Computing Department News & Events
News
International interest in Isis Project!
Lancaster University research to develop computer software that can identify paedophiles who pretend to be children on the internet is set to be included in two high-profile international events. The project- known as Isis - was chosen as a UK case study by the British Computer Society for the Internet Governance Forum meeting in Sharm-Al-Sheikh, 15-18 November, 2009. It will also be featured in the 'ICT that makes a difference' conference in Brussels 22-25 November hosted by AALIANCE - funded by the European Commission. Isis has attracted significant media attention since it was launched last year. The project involves researchers from Computing,: Prof. Awais Rashid (lead), Dr. Paul Rayson, Dr. James Walkerdine, Dr. Phil Greenwood and Mr. Alistair Baron.
Prof Jon Whittle quoted in Lancaster Guardian!
The Computing Department's Professor Jon Whittle was quoted in the Lancaster Guardian, November 20th, talking about the Voice Your View project to gauge the views of library users in Lancaster.
Voice Your View At Lancaster Library!
The Department of Computing at InfoLab21 is involved in a pioneering project called “Voice Your View” at Lancaster library to enable people to leave feedback on the recent renovation of the building. Starting on Monday, November 23, library users will be able to leave feedback visible to all on a large TV screen. They will be able to record their views via telephone before a computer converts their words into a written message. Everyone in the library will be able to see the comments appear on large plasma TV screens where a glowing orb on-screen will be used to signal the mood of the participants, with a green orb for positive remarks and a red orb for negative ones. “Voice Your View” is funded by the EPSRC as part of the Digital Economy programme. To view the full story.
High praise for InfoLab21!
InfoLab21 has won praise from one of the largest software companies in the world. On October 23 InfoLab21 hosted the 2009 SAP UK and Ireland University Alliances Academic Forum which brought together around 55 participants from academia and industry. SAP is the third largest software vendor in the world and the SAP University Alliance is the largest academic/business collaboration in the world. Martin Gollogly, Director of the SAP University Alliance Program, said: “Lancaster is a key partner and I have found the faculty to be professional and enthusiastic with some of the most lucid and insightful students. It has always been a pleasure to work with them. I am also very pleased to be able to make use of the excellent facilities at Lancaster's InfoLab21. We have used the facilities in the past for workshops and conferences and have been looking forward to returning.” InfoLab21 is Lancaster University’s world-class ICT Centre of Excellence being a well equipped, high-tech environment providing ICT support for businesses. It also offers business incubation facilities, ICT education and training, research and development.
Lancaster first for Graduate jobs in the North!
Lancaster University is ranked 1st in the North for graduate jobs and 13th nationally in the Sunday Times University Guide. A total of 81.5 per cent of graduates from Lancaster are in a graduate level job six months after graduating according to this year’s Guide. This compares well with an 85.3 per cent rate of graduate level employment for both Oxford and Cambridge, which are jointly ranked sixth. Lancaster’s success in the graduate employment market is being further improved with a new initiative administered by the University’s Centre for Enterprise, Employability and Careers (CEEC). The Lancaster Award prepares students for the job market by ensuring they develop the skills employers want, whether through work experience, volunteering or social activities. To view the full story.
Prof Jon Whittle is one of six panellists at Manchester Science Festival!
Prof Jon Whittle participated in a panel on Wednesday 28th October as part of the Manchester Science Festival. The talk was entitled "Comixed, A networked conversation", on a number of pressing issues affecting all of us: Climate Change / The Digital Economy / Ageing / Food Security / Synthetic Biology. It was said to be an "interactive, interdisciplinary discussion of the scientific challenges of our time". The event was part of the Manchester Science Festival and was open to the public. More details can be found here.
Dr Enrico Rukzio mentioned in Il Sole 24 Ore!
The Computing Department's Dr. Enrico Rukzio and Lancaster University were mentioned in a major Italian financial newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore, which has a circulation of around 390,000 copies. The newspaper mentioned MobileHCI 2009 tutorials, which Dr. Rukzio organised and gave a talk during. Please see their site for more information.
Lancaster University opens new campus in India!
Lancaster University has formally launched a new campus in India which admitted its first cohort of 300 students in August this year. Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings visited the campus this week to celebrate the launch with the GD Goenka Chairman, meet the High Commissioner and give a public lecture. Professor Wellings also met with Lancaster Alumni in India. Lancaster is committed to bringing high quality higher education to India with its international partnership with Goenka and is the first and only university to deliver higher educational qualifications at the GD Education City in India, a 60 acre site located near Delhi. The University will offer the BSc Business Computing and Information Systems degree, of which 50% is Computing modules.
Lancaster University Vice-Chancellor celebrates success of Lancaster/Sunway graduates in Malaysia!
The Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings attended the degree ceremonies at Sunway University College, Malaysia on October 9th, where the Chancellor of Y.Bhg. Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah AO, conferred degrees on 86 students who made up the first full cohort on the dual Lancaster/Sunway degree. The students graduated with degrees in Computing, Psychology and Business. 80% of the cohort have received a higher second or first class degree.Lancaster and Sunway have also launched a number of jointly delivered postgraduate degrees starting this year. To view the full story.
Lancaster rises in world top 200!
Lancaster University has risen among the world’s best universities in the Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings 2009. Lancaster is one of only 29 UK universities ranked in the top 200 universities worldwide, coming in at number 162 – up eight places from 170. Lancaster is currently ranked as the top university in the North West in four major national league tables published this year – The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian and Independent. To view the full story.
Computing Department’s Distinguished Lecture Series!
The Computing
department is happy to announce its sixth Distinguished
Lecture.
The Computing Department's Dr Keith Mitchell is quoted in Music Industry News Network!
Dr Keith Mitchell, (Computing), the co-coordinating partner of the Living Lab trials which will test the P2P-Next, a new video delivery platform is quoted in Music Industry News Network, 28 September.
The Computing Department helps fight cyber-crime!
A new technology which will help identify the online activities of criminals has been developed at InfoLab21 through the collaboration of an academic and a resident business. Matt Potts, an MSc student from the Computing Department, has been working with Isis Forensics, a Lancaster University spin out company based in InfoLab21, to develop a new technology to help law enforcement agencies identify the digital fingerprint of a device connected to the Internet. This enables law enforcement agencies to build up the digital fingerprint of a device they may be monitoring, even if the IP address changes. The intention is to create a new range of products including this new technology. To view the full story.
Technology helps banish safety fears!
Researchers are harnessing developments in technology to help us feel safer in public. Whether you’re uneasy jogging through your local park or hesitant about crossing a busy road, a team of researchers are working on new ways to help people register their concerns and bring about a change to the way public spaces are designed. Mobile Computing and Artificial Intelligence are just some of the tools researchers are planning to use to capture public opinion during a series of trials in Lancaster, Coventry and Derry over coming years. Professor Jon Whittle of Lancaster University’s InfoLab21 is leading the £855,000 project funded under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Digital Economy programme. To view the full story.
Lancaster
ranked top in the NW by Sunday Times
Lancaster has been ranked
19th in the Sunday Times University Guide 2010, to be published on Sunday 13
September. As well as reporting that Lancaster’s students are ‘happiest in the
region’ the ST also ranks Lancaster top in the Northwest. This means that
Lancaster is now the top rated university in the Northwest by the latest Times,
Sunday Times, Guardian and Independent league tables. To
view the full story
Computing Department's Robert Hardy quoted in The Guardian!
Robert Hardy, a Research Associate in Computing was quoted in The Guardian on September 11th about mobile phone technology. Read the article here.Network research team win second best poster at the SIGCOMM conference!
Congratulations to Mr. Norbert Egi, Dr. Mickael Hoerdt, Dr. Panagiotis Papadimitriou and Prof. Laurent Mathy who gained an honourable mention for second best poster at this year's SIGCOMM conference for "A Platform for High Performance and Flexible Virtual Routers on Commodity Hardware". Lancaster was mentioned during the closing session of the conference and the poster extended abstract has now been invited for fast track publication in ACM SIGCOMM CCR. Well done boys!Computing Graduate John Hardy wins the Princess Alexandra Medal!
Computing Graduate John Miles Hardy has won a Princess Alexandra Medal for his effort and hard work! In December 2004 HRH Princess Alexandra retired as Chancellor of the University after holding the office for 40 years. To mark her long service, the University's Senate agreed that a Chancellor's Medal should be presented annually to the most meritorious students of Lancaster University. John obtained a first class degree in Computer Science Innovation and will carry on with his studies on the HighWire scheme. Congratulations John!
Lancaster top in the North for student satisfaction!
