio contact between lecturer and students.
This group conducts research in information systems engineering methods, system modelling techniques, CASE tools and their interoperability, and information systems method engineering. Current projects include integration of system modelling techniques, computer-assisted method engineering, integration of information systems through architectures, the impact of integrated CASE tools on system development and integration of hypermedia and CASE, all in the context of emerging network computing.
The research activities of this group are focused on network protocol design, multimedia communications over the internet, multicasting, network architecture design, network modelling, network simulation and network performance evaluation. This group offers an excellent opportunity to conduct application-oriented research on topics in key networking technologies such as mobile IP, integrated services internet-based on IPv6/IPv4/ATM protocols, wireless LANs offering multimedia services, wireless ATM, internetworking of xDSL to ATM network and multimedia applications design.
This research group concentrates on component technology and agent technology for mobile and wireless systems. Current projects are a mobile agent platform for m-commerce and active wireless networks.
This group conducts research in multimedia support for concurrent engineering, management of multimedia objects, synchronisation in multimedia systems, and multimedia information systems. Current projects include a framework for multimedia synchronisation with agents, human perception of multimedia synchronisation, and synchronisation of multimedia streams in a distributed environment with CORBA DSOM.
The Software and Enterprise Systems Group conducts research in software engineering environments, software traceability and consistency, software object management systems, software process modelling and enactment, computer-supported cooperative work, object-oriented technology, and software components and architectures and enterprise systems integration. Current projects include a document-based approach to software engineering environments, traceability support for object-oriented software development, an object management system for software engineering environments, computer-supported group work in software development, document-based software process modelling, and software composition and integration.
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