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Students log in to ‘new world’ of planning

October 21, 2004

Students of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of New England
will soon be able to track a development application (DA) through the intricacies of the local council approval process by logging in to the Internet.
Angus Witherby, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s Urban and Regional Planning
programs, pointed out that this use of the Internet would not only give the
University’s students access to a “real-world system”, but would give equal
access to both internal and external students. “A student anywhere in the
world can take part in this learning experience,” he said.

UNE has signed an agreement with the Internet development company
Internetrix and Shellharbour Council to give it access to the revolutionary
new DA tracking system that Internetrix has developed (with Shellharbour
Council as the pilot site). The system, called “eDA”, is the first fully
online submission and tracking system for DAs in Australia, and UNE will be
the first university to use it as an educational tool.
Mr Witherby said that students would be able to make submissions to a
“virtual council” (using the interface that Shellharbour Council has
provided), with other students playing the roles of council officials. He
said this would replace a software program called “The DA Game” that he and
a colleague wrote 10 years ago. “We’re taking the next step: moving beyond
simulation into the use of real systems,” he said.
“The ‘eDA’ system itself represents the future direction of local
government,” he continued. “It introduces an openness of government activity
that we haven’t seen before. In many respects it’s a whole new world.”
This teaching innovation at UNE, to begin next year, will introduce the
University’s planning students to the “new world” of local government while
providing real-life experience for them to take into the workplace. “It
comes at a time when numbers of planning students at UNE (in both the
Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning and the Graduate Diploma in Urban
and Regional Planning programs) are growing,” Mr Witherby said. “Planning
and sustainability are key responsibilities of every community in the
country, and never more so than today.”
Media contact: Angus Witherby, School of Human and Environmental Studies,
UNE (02) 6773 2821 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at October 21, 2004 05:19 PM