Students at Lancaster University are among the most satisfied in the country, according to the latest National Student Survey. Lancaster University has been ranked 11th overall and joint 9th amongst similar institutions with 89 per cent of Lancaster students saying they were satisfied with the overall student experience. To view the full story
Prof Awais Rashid mentioned in the Times Higher Education!
The Times Higher Education mentioned that the Computing
Department's Prof Awais Rashid has
been recruited as director of Lancaster's SciTech Graduate School,
which offers
integrated training in science and technology. Professor Rashid also
takes on
the position of associate dean for postgraduate studies. Read the
article here.
Computing Department's Dr Pete Sawyer to give talk at Ibero-American Workshop!
The Computing Department's Dr. Pete Sawyer is
to give a keynote talk at the 12th Ibero-American
Workshop on Requirements Engineering, to take
place in Valparaiso, Chile on the 16th
and
17th July.
The talk is on Tacit
Knowledge in Requirements
Engineering and reflects the work of the MaTREx project
MaTREx is developing an understanding of the nature of tacit knowledge
and how
it impacts on system requirements, and is developing tools and
techniques to
help analysts identify information that should be made explicit.
Mountain
Rescuers put ‘smart’ kit to the test!
Mountain rescuers have been trying out prototype kit developed at Lancaster University to help them keep in touch on life-saving missions in remote areas. Researchers from the Computing Department have developed smartphone software that can track the progress of a rescue mission. Once a casualty is found, the smartphones can also transmit vital medical information, such as heartbeat, temperature readings and images of injuries, to medics on-scene or in hospital. Because many rescue missions are in mountainous regions without Internet coverage, the researchers have also created a backpack which enables rescuers to create their own WiFi network wherever they go. To view the full story
Professor Awais Rashid becomes the first Director of Scitech Graduate School!
The Computing Department's Professor Awais Rashid has been
appointed as the first
Director of the Scitech Graduate School and Associate Dean for
Postgraduate
Studies. The SciTech Graduate School aims to offer an integrated
programme of
training for the next generation of leaders in science and technology,
in
industry, government and universities to prepare them to tackle global
scientific challenges. Professor Rashid, who works at the University’s
ICT hub,
Infolab21, has a wide range of expertise in developing postgraduate
teaching,
research and professional development programmes.
Computing
workshop helps future-proof businesses
An InfoLab21 Industry
Workshop on Trends in Content Networking has helped inform media and
content
companies including the BBC about developments in technology which may
occur in
the future and influence the way content is distributed and consumed.
Feedback
from the workshop, led by academics in the Computing Department
with help from
the KBC, said that it helped identify potential gaps in the market and
areas to
develop, which helps with future proofing. See the presentations of
this
knowledge transfer event here Networking
workshop - watch now.
Prof Nigel Davies is appointed Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Pervasive Magazine!
Head of Computing, Professor Nigel Davies has been appointed by the IEEE Computer Society to be the next editor-in-chief of IEEE Pervasive Computing. IEEE Pervasive is a world-leading publication for research in mobile and ubiquitous computing, and highly ranked for its impact.Congratulations Nigel! For more interest in the publication see here.
Lancaster
University maintains top league table position!
Lancaster is the top
university in the North West in three major national league tables
published
this year. The latest of these is the Times Good University Guide 2010,
published this week. Lancaster has also maintained its top position in
this
year's Independent and the Guardian national league tables. The Times
ranks
Lancaster 23rd out of 114 universities. Lancaster is currently top in
the NW in
The Sunday Times, which will update its table later this year. To
view the full story
Computing Department’s Distinguished Lecture Series!
The Computing department is happy to announce its fifth Distinguished Lecture.Dr. Francois Taiani wins this year's SciTech Prize for Excellence in Teaching!
The Computing Department's Dr.
Francois Taiani has won this year's SciTech Prize for
Excellence
in Teaching.
Nominations were received
from a range of departments across the Science and Technology faculty.
The quality of these
applications was extremely high which reflects the calibre of teaching
that
exists within the faculty. The award, designed to
reward and incentivise inspirational teaching will be an annual event.
Computing Department wins Best Paper Award at the Advanced Information Networking and Applications 2009 conference!
The Computing Department's Prof. Steve Pink, Andrew Brampton and Matthew Faulkner have received the Best Paper Award for a paper entitled 'Evaluating the Performance of Network Protocol Processing on Multi-core Systems' at the 23rd conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications 2009. It was selected as the best paper from a total of 110 accepted publications. More information on the conference can be found here.The Computing Department's Cath Ewan and Dr. Corina Sas win University Awards!
The Computing Department is pleased to announce that Cath Ewan won the Community and College Prize and Dr Corina Sas received a Teaching Prize Award. The Staff Prizes will be presented by the Chancellor, Sir Chris Bonington at an Awards Ceremony on Tuesday 16 June 2009. Congratulations!Guardian
places Lancaster top in the NW in new league table
The Guardian University guide
published on May 12th, ranks Lancaster 16th out of 117 universities,
and top in
the North West. Lancaster has been ranked the top university in the
North West
in the new league tables of both the Independent and the Guardian. The
Independent’s table, published in April, places Lancaster in the top 10
in
England.
To
view the full
2010 Guide.
30th
Anniversary conference for ICAME!
The 30th anniversary
conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and
Medieval English
(ICAME) will be held at Lancaster University, home of one of the
founding
fathers of modern corpus linguistics, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey
Leech.
Lancaster University was a pioneer in corpus linguistics when Professor
Leech
first began to create a million word corpus of British English in 1970,
leading
to the publication of the Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus in 1978. In
1991-1995 he
was leader of the Lancaster team as part of the consortium which built
the
British National Corpus (1991-1995), a 100,000,000-word corpus of
modern
English written texts and spoken transcriptions (see http://info.ox.ac.uk/bnc/).
Lancaster was
responsible for the word-class tagging of the whole British National
Corpus. He
is organising the conference along with Dr Paul Rayson, Director of the
University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language (UCREL) in
the
Department of Computing, Dr Sebastian Hoffmann from the Department of
Linguistics and English Language as well as two colleagues from the
University
of Central Lancashire (UCLAN). The conference, entitled “Looking
back—moving
forward”, will be held at the Lancaster House Hotel from 27-31
May. To
view the full story
Lancaster
maintains top league table position
Lancaster is the top
university in the North West and in the top 10 in England according to
The
Independent’s latest league table. The Independent’s Complete
University Guide
2010 ranks Lancaster 12th overall in the UK out of 113 institutions,
and in the
top 20 for student satisfaction. Lancaster University is top in the
North West
in four national league tables; in The Sunday Times, The Times, The
Guardian
2009 ( the Guardian league table for 2010 will be published this month)
and The
Independent. To
view the full
story
Computing Department's Prof. Jon Whittle Leads New Project To Make Public Spaces Safer!
uTELLus is a new cross-disciplinary research project funded under the EPSRC’s Digital Economy programme (EPSRC contribution: £855,000) and led by Prof. Jon Whittle in Lancaster's Computing Department. The overall aim of the project is to use technology to capture in real-time users’ preferences about the spaces in which they live and use this information to transform public spaces to be safer and more inclusive. The project brings together computer scientists, economists, mechanical engineers and designers across the UK and is a collaboration between Lancaster, Aston, Manchester, Coventry and Brunel Universities. For more information, see here.Computing Department’s Distinguished Lecture Series!
The Computing department is happy to announce its fourth Distinguished Lecture.Dr Enrico Rukzio and Andrew
Greaves feature in Westmorland Gazette, Morecambe Visitor, Garstang
Courier and the Lakeland Echo!
Research by Dr Enrico Rukzio and PhD Student Andrew Greaves
from the Department of Computing, was featured on the Westmorland
Gazette website, 31 March. Andrew Greaves was filmed for BBC
Newsround with children from Carnforth High School demonstrating mobile
phones with an integrated projector. the story also featured in the Morecambe
Visitor, 27 March, the Garstang
Courier, 27 March and the Lakeland
Echo 27 March
Catch Computing PhD student Andrew Greaves on Newsround!
Research by Dr Enrico Rukzio and PhD Student Andrew Greaves from the Department of Computing, has been featured on the popular BBC Newsround programme. Andrew Greaves was filmed with children from a local secondary school demonstrating mobile phones with an integrated projector together with Newsround presenter Adam Fleming. To view the interview see here.Computing Department's
Andrew Greaves featured on
Newsround tonight!
