Abstracts of the fourth annual winter school on human factors

Abstract

The Winter School of the ARC Key Centre for Human Factors and Applied Cognitive Psychology has been run annually since the Key Centre's foundation in 1999. Previous Winter Schools were held at The University of Queensland (1999), University of New South Wales (2000), and University of Newcastle (2001). This year the Winter School was held at Emmanuel College, The University of Queensland.

The goal of the Winter School is to bring together Key Centre academics, students, and industry representatives to present and discuss work in progress in the various nodes of the Key Centre and to exchange ideas. It is an opportunity for members of the Key Centre to interact with industry and for mutual feedback amongst participants. A highlight of each Winter School has been the keynote speaker — Dr Roger Remington (NASA-Ames, USA) in 2000, Dr Dov Zohar (Technion — Israel Institute of Technology) in 2001 and Professor Erik Hollnagel (University of Linkoping, Sweden) this year.

Although each Winter School has seen papers on a wide variety of human factors themes, some meetings have had a distinct focus. This year the Winter School was organised by Professor Penelope Sanderson of The University of Queensland node of the Key Centre and the theme was control room design. This theme attracted a wider collection of industry speakers and industry attendees than in previous years, with the result that attendance was the largest of any Winter School to date at just under 50.

The Winter School 2002 took place over three days. On Day 1 papers were presented on aviation safety, human performance fundamentals, fatigue management, and interaction design. Day 2 led commenced Professor Hollnagel's keynote address “A Room with a View: Control Room Design from a Cognitive Systems Engineering Perspective”. The keynote address was followed by a series of papers from industry representatives and Key Centre academics. The day concluded with a round-table discussion facilitated by Professor Sanderson in which attendees discussed control room design issues with Professor Hollnagel. On Day 3 papers were presented on text and transcript analysis as well as on information representation in critical care. The Winter School concluded with a tour of the nearly-completed University of Queensland Usability Laboratory.