Matthew is Associate Professor of Internet Studies. He joined Curtin University of Technology in 1994, working in the then-School of Social Sciences and Asian Languages. In 1999 Matthew established the Internet Studies program and is now the foundation Head of the Department of Internet Studies. He has also served as Associate Dean Teaching and Learning for the Division of Humanities (2003-2005). Matthew has been President of the Association of Internet Researchers (2005-2007), was awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellowship in 2008 and was also awarded an Australian Award for University Teaching in 2000. He is currently Chairman of the Library Board of Western Australia, having served on the Board since 2003.

Matthew obtained a PhD from the Australian National University in 1991 and, in that year, first came to Perth to work at the University of Western Australia. In 1994 he had the great fortune to be appointed as a lecturer in social sciences, principally teaching critical thinking and history. Since then, he has variously taught and research in media and cultural studies, before, in 1998, becoming engaged with internet studies, establishing one of the first units at Curtin to explore the social and cultural dimensions of the Internet. While Matthew has many diverse research and teaching interests, they all are underpinned by a desire to understand better the ways in which organisations, societies and people change through their connection with innovations in technology. Within this desire, Matthew focuses particularly on the way people understand and make sense of these technologies, as parts of their experience and engagement with the world, not simply as ‘tools’. This intellectual foundation also underpins Matthew's innovative work in online learning, which emphasises the importance of the human dimensions of learning and teaching at university, using technologies to mediate and transform education.

Matthew's current research interests are:

• Learning in Networks of Knowledge, looking at online learning and Web 2.0 (funded by his ALTC fellowship)
• The experience of connectivity, looking at how Australian Internet users experience and understand their uses of the Internet to achieve greater goals in life (article to appear in 2010 in Information, Communicatio and Society).
• The meaning of Web 2.0 - how we use terms such as this to mark out the history and purpose of Internet technologies (article recently published in Communicatuion, Politics and Culture 2009)

In his role as Head of Department, Matthew's main role in undergraduate teaching is curriculum and staffing management. He is currently responsible for developing two new units of study for 2010 for the revised Internet Communications major offered through Curtin and Open Universities Australia.

Matthew is responsible for several doctoral student supervisions, across many areas of scholarly inquiry involving network technologies and human society. He has supervised four students successfully to completion and award of a PhD, has assisted in the supervision of two more successful students and currently has 3 students under examination or about to submit. Several more students are currently completing their PhDs under his supervision.

Matthew is a Life Member of the Association of Internet Researchers, and served on the Executive of AoIR from 2001-2009. In 2003, he chaired the AoIR conference in Toronto and assisted with organising the first AoIR conference in Australia, held in Brisbane, 200. He is also a member of the Australia and New Zealand Communications Association.

Matthew is an editorial board member for several leading journals including:

• International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society;
• International Journal of Communications Law and Policy;
• Continuum;
• Journal of Universal Science and Technology for Learning;
• Information, Communication and Society
  

2008 - ALTC Teaching Fellowship

2000 - Australian Award for University Teaching - category Social Sciences

Book Chapters (Authored, Research Quality)

• Allen, M. 2006. Broadband Technologies, Techno-Optimism and the "Hopeful" Citizen. In International Handbook Of Virtual Learning Environments, eds Joel Weiss, Jason Nolan, Jeremy Hunsinger, Peter Trifonas, 1525-1547. The Netherlands: Springer.
• Allen, M. 2004. Domesticating the Internet: Content regulation, virtual nation-building and the family. In Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia, eds Gerard Goggin, 229-241. New South Wales: University of New South Wales Press.
• Allen, M. 1996. Forgetting and Remembering: The Contradictions of “Australia Remembers. In On the Homefront: Western Australia and World War II, eds Jenny Gergory, 281-292. Nedlands: UWA Press.
• Allen, M, and Cocks, E. 1996. Discourses of Disability. In Under the Blue Skies? The Social Constricution of Intellectual Disability in Western Australia, eds Mark Brogan, Errol Cocks and Charlie Fox, 282-317. Perth: Centre For Disability Research and Development.
• Allen, M. 1994. See You in the City”: Surveillance in Perth’s Citiplace. In Metropolis Now, eds Kathy Gibson and Sophie Watson, 137-146. Sydney: Pluto.

Refereed Articles (Scholarly Journals)

• Allen, M. 2008. Web 2.0: An argument against convergence. First Monday 13(3).
• Allen, M. 2001. Hacking the Undernet: Libertarian limits, commercial containment. Australian Journal of Communication 28(3): 37-44.
• Retzlaff, L, and Allen, M. 1998. Libraries and information technology: towards the twenty-first century. Australian Library Journal 47(1): 91-99.
• Allen, M. 1998. Are we yet cyborgs? University students and the practical consequences of human-machinary subjectivity. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 30: 597-600.
• Long, J, and Allen, M. 1997. Capturing Gender: Identifying Spaces in Perth's Forrest Chase. Studies in Western Australian History 17: 139-156.
• Allen, M. 1996. Masculinity-as-Masquerade: The Funny Business of Gender on Man O Man. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 10(2): 60-77.
• Allen, M. 1995. Channel Surfing in Academic Television. Australian Journal of Communication 22(2): 84-94.

Fully written papers (Refereed Conference proceedings)

• Allen, M. 2003. Broadband Technologies, Techno-Optimism And The 'Hopeful' Citizen. Broadening the Band Association of Internet Researchers Conference, 01/10/2003. Toronto, Canada: Association of Internet Researchers.
• Allen, M. 2003. Dematerialised data and human desire: the Internet and copy culture. 2003 International Conference on Cyberworlds, 01/12/2003. Singapore: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc..
• Allen, M. 2001. From classes to communities: Internet-based learning and relations of individual learners to one another. SSGRR-2001 Conference on Advanced Internet for Business and Education, 04/06/2001. L'Aquila: SSGRR.
• Allen, M. 1996. A Dilemma: How do we enable and encourage students to ask questions, not simply answer them?. 5th Annual teaching and learning forum, 05/02/1996. Murdoch: Murdoch University.
• Allen, M. 1996. The Future of Knowledge and Subjectivity in Higher Education. International Networking: Education, Training and Change, 22/09/1996. perth: Edith Cowan University.
• Allen, M. 1995. Giving away the marks... or taking the 'ass' out of assessment. 4th Annual Teaching and Learning Forum, 03/02/1995. Edith Cowan University: Edith Cowan University.