A camera crew from the flagship BBC children’s programme Newsround have visited InfoLab21 to film the latest developments in mobile phone technology. The programme, which has half a million viewers, is due to be broadcast on Monday, March 23, on BBC One at 5.05pm (catch a preview interview here). Presenter Adam Fleming and a cameraman interviewed PhD student Andrew Greaves and children from Carnforth High School, who were invited to InfoLab21 to test out a new projector phone. With Dr Enrico Rukzio from the Department of Computing, Andrew Greaves has been researching mobile phones with an integrated projector, which are expected to come onto the market in the next few years. To view the full story
Dr Enrico Rukzio and Andrew Greaves mentioned in New Scientist!
The Computing Department's Dr. Enrico Rukzio and Andrew Greaves were mentioned in New Scientist for their research on the pros and cons of projector phone technology. Read the article here.Nationa
l
Science Week comes to the Computing Department!
As part of National Science
and Engineering Week 2009, the Faculty of Scienceand Technology held a series of engaging activities for young people. Aimed at
Year 10 and 11 students, the workshops from 9th to the 13th of March set out to
promote science and technology, encouraging young people to take the subjects
further. Sessions in Computing gave students the chance to programme a robot!
This idea was based on multi-million pound global industries such as ‘Google’,
which was initially based on simultaneous equations. To view the full story
InfoLab21 is a key player in new Digital Network
Lancaster University’s InfoLab21, which houses the Computing Department, is playing a key role in the drive to promote innovation in the UK digital communications sector.Lancaster University is one of only two Universities on the board of the government-funded national Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network (DC-KTN).
David Hutchison, a Professor in Computing, Director of InfoLab21 and DCKTN board member, said: “InfoLab21 is proud to support the DCKTN and as a member of the board I hope to help the DCKTN to achieve its aims and develop a common view of the research challenges and educational needs of the sector.” Read more here.
HighWire Digital Economy Innovation Centre Studentships available!
There are 10 EPSRC PhD studentships available through the Digital Economy Innovation Centre scheme. Please visit the HighWire site for further details on the programme and eligibility. Prospective students are invited to a special recruitment event for the scheme at Lancaster University on 11th March 2009. Candidates will have the opportunity to meet with key staff from HighWire, view our facilities and discuss potential directions for their PhD research.Please visit the site to register your interest in the day.New Digital Economy Innovation Centre announced at Lancaster University!
Lancaster University has won funding for a new centre that will generate the scientists needed for Britain's future it was announced today (5th December 2008) by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council – the UK funding body for science and engineering.Lancaster is set to receive around £5m to fund a new Digital Economy Innovation Centre to educate a new generation of PhD students. The funding will enable around 50 PhD students over 5 years to become the innovators of the future - trained to work at the cutting edge of the Digital Economy. View the full story
£9.2m India-Uk Research into Next Generation Networks!
Lancaster University is a
partner in a new UK-India research programme which will boost the
digital
revolution. The Computing Department's Professor
David Hutchison, Dr. Andreas Mauthe are part of a team of UK and Indian
scientists and engineers
undertaking a £9.2m research project to develop Next Generation
Networks which
are vital to pushing forward the digital economy. Further
details here.
Project ISIS featured in Scientific American again!
Research into internet safety lead by Professor Awais Rashid of the Computing Department, has appeared for the second time in Scientific American. See the article here.
Computing Department’s Distinguished Lecture Series!
The Computing department is happy to announce its third Distinguished Lecture of the 2008-2009 Season.The speaker is Professor Anthony Finkelstein from Software Systems Engineering at University College London (UCL).Successful software development is directly linked to the broader governance arrangements within the developer and deployer organisations. This talk introduces the area of governance, reviews the state of the art, examines a set of case studies and sets out a research agenda for the area.
It is scheduled for Wednesday 21st January from 16:00 in the C74, KBC InfoLab21.
Students rate Lancaster highly!
Lancaster University has shot up 10 places in the Times Higher Education’s annual rankings of student satisfaction, based on criteria chosen by students themselves. Lancaster now ranks 20th out of a total of 101 institutions assessed in the survey which aims to show which universities offer the best student experience. To view the full storyComputing Department research has 100% of its research considered to be of international quality!
The Computing Department has 100% of its research considered to be of international quality, according to the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.Lancaster University’s overall mission to excel in research at the highest level has been given a boost with the results of 2008 RAE revealing that 92% of its research is recognised as world leading or internationally significant and some key areas of research are ranked top in the UK.
Taking into account the high proportion of staff submitted to the RAE, Lancaster University emerges in the top ten in the country overall for research quality. The Times Higher has published a story about Lancaster’s league table which recognises research ‘intensity’. Click here to view the story.
The RAE measures the quality of research conducted in universities and other higher education institutions in the UK against international standards of excellence. Overall Lancaster submitted 90% of staff as ‘research active’ - considerably above the national norm. Read more here.
View the Newspaper tables - The Guardian, The Times and THE.
Computing Department
Graduates' business goes nationwide!
Two Computing Department graduate entrepreneurs
are to roll their technology business out across the UK after being
inspired by
Create, Lancaster University’s business creation centre. Matthew
Summers who graduated in 2006 with a BSc in Computing and Duncan
McCaffery who recently gained his PhD in Computing have founded Insiris
Ltd which offers advanced technology such
as GPS mobile tracking of personnel and their vehicles. The computing
graduates
from InfoLab21 now have large investors interested and have a target of
£100,000 turnover in the first year, with plans to recruit their own
staff. View
the full story
Computing Department academics visit Sunway University College!
Lancaster University and Sunway University College are set to launch a number of jointly delivered postgraduate degrees starting in 2009. Students will study at Sunway, but are awarded a degree from both institutions.Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr Jeffrey Cheah, Chancellor of Sunway University College and Chair of the board of the Sunway Group visited Lancaster University for the first time this month and the Computing Department's Dr Chris Edwards and Dr Nick Race from Computing visited Sunway in November to deliver a workshop on Advanced Networking. View the full storyCongratulations to
Professor David Hutchison!
Congratulations to the Computing Department's Professor David Hutchison - who have been awarded the title of Distinguished Professor. David joins the 12 other senior academics in this group. All have been placed in the category reserved for a limited number of star academics who are internationally recognised as world leaders in their field. View the full story
Professor Nigel Davies
quoted in Publictechnology.net!
Professor Nigel Davies (Computing) was
quoted in publictechnology.net,
November 11, talking about the benefits of the University's partnership
with leading global management consultancy Mott MacDonald.
Computing Department
researchers win best paper award at International Conference EuroSSC
2008!
Computing Department’s Distinguished Lecture Series!
The Computing department is happy to announce its second Distinguished Lecture of the 2008-2009 Season.New P2P Technology Debuts At International Broadcasting Exhibition
The Computing Department's Dr. Nick Race, Dr. Keith Mitchell
& Dr. Johnathan Ishmael, have
been involved in introducing a cutting-edge peer-to-peer video
distribution
system at this year's International Broadcast Convention (IBC 2008) in
Amsterdam, as part of the P2P-Next project. The new system is the
world's first
video end-to-end streaming distribution of professional content to
low-cost Set
Top Box hardware. InfoLab21 was acting as the source of the video
streams on
show. Read the full
story.
Project ISIS continues to make news!
Project ISIS was mentioned by a number of news services, nationally and internationally. On 19th October it was talked about in The Telegraph, Top - Australia Hankuk Ilbo, Big News Network and Malaysia Sun.On 20th October it was covered by the following; Africal Leader, TMCNET.COM, Sulekha, Turkmenistan News.net, Kazakhstan News, The Hindu Online, Cambodian Times, Uzbekistan News and Yahoo! India.
Computing PhD student Robin has a book published!
Robin
Mannings, a part time PhD student at the
Computing Department and a
chief researcher at BT based at Adastral Park has had his
first book published.
The book was based on the early chapters
of his PhD Thesis and is entitled
‘Ubiquitous Poisoning’. Robin believes this
up and coming and potentially
disruptive technology has great commercial potential, as well
as being a
fascinating topic to study. Read the full
story.
Computing Department to work with Management Consultant giant Mott MacDonald!
In the partnership, while Mott MacDonald stands to learn from Lancaster University, the University will gain from the opportunity to exchange information with and obtain practical feedback from professionals at this leading global management, engineering and development consultancy. View the full story.
Prof. Jon Whittle gives a Google TechTalk!
On June 4, the Computing Department's Prof. Jon Whittle was invited to give a Google TechTalk at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Google TechTalks are invited presentations aiming to disseminate a wide range of views, both technical and non-technical. Prof. Whittle described, to an audience of Google engineers (based both at Google HQ and at other Google offices), current work within the Department on Aspect-Oriented Modeling. The talk was filmed by Google and is available on YouTube here.
Lancaster University ranked amongst World's best!
