1. Can you discuss the career that has led you to
your current position as Director of Strategic
Planning at Macquarie University?
My area of expertise is in quantum optical
nanoscience, and I recently held an Australian
Research Council Future Fellowship and an
Associate Professor position in the Department of
Physics, both at Macquarie University. I’ve always
been interested in the interface between research,
technology, business and the commercial world,
and therefore decided to redirect my career with
a role at Deloitte Australia in a big data and
business consulting role. This year I took up a
new position at Macquarie University to lead the
strategic planning portfolio.
How are big data and the digital world
impacting higher education?
Just as in most other sectors, data and digital
are bringing about a period of rapid change
in higher education driven by technological
advancements that enable rapid and high-
volume data generation and transmission. This
presents opportunities for new and perhaps
better ways of engaging with and teaching
students, and certainly a broader reach than
ever before. Some areas of research, including
biology, physics and economics, require the
collection and analysis of large volumes of
rapidly changing data. It’s become increasingly
critical to employ sophisticated data capture and
analysis technologies to extract insights from
such data. In many ways, big data is nothing
new for researchers – the development of new
systems and techniques able to cope with
growing datasets, however, allows them to unlock
previously inaccessible insights.
What are the ‘four Vs’ of big data?
Could you describe the main
challenges associated with these?
The four Vs of big data go a long way towards
describing the challenges associated with big
data – volume, variety, velocity and veracity.
Data is fundamentally comprised of zeroes and
ones that collectively describe something. There
is enormous value in data if the four Vs can be
managed and the data harnessed. Volume is the
size of the data object, and a larger volume of
data usually means more granular and detailed
information. Variety refers to the range of
different types and formats in which data can
be represented, velocity is the rapidly changing
nature of many sources of data and veracity is a
fourth descriptor that emphasises the uncertain
nature and quality of some data. There is in fact a
fifth V, ‘value’, and this really comes into play as
organisations face key decision points as to what
and how they invest in developing and analysing
their data assets. The value is the potential return
on that investment.
How could digital disruption be harnessed to
continue to inspire learning in students?
People talk about the ‘iPad® generation’, which
really highlights the abrupt digital changes that
have occurred in the last 10 years because of
technology. Digital and wireless technologies
have transformed the way we all interact, and
the changes are particularly impactful for the
younger generations, many of whom began life
swiping screens with their fingers and engaging in
video chats with their grandparents on the other
side of the globe. This means they will be adapted
and open to new ways of communicating and
learning that were never before possible. There
is undoubtedly a careful balance that must be
struck. It’s about getting the best things from
traditional learning and augmenting it with digital
capabilities, but also introducing completely
new approaches to teaching that are only made
possible with digital.
Data is now commonly used to provide
institutions with a competitive advantage.
To what extent can analytics be leveraged to
obtain the required intelligence?
One of the concepts that quickly becomes clear,
when engaging with an organisation to leverage
their data assets and explore the potential to
generate insights, is that data tools and systems
are only a small part of the solution. Data is
now everywhere, but it exists in a myriad of
forms with variable quality and consistency.
The challenge is to process the data to a point
where analysis can be conducted across systems
and business units and then represented, for
example, using a range of visualisation tools.
The enormous and complex body of data that
underpins a relatively small ‘insight’ is analogous
to the invisible subsurface of an iceberg that
supports and balances the exposed tip above the
sea surface.
Dr James Rabeau shares his thoughts on the future of data
and digital disruption, focusing in particular on the impacts on
industry and, importantly, the education of a digital generation
Impending
information
DRJAMESRABEAU
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2. IN MODERN LIFE, there are few things
that cannot be done digitally. Technological
resources like the laptop, the smart phone
and the tablet computer open up new worlds
of possibility when it comes to transferring
all kinds of data, whether for the purpose of
entertainment, business or communication.
Originally introduced with the primary
objective of facilitating processes already
central to everyday life, these tools have in
recent years begun to shape human society
and behaviour. Today, digital technology has
had a transformative impact on a variety of
industries, from retail to finance and media –
and although the changes have been fast and
extensive, there will undoubtedly be more to
come in the next few decades.
A number of sectors are facing a deluge of data;
big data, and often too-big data, represents
a challenge in many fields of research and
industry that is very difficult to surmount. Just
in terms of data commonly transferred, the last
few decades has seen a transition from simple
numerical and text-based files at perhaps a
few kilobytes per record through image and
audio files that take up a few megabytes to
regular and high-definition video clips, which
can occupy as much as 50 gigabytes. When
this flood of data is considered in terms of
traditional industries, the impact becomes
starkly clear.
THE FUTURE SIGHT
This powerful combination of data superfluity
and digital devices will revolutionise not
only the way people shop, but every other
aspect of industry as well. In the Australian
context, Deloitte has examined this
impending transformation in its white paper
Digital Disruption: Short Fuse, Big Bang?,
the second instalment of the Building the
Lucky Country: Business Imperatives for a
Prosperous Australia series. The short fuse, big
bang concept refers to two qualities of the
expected digital disruption that vary between
industries: the scale of that disruption and
the length of time before it occurs. Retail,
ICT, media, finance, arts and recreation, and
real estate, for example, are short fuse, big
bang industries.
Dr James Rabeau has gained an important
insight into things to come – and one which
he hopes can be reapplied in an industry
of great national significance to Australia.
Originally a well-recognised Associate
Professor of Physics at Macquarie University,
Rabeau held an Australian Research Council
Future Fellowship for his extensive work on
nanodiamond quantum sensing and imaging.
