Speaker: Prof. Terry Bossomaier, the Strategic Research Professor in the Faculty of Business at Charles Sturt University.

Date: 17 September 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 12:45-2:00 pm
Venue: Room 101 Runme Shaw Building

About the speaker:

Terry Bossomaier is the Strategic Research Professor in the Faculty of Business at Charles Sturt University. His research interests are very diverse, ranging from vision to high performance computing. He co-founded the Asia-Pacific Complex Systems conferences, which have run biennially since the early 90s. At Charles Sturt University he set up the Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS) and has run a series of complex systems research summer schools since 1998. His current research interests focus on the agent based modelling of socio economics systems and information-theoretic approaches to studying tipping points. He has published numerous articles range of fields from biological vision to high performance and parallel computing and is a co-author/editor of five books and is just completing a book on information flow in complex systems

Abstract: 

This talk will integrate two separate themes: the nature of tipping points in physical and social systems; and the existence of tipping points in learning and social systems.  The first theme will be a largely qualitative introduction to phase transitions and the use of information theory to identify them. The second theme will describe how online data has been used to identify phase transitions in the development of knowledge. We then offer some speculation as to how we can improve learning outcomes and measure advanced learning of professional skills.