Lancaster University is ranked among the world’s best universities according to the Times Higher Education, Lancaster is one of only 29 UK universities ranked in the top 200 universities worldwide, coming in at number 170 in the annual THE-QS World University Rankings.View the full story.
Sunday Times ranks Lancaster top in the North West!
Lancaster shortlisted for outstanding contribution to Innovation and Technology!
Lancaster University has been shortlisted for its outstanding contribution to Innovation and Technology at the forthoming THE Awards 2008, out of a record number of entires from 140 insitutions. This is in recognition of the Lancaster Environment Centre's and Infolab21's business outreach programme.
ISIS Forensics mentioned by The Engineer Online, Lancashire Evening Post, Lancaster Guardian and RINF!
The company set up by two members of the Computing Department(Danny Hughes and James Walkerdine)- ISIS Forensics was mentioned in The Engineer Online on 18th September with regard to their development of new software which will prevent illegal file sharing on business networks. See here. They were also mentioned in the Lancashire Evening Post, Lancaster Guardian and the RINF website on 19th September.
Computing Department's Distinguished Lecture Series!
The
Computing Department is happy to announce its first Distinguished
Lecture of the
2008-2009 Season.
The
speaker is Professor
Pierre Dillenbourg from the
The Computing Department's Danny Hughes and James Walkerdine's company, ISIS Forensics, has developed a tool to help businesses clamp down on illegal file sharing!
Businesses can face serious consequences from illegal file sharing which takes place on their network whether the files contain confidential client data or copyrighted material such as music downloads. But many companies appear to be powerless to stop it. Isis Forensics, a company created by Danny Hughes and James Walkerdine from the Computing Department, observed that more than a third of FTSE 100 companies and more than half of Fortune 100 companies were sharing copyrighted material such as music, films and software using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing software. Read the full story.
Lancaster University receives Bronze SWAN Award!
Lancaster University has
received a Bronze SWAN Award in recognition of work to encourage the
employment
and career progression of women employed in Science, Engineering and
Technology
(SET). View details here.
Lancaster
University is the top ranked university in the North West and the joint
top ranked university in the whole North of England, according to the
2008 National Student Survey!
89% of students at Lancaster University were satisfied with their course compared with an average for the sector of 82%. Other institutions scoring 89% include the Universities of Durham and Sheffield, making Lancaster the joint top ranked university in the North of England. Specialist institutions were excluded to give an overall ranking of 13th in the country. Read more here.
Computing Department Academics' win the first 'Most Influential paper from MobileHCI 98' prize!
Paper from MobileHCI 98' prize with their paper on 'Exploiting Context in HCI Design for Mobile Systems'
they wrote with Prof. Tom Rodden.
The paper discusses the design and development of cooperative mobile systems, the context sensitive nature of mobile devices and, in particular, the temporal issues that arise due to network delays and intermittent network availability. The paper received the award due to its large number of citations.
Each year the conference will be presenting the most influential paper from 10 years ago.
PhD Studentship available on a three-year EU-funded project 'ECODE'!
A PhD studentship is available on a three-year EU-funded project ‘ECODE' in the area of Future Internet control techniques. The studentship will require either good knowledge of statistical signal processing and machine learning, or experience in system programming. Knowledge of either machine learning or network measurement and modelling techniques would also be considered advantageous.
A good quality first degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering is essential for this studentship, and an MSc in a closely related area would be desirable. Please note this studentship is only available to UK and EU applicants- Overseas applicants are only entitled to the maintenance allowance and therefore would be required to finance their fees themselves.
Deadline for applications 15th October 2008.
PhD studentship available for ResumeNet!
Candidates for the ResumeNet PhD
studentship at Lancaster University must have a good Bachelor or Master
degree in computer science or electrical engineering, with a strong
interest, and preferably some experience, in computer network
resilience and security. For further information please contact either p.smith@comp.lancs.ac.uk
or d.hutchison@lancaster.ac.uk
Please note this studentship is only available to UK and EU applicants-- Overseas applicants are only entitled to the maintenance allowance and therefore would be required to finance their fees themselves.
Deadline for applications 15th October 2008.
Computing Department's PhD student mentioned on an Internet blog!
PhD student Andrew Greaves was mentioned on an Internet Blog this week regarding his presentation at the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services in Amsterdam.See here.
Project Isis is featured in Scientific American!
The Computing Department's Project Isis was featured in Scientific American this week in regards to keeping children safe online without invading our privacy. Read the article here. It was also heavily quoted in an online blog dedicated to sex offender research, see here.
Dr. Pete Sawyer listed in the Times Higher Education Magazine!
The Computing Department's Dr. Pete Sawyer is among a list of grant winners in the Times Higher Education magazine, July 31, after he was awarded over £250,000 by the EPSRC for a research project about “making tacit knowledge in requirements explicit.”
13 PhD positions in new EU funded Marie Curie Initial
Training Network:
DESIRE - Creative Design for Innovation in Science and Technology
(initial deadline 15 September 2008)
Prospective applicants should have an excellent first degree in Computer Science, Psychology, Design or Arts. To discuss project opportunities, please contact either the lead supervisor for information on a specific project, or the Coordinator for general enquiries. For more details please see here.
Computing Department featured on BBC !
Click here to watch last night's episode of North West Tomorrow, a science and technolgy series for the BBC. It featured the Computing Department's Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney inside InfoLab21. Read the full story.
Faculty taster day is a success!
The Faculty of Science and Technology's fourth
annual taster day attracted over 150 students
from across the North West, who travelled to
Lancaster to find out what it would be like
studying their favourite subjects at university.
The Computing Department provided a range of Demos, including the mobile communications 'touch' technology, Multitag. Read more here.
From Copacabana to Morecambe Sands: Computing Department link with Brazil praised!
The Computing Department receives a number of PhD students every year from several overseas postgraduate programs of excellence, such as PUC at Rio de Janeiro. The Computer Science Department at PUC-Rio has consistently been ranked as the top postgraduate program in Brazil for years. In a interview to one of the most influential Brazilian newspapers, "O Globo", Dr. Alessandro Garcia, a Software Engineering Lecturer at Lancaster, was quoted on the mutual benefits of such a long-term Lancaster-Rio partnership.
Project ISIS reported in the Lancashire Evening Post and Investigative Practice Journal!
An article was written by the Lancashire Evening Post about Project ISIS which is run by researchers at the Computing Department. Prof. Awais Rashid, who is the lead researcher on the project, was quoted heavily. Read the full article. The project has also been featured in the latest issue of the police magazine, 'Investigative Practice Journal', in an article about what benefits the project will bring to the police and how it will assist them in protecting children who participate in online social networks.
BBC TV Manchester interview Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney for a series on Science and Technology!
BBC TV Manchester were on Campus last week filming a number of Lancaster University Research Projects. Prof. Brian Cox (a familiar face on programmes such as Horizon) interviewed Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Joe Finney from the Computing Department on their Project Firefly.This interview will be broadcast as part of a series on science and technology in the North West called North West Tomorrow. The programme will be broadcast in 4 parts starting on 8th July and then the following next three Tuesdays.
Dr. Nick Race quoted in the Lancaster Guardian!
The Computing Department's Dr. Nick Race was quoted in the Lancaster Guardian, June 27, in an article about the University helping villagers in Wray go online through the installation of broadband.
Prof. Awais Rashid interviewed on BBC Radio Lancashire!
Prof. Awais Rashid was interviewed on BBC Radio Lancashire, 20th June, about Project Isis - a three-year Child Protection Initiative which aims to develop new tools for policing websites and supporting law enforcement. Professor Rashid is lead researcher on the project which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and The Economic and Social Research Council. Listen to the interview here. The story was also reported in The Citizen on 25th June.
Researchers at the Computing Department Join the Fight to Protect Children Online
Members of the Computing Department (including Prof. Awais
Rashid, Dr.
Danny Hughes, Dr. James Walkerdine, Dr. Paul Rayson, Dr. Phil Greenwood
and Prof. Geoff Coulson) are now harnessing new developments in
langauage analysis to identify paedophiles posing as childen in online
chat rooms, to pick up on their vocabulary choices and trail them as
they move around the internet. Led by Professor Awais Rashid,
Lancaster, Swansea and Middlesex Universities have joined forces with
specialist UK law enforcement to develop tools to identify paedophiles
masquerading as children in online chat rooms.
This
month the University launched Project Isis - a three-year Child
Protection Initiative which aims to develop new tools for policing
websites and supporting law enforcement, funded by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council and The Economic and Social Research
Council. Read more here.
Congratulations to Professor Laurent Mathy and Dr. Pete Sawyer!