In 2011, he became an Account Director in
Data Analytics consulting at Deloitte Australia,
where he spent two years consulting in
financial, governmental and higher education
institutions. Most recently, he has returned to
Macquarie to draw on his combined academic
and commercial experience in order to lead
the strategic planning portfolio as Director
of Strategic Planning and is thinking carefully
about how to adapt in a rapidly changing
technological environment.
GOING OFF WITH A BANG
According to the Deloitte analysis, the
education sector falls into the long fuse, big
bang category; although changes are a few
years behind those in retail, they are already
well underway and the impact of new data
infrastructure and digital resources will indeed
be big. Across the board, Deloitte’s white
paper recommends a number of changes to
Data explosion
Over recent decades, radical changes to the way business, social interaction and leisure activities are conducted
have been brought about by a positive explosion of data and digital technology; now, many universities across the
world are thinking about how to harness the changes in a way that benefits students, teachers and researchers
DR JAMES RABEAU
64 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION

3. DIGITAL DISRUPTION
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
OBJECTIVES
To harness the opportunities of digital
disruption in the higher education
sector. The profound and rapid changes
brought upon by developments in data
and digital technologies, are having an
enormous impact on society. The speed
at which information can be accessed,
processed and communicated has already
completely changed the retail industry,
finance and media. Higher education is
being forced to introspect more deeply
than ever before. Students in particular
are being brought up in an era where
wireless digital communications are the
norm. Virtual worlds are commonplace
in the games they play. As a result,
the way in which they compile and
process information is different.
In order to remain relevant and
competitive in this changing landscape,
higher education and research institutes
have to understand and evolve with
the changes – it’s a matter of survival.
Not only that, as research and higher
education providers, universities have a
profound responsibility to ensure that
advancement in learning, teaching and
research is not stifled simply because of
a reluctance to deviate from the status
quo (no matter how deeply rooted it is).
CONTACT
Associate Professor James Rabeau
Director of Strategic Planning
Macquarie University
New South Wales 2109
Australia
T +61 2 9850 4741
E james.rabeau@mq.edu.au
http://bit.ly/JamesRabeau
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR JAMES
RABEAU has held an Australian Research
Council Future Fellowship for his work
on nanodiamond quantum sensing and
imaging. His most recent academic
position was Associate Professor in
Physics at Macquarie University, which
he held until January 2012. Rabeau was
offered the role of Director at Deloitte
Australia in the area of big data analytics
and consulting where he spent two years
consulting in financial, government and
higher education institutes. His current
role as Director of Strategic Planning
at Macquarie University draws on
capabilities developed across academic,
scientific and commercial roles.
save the 65 per cent of Australian industries
that fall into the two ‘big bang’ categories.
These suggestions come under three broad
categories: recalibrating cost structures,
replenishing revenue streams and reshaping
corporate strategy. In terms of cost structure,
people, supply and overhead are the main
foci; new segments, new geographies and new
business models, likewise, form the three main
prospects for revenue streams. Alterations to
corporate strategy, finally, should reflect the
business’ asset mix, capacity to act and risk
management objectives.
There are also opportunities presented by
this new environment, however – as the
paper argues. Deloitte Access Economics, for
example, has predicted that teleworking could
be a big saver for Australian businesses – if only
10 per cent of all employees were to telework
half the time, then the benefit to the economy
would be between AUD $1.4 and 1.9 billion.
Similarly, the paper highlights results from
a previous Optus report which demonstrate
that the number of companies offering mobile
apps for their customers is set to grow by 30
per cent in 2016. Evidently, there are some
businesses that are already prepared to exploit
digital technologies – and it is the behaviour of
these active few that will guide the rest.
TEACHING TEACHERS
In the field of education, these innovative
leaders are just beginning to emerge. One
example of digital disruption in higher
education, for example, has been the
appearance of massive open online courses.
In 2012, 800 of these courses were launched
by 200 universities around the world – and
the uptake was massive. 6.5 million students
enrolled in the first year, and this interest
has continued to grow, validating the large
investments of high-profile universities
such as Stanford and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in this kind
of infrastructure. Today, Coursera alone has
more than 3 million students in almost 200
countries around the world – and the reach of
these courses is undeniable.
Another area that has perhaps gained less
press, but will have an equally big impact, is
in how research outcomes are disseminated to
peers, industry and the public. Just asthe media
has seen an enormous upheaval because of
the rate and speed at which news can now be
disseminated, institutional research publishing
will undoubtedly experience a similar
upheaval. Although universities are slower to
adapt, there is great opportunity to harness
the many channels and reach associated with
unconventional digital vehicles.
CHANGE IS GOOD
These radical changes, which are no doubt
the tip of the iceberg, present a number of
challenges to the traditional university model
– and for higher education institutes, there
are therefore many factors to be considered
when thinking strategically. “Arguably,
many university graduates had their most
memorable experiences while living on or
near campus, and were strongly influenced
at a personal and professional level by these
experiences,” Rabeau explains; an important
question is to what degree the experience of
university life provides value beyond a simple
educational course. The answer is likely
to suggest that a balance must be struck
between the content and the experience
to ensure students are getting the best
education possible.
“The digital disruption the world is undergoing
will create change. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just
change, and with change comes opportunity,”
Rabeau summates. Universities are famously
traditional institutions, and ingrained habits do
not change overnight – but nonetheless, digital
disruption in the context of online courses, as
well as the prospects of virtual seminars and
pre-recorded lectures accessible through web
platforms, offer an opportunity to enhance
education. There are also considerable
opportunities to amplify engagement at
the interface between research-industry-
public, with breakthrough research outcomes
becoming more accessible and available
through digital channels. With a willingness
to adopt and adapt to technological changes,
universities like Macquarie can continue to
inspire students and teachers, enhance the
impact of institutional research and ensure
a competitive Australia in a mercurial future.
INTELLIGENCE
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