ITP Techblog

ITP has been profiling some of the international bodies doing some great things for the IT profession, and explaining how New Zealand's tech community can engage. This month we have more news from IFIP, the international federation of national tech professional bodies like ITP, and have asked New Zealand's IFIP representative, Elizabeth Eastwood, to give us an update.

 

Recently I attended the 2016 IFIP GA Summit meeting and am happy to report progress in a few areas on the international stage.

IFIP Website is a reality

IFIP is a very active body, but hasn't always been the best at communicating what it does. With this in mind, the new IFIP website is beginning to be a worthwhile source of information. To discover what is happening at the international level, there is now one portal:

http://www.ifipnews.org/

For details of upcoming technical conferences a full list is published here:

http://ifip.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=452

This older websitehttp://ifip.org/ contains a lot of valuable content but is difficult to navigate. Be assured that there is a plan to, gradually, transfer relevant content to the new website. 

It is also worth noting that many of the 14 technical committees (representing over 100 subcommittees) are doing some excellent work and the marketing team are trying to make it easy for them to get their light out from under the bushel by publishing announcements on the Web. 

Note that topics such as Health Informatics do not appear in the list but in this case is highly active under TC9. There is also a lot of activity around others such as  Disaster Risk Reduction.

 

Academic Digital Library for Everyone

Alongside the upcoming ITP video library, a new Digital Library of academic papers from IFIP conferences is due for completion at the end of 2017. Progress has been a little slow but it's nearing completion. The major tasks involve the creation of a robust workflow to enable relevant metadata to be incorporated into the Library. 

Authors of technical papers have a strong preference to reach the widest possible audience as quickly as possible so the intention is to publish to the Public Domain. However, the IFIP publisher, Springer, http://www.springer.com reserves the right to own the intellectual property for 3 years. This means that some papers may only appear in the Library after 3 years.  However, all other publications, including some conference materials, will be digitised immediately. 

 

Professional Certification

America, UK (BCS), Europe (ITPE) and the International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3) have been working towards a common certification programme for some time. While this has been relatively slow going, recently the Europeans have agreed to work towards aligning themselves with IP3. ITPE is now planning to adopt the SFIA framework.

 

In particular, the Netherlands have opted for IP3 certification instead of the European ITPE because they believe the truly international nature of IP3, rather than Europe-specific, gives it the best chance of global success. They are also working on an equivalence matrix. 

Currently 12 countries are formal members of IP3 (including IT Professionals NZ) and only a few have obtained IP3 accreditation. So here in New Zealand we continue to "watch this space". 

 

Internet of Things and the role of IFIP

Leon Strous (outgoing President) proposed that a new Technical Committee be formed to address all issue relating to the Internet of Things. This proposal was approved.

 

Member Society Assembly

To enable better balance between the IT Industry and academia, a Member Society Assembly has been re-instated. This year I have been elected as Chair of this group and the first task is to agree the charter. In my opinion the (draft) words highlighted below are key:

• To share knowledge and experience and good practice.
• To stimulate action to develop new initiatives with regard to the nature and scope of the Federation's activities, the level of participation, and the need to ensure that the Federation constantly improves its relevance to its target audiences. 
• To discuss matters of concern to Member societies and make proposals to the General Assembly or other parts of the Federation's structure as considered appropriate.

 

All feedback on any of these topics is welcomed.

 

Elizabeth Eastwood is New Zealand's representative to IFIP, via IT Professionals New Zealand.

[email protected]