Congratulations go out to Laurent Mathy for being awarded a personal Chair, and also to Dr. Pete Sawyer who has received a readership.
Lancaster University has shot up the rankings to be placed 19th in the UK and the top institution in the North West by The Times!
In The Times Good University Guide 2009, Lancaster is one of the biggest movers in the table, jumping eight places from 27th last year. Read more here. The University was also featured in The Times Higher Education on the 19th June, see here.
NEMO project shortlised as a finalist in the North West IET Innovation Awards 2008!
Academics and researchers from the Computing Department; Prof. Nigel Davies, Dr. Joe Finney, Dr. Christos Efstratiou and James Brown, were shortlisted as finalists in the North West IET Innovation Awards 2008 for their NEMO hardware/software platform entry. Their submission was 'highly commended' by judges and made it to the top 10 finalists out of 28 entries! In partnership with the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), the IET aims to recognise and reward innovation in engineering, science and technology across the region. Read more here.
Computing students contribute to a workshop helping create a new approach to distributing television across the internet!
Researchers from Computing in collaboration with Pioneer Digital Design carried out a workshop with undergraduate Computing students. The workshop was carried out in relation to the P2P-Next project, a pan-European conglomerate of 21 industrial partners, media content providers and research institutions which has received a €14 million grant from the European Union.
"The aim of the workshop was to discuss the future of Internet based TV services and specifically a service based around the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology for future distribution of Television" says Dr Keith Mitchell. "We were very pleased with the level of student interest, involvement and enthusiasm during the session despite it being a busy time of year for them. Although we are yet to fully analyse the results, there were numerous contributions by the participants and these will act as valuable input into the project".
The ambitious 4 year project will conduct large-scale technical trials of live streaming and Video on Demand (VOD) services which will be delivered to users through both PC clients and a High Definition digital set top box. The user trials will involve students on campus and residents in local communities, such as Wray.
The Computing Department's Prof. Alan Dix quoted in The Guardian!
The Computing Department's Prof. Alan Dix was quoted in an article on supercomputer 'Roadrunner' in The Guardian on Tuesday 10th June. Read the article. The story was also featured in The Hindu.
Computing Department's Multitag project features on Euronews Channel!
Research conducted by the Computing Department's Dr. Enrico Rukzio, Prof. Hans Gellersen and Robert Hardy, and NTT DoCoMo Euro-Labs, was shown on Euronews Channel. It featured a 30 second prototype of their project. See the programme here.
Computing Department's Research on touch technology featured on the BBC!
The Computing Department's Dr. Enrico Rukzio, Prof. Hans Gellersen and Robert Hardy's research on Touch Technology was featured on 'Click', a bbc technology programme last week (Watch the programme here). Lancaster University is mentioned 16 minutes into the programme in a feature on NFC. Read more here.
A web development and online marketing company based at InfoLab21 has taken two awards at one of the biggest ceremonies in the digital industry!
EduNation won in two categories at the prestigious Big Chip awards in Manchester. The company won the Best E-Business Project award and also the Best from Lancashire award. This is the second InfoLab21 company to win in the Best from Lancashire category after NuBlue won in 2006. Read the full story.
The Computing Department's Dr. Joe Finney, Prof. Alan Dix and Dr. Paul Rayson have all won University Awards!
 |
Dr. Joe Finney and Professor Alan Dix received the award for Commercialisation with Professor Bahram Honary for their project Firefly, pictured here.
Dr. Paul Rayson also received a Research award for
inter-disciplinary
work jointly awarded between the research and commercialisation prize
committees. Read the full story.
The Inaugural Doug Shepherd Memorial Lecture is to be given by one of
the world's leading experimental computer scientists - Prof Mahadev
Satyanarayanan
The Computing Department at Lancaster University is pleased to announce details of the inaugural Doug Shepherd Memorial Lecture. The lecture is to be given by Prof Mahadev Satyanarayanan, the Carnegie Group Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Prof Mahadev Satyanarayanan is an experimental computer scientist who has pioneered research in mobile and pervasive computing. The lecture will focus on Diamond - a new system for data exploration that is likely to be of interest to a wide cross section of the scientific community. It is in memory of Professor Doug Shepherd who made an enormous and lasting contribution to the University in his various leadership roles as Department Head, School Dean, ISS Director and was an inspiration to all who worked with him. Read more here.
The
Inaugural Doug Shepherd Memorial Lecture
Tuesday 20th May, 16:00, Management School LT1
Firefly: LEDs With Attitude!
Prof. Alan Dix of the Computing Department presented "Firefly: LEDs With Attitude" at a two day knowledge transfer event at De Montford University in March on Investigating 3D and Projection Displays. The event brought together academics and industry in the field of 3D Lighting. Read the full story.
The Computing Department's Adam Lindsay was quoted on CNN.com!
Adam
Lindsay was quoted on CNN.com while attending a conference on memes
(virally-spread ideas). Adam created a computer language spinoff of
LOLcats called LOLcode. CNN.com's coverage of the conference made the
front page of its US edition, see here.
Adam was also quoted in the Guardian
and Maine
Today.
Computing Department Researchers win first place in the research track and The Most Innovative NFC Research Project of the Year 2008!
 |
|
Massimo
Paolucci, Robert Hardy, Dr. Enrico Rukzio and Matthias Wagner with
their prize and project using Google Maps.
|
A Lancaster Computing Project that uses NFC
technology to allow mobile phone handsets and
public information screens to share display space,
overcoming the screen size limitations of mobile
phone displays was one of the winners in a
competition held this week at the 2nd European
NFC developers summit in Monaco.
Robert Hardy, a researcher from the Computing
Department and Matthias Wagner (DoCoMo Euro-
Labs) won first place in the research track and
The Most Innovative NFC Research Project of the
Year 2008. The winners were selected from a total of 20 finalists and
over 50 entries from 21 countries.
This story was reported on Calibre website, 6 May, read here.
The Guardian place Lancaster 8th in the UK for Computer Science!
The Computing Department at Lancaster University has been ranked 8th in the country for Computer Science and IT in the Guardian's University Guide 2009. See the table here.
The Computing Department's Dr. Gerd Kortuem was quoted on the Technology Review website!
Dr. Kortuem was quoted on the 28th April, within an article looking at wearable computer systems for the military,read the full story.
Dr Kortuem was also featured on the RFID journal website, 28 April, in connection with research into the safety of construction employees at risk for hand/arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), also known as "white finger," as a result of over exposure to heavily vibrating equipment. Read the full story.
The Guardian League table sees Lancaster rise 10 places to be ranked 12th nationally and also top in the North West!
Only a week after the Independent's Good University Guide placed Lancaster in the Top ten of Universites and top in the North West, the Guardian League table, published online on May 1, sees Lancaster rise 10 places to be ranked 12th nationally and also top in the North West. Lancaster's League Table ranking in The Guardian was featured in the Lancashire Evening Post, 2 May. Read the full story.
Lancaster rose nine places to be ranked in the top ten in the Independent Good University Guide 2009!
The Guide, published on 24th April 2008, ranks Lancaster 10th nationally and number one in the North West in the regional rankings. The top ten position overall sees Lancaster in the same group as Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College. The ranking was mentioned in the Times Higher Education magazine, May 1, which called it a "strong performance". The rankings also featured in the Lancashire Evening Post, April 25, the Morecambe Visitor, April 30, and in the Lancaster Guardian, May 2. Read the full story.
The Computing Department's Dr. Awais Rashid mentioned on the Algerian News Agency website!
Dr. Awais Rashid was mentioned on the Algerian News Agency website on 19th April, following his lecture on computer applications via a video-conference link to an international workshop held at Mentouri University. Read the full story.
Researchers at the Computing Department are developing a New Generation of Mobile Interactions and Applications!
 |
| Multitag technology using Google Maps |
Researchers in the
Computing Department;
Dr. Enrico Rukzio,
Prof. Hans Gellersen and Robert Hardy
are collaborating with NTT DoCoMo Euro-Labs to develop
a new generation of mobile interactions and applications
using RFID/NFC technology.
MULTITAG
is a two-year industry funded research project
and is the first collaboration between NTT DoCoMo Euro
-Labs and a University in the UK. Read the full
story.
Computing Department's PhD student quoted in The Daily Telegraph!
One of the Computing Department's PhD students, Mr. Kiel Gilleade, a Computer Games Researcher, spoke to the Daily Telegraph about biofeedback games on the 12th March. Read the article.
Computing research mentioned in The Guardian and The Hindu!
Research in the Computing Department to develop a new generation of 'smart tags' to help keep workers safe on construction sites is mentioned in The Guardian and in The Hindu.
The Computing Department's Dr. Nick Race was interviewed on BBC Radio Cumbria on February 20th!
The interview was about Lancaster University's involvement as part of a team of leading research and industrial partners, developing a new approach to distributing television across the internet. The story also featured on various websites; Cordis website, February 20th, CNET website, February 20th, Innovations Report website, February 19th, The Tech Report website, February 21st. There was also a blog post by George Wright (BBC) on the BBC Internet Blog. See here.
The Computing Department's Dr. Nicholas Race helps develop a new approach to distributing Television across the Internet!
Lancaster University is part of a team of leading research and industrial partners developing a new approach to distributing Television across the Internet. Lancaster's role within the P2P-Next project launched this week, is to deliver this new technology to real users as part of a large-scale technical trial, known as a Living Lab. Dr Nicholas Race from the Computing Department will be utilising the University's regional network and strong community links to conduct live trials with a wide variety of users, from local students to rural villagers. Read the full story.
Researchers at the Computing Department are developing a new generation of 'Smart tags' to help keep workers safe on construction sites!
The
research project is creating tiny Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags, with
sensors and memory, which can be embedded in everyday objects - such as
tools - and communicate via a network using wireless technology.
These can be used for example to help monitor people using heavy
machinery - ensuring they are working safely within the recommended
guidelines.
In an interview with the BBC online, Dr Gerd Kortuem of Lancaster
University's Computing Department, said RFID tags were getting smarter
and more communicative as bigger memory, basic processing power and
wireless technologies are added to them. Read the full
story.
Dr. Gerd Kortuem quoted on the BBC News Website!
The Computing Department's Dr. Gerd Kortuem and colleagues were quoted on the BBC News Website, January 5th, talking about their NEMO project that combines smart tags and personal identifiers to keep an eye on people working on construction sites using heavy machine tools. Read the full story.
Neil Loughran was quoted in the North West Evening Mail!
The Computing Department's Neil Loughran was quoted in the North West Evening Mail, January 8, talking about the earliest recorded film of Barrow-in-Furness made at the turn of the 20th century. Read the full story.
A workshop, sponsored by Microsoft, on Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies was held at Melboune University this month
The
workshop attracted researchers from Australian, European and American
universities. Organised by Lancaster University researchers Connor
Graham and Dr Mark Rouncefield (Microsoft European Research Fellow),
the workshop was in response to the growing use of 'mundane' and
unremarkable technologies and applications including mobile phones,
word processing packages and blogging.
Amongst a wide range of
topics workshop participants discussed issues involved in the use of
electronic tagging for monitoring offenders; how people could use
mobile phones to manage the information they gave to others (and
coincidentally 'lie' to the boss); the use of video in the search for
'a better life'; how families used photographs as reminders of shared
history and family obligations and responsibilities; and how electronic
displays could be used to maintain a sense of community in rural
districts. Read the
full story.
For more details including the workshop papers and presentations see the workshop website.
Firefly brings Christmas to CityLab!
CityLab in Dalton Square has been chosen as the guinea pig for one of the latest innovations to come out of the Infolab21's Computing Department- Project Firefly. At a first glance they could be mistaken for a set of fairy lights but the Computing Department's Joe Finney and Alan Dix have given them given a technological upgrade! Read the story on the Infolab21 website and on Lancaster University's website .
Lancaster University 30th for Student Satisfaction!
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY was featured in the Westmorland Gazette, December 7, the Lancaster and Morecambe Citizen, December 12, and the North West Evening Mail, December 13, following the Times Higher Supplement survey for Student Satisfaction. Lancaster has been ranked number 30 out of 106 institutions.
Artificial Personality Goes Clubbing!
An interactive Artificial Personality was installed at a Leeds nightclub. The installation (a giant projected human character) was a collaboration between Lancaster University Department of Computing, the Communication Systems Department, UCREL, KBC resident company BigDog Interactive and Leeds Metropolitan University's Department of Fine Art. Clubbers could send text messages to the character to change its facial expressions. Read the full story here.
Congratulations to Rene!
Rene Mayrhofer, who has been in the Computing Department on a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship since 2005, has been appointed to a replacement chair position at the University of Vienna. Congratulations Rene!
Dr Jamie Ward was quoted in the India Times!
The Computing Department's Dr Jamie Ward was quoted in the
India Times, 19 November,
in an article looking at the practical application of accelerometers in
exercise. Read the full
story
Professor Alan Dix interviewed on BBC Radio Cumbria!
The Computing Department's Professor Alan Dix was interviewed on BBC Radio Cumbria, November 22, about computer security following the loss of two government computer disks containing the personal details of up to two million people.
Dr Rene Mayrhofer and Prof Hans Gellerson quoted in the New Scientist!
The Computing Department's Dr Rene Mayrhofer and Prof Hans Gellerson were featured in the New Scientist, November 13, talking about software they have developed to enable gadgets such as cellphones to be connected wirelessly simply by shaking them together. Read the full story
They were also mentioned on the Slashdot website on the 17th November regarding the same software. Read the story here
Lancaster University Rises 81 Places in the Times Higher-QS World University Ranking
Lancaster is now placed 147 ( from 228 last year) in the rankings of the top 200 universities in the world and 25th out of the UK universities who were included in the list that was published on November 9th 2007. Read the full story.
Dr. Kave Salamation
Dr. Kave Salamation has been appointed as reader in a joint post with Computing and the Communication Systems Department. Kave joins us from Universite Pierre et Marie Curie and is an expert in the role of information theory in computer networking (specifically collaboration theory) and also in internet measurement.
Professor Jon Whittle
Professor Jon Whittle has taken up a Chair in Software Engineering within Computing. Jon joins us from George Mason University, USA, and is an expert in the area of Model-Driven Engineering and more generally the modelling of complex, software-intensive systems.
Lancaster University is the Top of the League Table of North West Universities
According to the Sunday Times University Guide. The good news was featured in the Westmorland Gazette on the 24th September, the North West Evening Mail on the 22nd September and the Lancaster Guardian on the 27th September.
Girls Get Set for Science
 |
| Girls at Setpoint Science and Technology Day in InfoLab21 |
Girls from ethnic minority communities across Lancashire got a glimpse of the magic of Science and Technology at Lancaster University this week.
As part of an initiative run by Setpoint Lancashire, around 42 year 8 and 9 pupils visited the University to take part in workshops in Computing, Engineering and Communication Systems.
The girls were given an introduction to a number of developments in the University including a string of futuristic fairy lights which are being developed by researchers in the Department of Computing.
The lights - which are each embedded with a tiny computer – communicate with one another and can be manipulated by a computer programme. This innovation, known as project firefly, has the potential to revolutionise all kinds of lighting displays in the future - from home use to large scale outdoor advertising.
Lancaster University Science Partnership Officer Dr Alan Darragh said: “It was great for the pupils to be able to get hands on and to discover some new technology for themselves. They met researchers and had a look around the campus, getting a feel for some of the first class science and technology happening at the University.
“We hope that some of the pupils visiting today will be inspired and enthused to continue their studies in science and technology in the future.”
Lancaster University is the Top Ranked University in the North West and the Joint Top Ranked University in the North of England
 |
| Professor Paul Wellings |
Lancaster University is the top ranked university in the North West and the joint top ranked University in the whole North of England, according to the 2007 National Student Survey, published this week.
Overall, Lancaster is in the top 20 – ranking equal 15th in the survey which contains the views of final year students on the quality of the education they received.
Students were asked about the teaching, support and feedback they received during their course, as well as the way that their course was managed and the sorts of learning materials they had access to.
Overall, 89% of Lancaster students were satisfied with their course at Lancaster, against an average for the sector of 81%.
Vice Chancellor, Professor Paul Wellings, said: “Lancaster University, with its college structure and high quality teaching departments, places great emphasis on the student experience. I am delighted to see the efforts of all our staff reflected in this feedback from our students.”
Doctor Gerd Kortuem quoted in the New Scientist!
The Computing Department's Dr. Gerd Kortuem was quoted in the New Scientist on the 10th September on 'Smart Homes' technology.
Professor David Hutchison quoted in the New Scientist!
The Director of InfoLab21, Professor David Hutchison was quoted in the New Scientist on the 30th August on new ways to distribute and share media.
International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems 2007
Self-Organizing Systems (SOS) is a new research area exploring
the
theory and engineering of distributed computing systems that can
self-configure, self-manage and self-adapt. The aims are first to
develop systems that have better properties such as high availability,
strong security and the ability to evolve, and second to produce a more
fundamental understanding of the ways in which future distributed
systems may be designed.
IWSOS is an International Workshop
series dedicated to these issues. The 2007 workshop, which is being
held in the Lake District (http://iwsos.comp.lancs.ac.uk/),
focuses on networked systems in particular, and is co-chaired by David
Hutchison and Randy Katz.
Women come first for the Computing Department!
 |
| Sara Bury, Rachel Burrows and Emily Griffiths |
All the Women graduating from the Computing Department this year succeeded with First Class honours degrees.
Of 36 students only three were women but all three, Emily Griffiths, Sara Bury and Rachel Burrows were among the 10 students who achieved a first.
When interviewed about her achievement, Emily Griffiths said, "Lancaster has been great, and I'm still excited about my 1st. Now I'm in the front of the queue for jobs all round the world. The thing I enjoyed most about Computing was the amount of practical and hands on experience I gained."
Sara Bury added, "The choice to study Computer Science at Lancaster was one of the best decisions I've made. The University has an excellent social environment and I've been heavily involved with the student radio station Bailrigg FM, but more importantly I've really enjoyed both the level and choice of courses available within the Computing Department, from networking and concurrent programming to embedded systems.
"My ultimate aim has always been to move on to further academic study and my degree from Lancaster has given me an excellent grounding to start from. I've been awarded a Studentship to continue onto the MSc in Advanced Computer Science and I'm hoping to remain at Lancaster, moving onto PhD research in the future."
Rachel Burrows said "I've really enjoyed my last 3 years at Lancaster, the course structure offers a wide range of core subjects which has given me a good grounding to continue my studies towards a PhD next year within the department.
"I particularly enjoyed the experience I gained from the lab sessions as it gave me lots of exposure to key technologies.
"The course structure is flexible, allowing me to specialise in certain topics which I was interested in and would help me fulfil my future career goals. Alongside the studies, the support available from the department (and its great reputation within industry) has provided me with many employment opportunities."
Vacancy: Lectureship in Software Engineering
Applications are invited for a new Lectureship in Software Engineering in the Computing Department at Lancaster University (this post is equivalent to an assistant professorship in the US). The Computing Department is a leading research centre with a major international reputation for its work on experimental and systems-oriented computer science. Applications close 15th August 2007.
Headstart 10th-13th July
 |
| Dr. Adrian Friday at the Headstart Course |
15 year 12 pupils from schools across the UK will participate in this residential course offering a hands-on study of mobile and ubiquitous computing. Organised by the Computing Department at Lancaster and sponsored by Microsoft Research.
6 PhD studentships announced! (applications by 15th August 2007)
Studentships in AOSD, HCI, WSNs and Mobile Interaction Design announced. Prospective applicants, who should have an excellent first degree in a relevant discipline, are encouraged to initiate informal contact with prospective supervisors in the Department by providing a detailed statement of their research interest and a brief summary of their qualifications to the Department's admissions team.
Computing 40th Anniversary Studentship holder completes PhD in 33 months
 |
| Dr Pete Sawyer and Andrew Stone |
Andrew Stone, who was funded by one of the University's 40th Anniversary Studentships, had a successful viva on the 25th June, just 33 months after starting his PhD in October 2004. A sub three-year PhD is very rare (between 3 and 4 years is typical). Key factors for his success were identifying the research questions to address early and participating in the research community from the start: as Andrew puts it, "what really helped was early exposure to the international research community". Andrew presented a position paper at an international workshop (REFSQ'05) in June 2005, in addition to being recruited to serve on the committee of the British Computer Society's RE Specialist Group (Chaired by his supervisor, Pete Sawyer) and opportunities to present at international conferences and attend others as a student volunteer. While these all absorbed time, the pay-off in terms of access to some of the field's leading researchers more than compensated.
Andrew's thesis, "Performing Pre-Requirements Tracing using Latent Semantic Analysis" described the novel application of information retrieval techniques for tracing documented system requirements back to the material used by the analyst in their synthesis - interview transcripts, ethnographic field reports, process descriptions, etc. Analysts seldom record how they derive requirements and this is a major cause of problems in software projects. Requirements almost always change during the course of a project, and the impact of those changes on the system's stakeholders is hard to assess unless the motivation for the requirements can be recovered. Andrew's work provides a means to mitigate this, while also offering a tantalizing insight into the role of tacit knowledge in requirements synthesis.
Computing Student Founds Worldwide Business
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| Lee Crossley with the car he bought after founding his own business |
A student who set up his own business with help from Lancaster University is now running a successful company with customers from as far away as New Zealand.
Lee Crossley runs a thriving online music business founded with a grant of £1,000 from Create, which was set up by Lancaster University Student Union together with Research and Enterprise Services.
Employers were so impressed by his entrepreneurial skills that they offered him his first job on the strength of the business he founded as an undergraduate. Lee's firm, Backing Music, provides online music for people to download and sing to.
He said: "When the first order came through it was an incredible feeling! Orders were up and down for the first few weeks and then suddenly they went up!"
Lee set up the company in the second year of his studies in Computer Science at InfoLab21. After graduating, he began work for a web design firm in Preston who offered him employment based upon the success of Backing Music.
"I told them about Create and Backing Music during the interview and they told me that's why I got the job. How many students have their own business?"
With Backing Music now really taking off, Lee has left full time employment to dedicate himself to developing the business.
"Things are moving fast. I've got a contract with a major nightclub in the North West and will be supplying all their music and I'm providing the music for a school in Barrow-in-Furness which is having an X Factor type event.
For further information see the press release.
Computing Researchers At Westminster
 |
| Houses of Parliament |
After helping bring about an IT revolution in a rural community, computing researchers Johnathan Ishmael and Dr. Nick Race are set to present their work in the House of Commons on March 19 as part of SET for Britain - an annual event showcasing the work of Britain's top early-stage research scientists, engineers and technologists.
The researchers were part of a project which enabled an entire Lancashire village to get online and also provided a unique opportunity for the University to carry out research into an emerging technology.
Villagers in Wray in the Lune Valley had been waiting to receive broadband for years when they hooked up with computing experts based in InfoLab21 - Lancaster University's world-class research, development and business centre in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
For further information see the press release.
Computer Science at Lancaster Ranked Number 7 in the Country
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| Computing researchers listening to one of the mp3 players built and programmed on the new embedded systems course |
The Computer Science Department at Lancaster has been ranked at number 7 in the country (out of 110 institutions considered) in the recently published Guardian Education Guide. This result makes us the highest ranking university in the North West with the nearest being Manchester who are 20th in the rankings.
The Head of Department, Prof. Gordon Blair, on welcoming this
news said:
"This
is terrific news and is strong recognition for all the efforts that
have gone on in recent years to make the department a vibrant place of
study. We are particularly proud of achieving the highest possible
rating for Spend Per Student (10/10), which reflects our investment in
our teaching facilities and labs, a feature that I know is strongly
welcomed by our current cohort of students. For example, we recently
invested heavily in a state-of-the-art embedded systems lab, allowing
students to develop their own software for embedded devices such as MP3
players and mobile robots, reflecting the growing importance of
embedded systems in the subject and indeed its relevance to employers."
For further information see the relevant part of the Guardian Education Guide.
Kirsty Wark Praises Infolab21
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| Kirsty Wark at the launch of the NorthWest science strategy |
Lancaster University's InfoLab21 was one of the key regional developments singled out for praise at the launch of the new Northwest science strategy.
BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark, who hosted the event, said InfoLab21 was one of the examples of improvements in science infrastructure in the region since the launch of the first strategy in 2002.
For further information read the press release or go to www.nwda.co.uk/news or visit the Northwest Science web site at www.northwestscience.co.uk
Department Undergraduate Open Day Dates for 2007
The Department holds regular Undergraduate Open Days for prospective students and their families. You can find out about courses, talk to department staff, and look around the campus. The next round of Open Days will take place on the following dates:
Wednesday, 28th February, 2007
Wednesday, 14th March, 2007
Computing Student Wins National Microsoft Award
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| Computing student Paul Clark and Dr Andrew Sithers from Microsoft's Academic Team |
The Microsoft Award for Student Excellence 2006 has been awarded to an undergraduate at Lancaster University for a novel project looking at how drivers' personalities affect traffic flow.
Paul Clark beat off stiff competition to emerge as the only student in the UK to win the prestigious award for his final year project. Microsoft executives travelled to campus to present him with a laptop and engraved trophy plus £1,000 and a commemorative plaque for the Computing Department.
The national award recognises the most outstanding final year project developed by an undergraduate using Microsoft tools and technology. Paul's project involved a simulation of motorway traffic flow with the novel feature of factoring in the personalities of the drivers.
Find out more about Paul's award-winning project
Postgraduate Open Days
The University will be running a Postgraduate Open Afternoon, on Monday, 27 November 2006, for programmes in the Management School and Faculty of Science & Technology. The afternoon will begin at 1pm with a tour of the postgraduate facilities. A Postgraduate Open Day will also take place on Wednesday, 31 January 2007. Further information and online booking can be found at the University postgraduate open day page.
Two PhD Studentships Available
Applications are invited for two PhD studentships in the area of Content Networking. The studentships are linked to a European Network of Excellence and deal with Content Service Networks and Objective Video Quality Assessment in Content Distributions Networks. The research on the latter project is also carried out in collaboration with Agilent Laboratories. Further information is available on the studentships web page.
Two New Undergraduate International Degree Schemes
The Computing Department is offering two new international degree schemes, one targeted at North America and Australasia and the other at Europe. The two schemes offer a unique opportunity to spend your second year abroad at one of Lancaster's world-class partner institutions. The schemes build upon the highly successful exchange programme the University of Lancaster has operated over 20 years with Universities in the USA and Canada, and more recently Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Find out more at our course description page.
Computing Taster Week 2006
Intel Research will be sponsoring the Headstart course offered by Lancaster University from July 11th to July 14th 2006. The residential course is for year 12 students and the theme will be ubiquitous computing. Visit the Headstart site.
Workshop on Ethnographies of Digital Healthcare
Tim Rapley (University of Newcastle) and David Martin (Computing, Lancaster University) were speakers at a mini-workshop on Ethnographies of Digital Healthcare on Thursday 2nd February 2006. Maggie Mort (Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University) acted as discussant. The workshop was organised by The Institute for Health Research in collaboration with Computing. Tim Rapley visited the Computing department for one week in early February, collaborating with researchers here on using social analysis to better understand and support practice in healthcare. Find out more.
Excellent Review for Computing's AOSD-Europe Project
The Computing Department leads the European Network of Excellence on Aspect-Oriented Software Development. The project, which started in September 2004 and will run till August 2008, recently went through its first formal review. The reviewers rated the project as excellent across the board. A special highlight was the high quality of the coordination and project management from Lancaster. Research activities that the Lancaster team is involved with also received very positive feedback. The Lancaster team includes: Dr. Awais Rashid (coordinator), Ms. Paula Robinson (Project Secretary), Dr. Alessandro Garcia, Prof. Geoff Coulson, Prof. Gordon Blair, Dr. Peter Sawyer, Neil Loughran, Ruzanna Chitchyan, Americo Sampaio, Adrian Colyer, Nelio Cacho, Safoora Shakil Khan and Nathan Weston.
International Workshop on Physicality
This two-day workshop offered a multidisciplinary forum of discussion for researchers who are interested in the way that physicality of digital artefacts influences their use, or in the way that digitally informs our understanding of the physical. The workshop will take place on the 6th and 7th of February 2006, in InfoLab21.
Workshop on Ethnographies of Code
The department hosted a workshop exploring the overlap between social and technical issues in computer programming. The workshop questioned how computer code is written and worked with by communities of programmers. The workshop will take place on the 30th and 31st of March 2006.
InfoLab21 wins major national design award
Infolab21 has won the national British Council for Offices prize for 'Best Corporate Workplace', beating off competition from the BBC amongst others. The building won the regional award and then went on to take first prize nationally. Read the full story in the University press release.
Buses and Butterflies
Lancaster University has launched a piece of pioneering traffic-triggered interactive art. A computing collective at the University has teamed up with a group of artists to produce a sound and vision art installation, which has a technological twist. Metamorphosis opened on October 15th, 2005, in the Lancaster University underpass - a main thoroughfare for university traffic including buses. Find out more.
Lancaster University Top for Research
Lancaster University has been ranked among the top "research star" universities in the country.
The Times Higher Education Supplement (September 23) listed Lancaster alongside Oxford, Cambridge, University of East Anglia, York and Cranfield as a small handful of "research star" universities to emerge from new HESA statistics. According to these figures Lancaster University is the third highest earner of research income in proportion to academic staff costs.
Lancaster University's Computing Department Employs Technology in its Masters Teaching
The department is pleased to announce the imminent completion of a new, purpose-built Masters Training Suite for use from October 2005. This facility is designed specifically for teaching block mode courses and will house our MSc in Advanced Computer Science. Such courses demand flexible space to accommodate the wide range of teaching styles adopted on such courses, including areas for breakout groups.
The Masters Training Suite consists of a number of teaching rooms to accommodate class sizes ranging from 10 to 50 together with breakout areas with soft furnishings together with a cafe area for that well earned rest between teaching sessions. The new suite will provide an excellent high quality environment as well as technical innovations. High quality Audio-Visual equipment will allow recording and playback of lectures. Lecture material can be shared around the European community. There will be an interactive shared display, wireless networking infrastructure in all areas, smart signage displays on every room, and integrated steerable projectors linked to ongoing ubiquitous computing research. The first two features in particular are used to support our novel course on "Advanced Topics in Networking" which is delivered by a number of leading exponents of the subject across Europe.
Professor Gordon Blair, the Head of Department says "We are really excited about the new Masters Training Suite. The high quality of the finish together with the latest technical hardware means it will be a very pleasant, effective and innovative teaching facility. We are expecting our new masters students to be very impressed!"
The Computing Department teaches on eight Master's programmes with over 70 students attending courses each year. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/postgraduates/masters.html
BT Call Centre expert completes fast track Computing PhD at Lancaster University
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| Nichola Millard, Professor Alan Dix, Professor Gordon Blair |
Nicola Millard, Customer Experience Consultant, BT has taken just two years to complete a part-time PhD in Computer Science at Lancaster University. This incredible feat has been possible through a Computing Department scheme run specifically for industrial researchers. The PhD for Professional Researchers takes into account industrial research previously completed by students within their industrial employment. Nicola registered for her PhD in July 2003 with a large amount of high quality research already completed. This fast track PhD scheme allowed Nicola to build upon her previous work, build prototypes for field testing and complete the thesis within the minimum time allowed of two years part-time. Dedication, determination and, not least, talent has paid dividends with a PhD from one of the UK's best Computing Departments to her name.
Nicola is already recognised as an expert in the field of call centre customer experience, speaking at conferences throughout the world and with many published papers, but having the respect of the academics now gives her great satisfaction. "The PhD for Professional Researcher scheme has been a fantastic opportunity for me because it has given academic validation to the work I am doing at BT. This is a very valuable qualification and opens up the academic world to me.", said Nicola .
Call centre staff have a tough job and high burn out rates are a well documented feature of the industry. Improving the employee experience as well as the customers is now on the agenda of the forward thinking centres and BT is making sure it is at the forefront through sponsorship and support of Nicola's studies. The subject of the PhD thesis is "Designing motivational user interfaces for call centre advisors". It looks at how staff effectiveness may be balanced with a healthy and stress free environment. A prototype of the new interface software was piloted in three call centres - two telecoms and one bank. Its aim was to manage stress levels, allow staff to control their emotions and help them to deal more effectively with irate customers. The prototype interfaces were successfully tested with call centre advisors and some elements of the designs have been taken forward into operational systems. The most notable success was the "emotional widget", a mechanism to off load stress levels. It proved to be an excellent mechanism to help call centre advisors let off steam and makes the workplace a more fun and satisfying environment to be in.
Apply NOW for PhD Scholarships
The Computing Department has a small number of EPSRC-funded PhD scholarships available for highly qualified UK-based candidates starting on 1st October 2005. The scholarships cover fees and a minimum allowance of £12,500 per year for 3 years. In addition, students who demonstrate exceptional talent may be awarded an extra stipend of up to £3000 per year. Full details can be found on the department PhD funding page. The deadline for applications is 31st August 2005.
Computing Taster Week
The Computing Department, with contributions from the Departments of Communication Systems and Engineering, is running a Headstart scheme in July for Year 12 school students. Students will stay on campus and have the fantastic opportunity to be inspired by the multi-faceted and innovative world of Computer Science. Find out more on the Headstart website or read the University press release
METAMORPHOSIS
METAMORPHOSIS, an interactive installation developed collaboratively between the Computing Department's .:thePooch:. and Welfare State International opened on July 1st 2005. Commissioned for the eCampus Underpass project, this interactive video and sound installation provokes questions about the power of natural phenomena and explores the idea that through our actions the pattern of nature is irredeemably altered. METAMORPHOSIS runs Friday July 1st 2005 at the Lanternhouse, The Ellers, Ulverston Cumbria and continues until July 31st 2005.
For more information, see http://www.welfare-state.org or http://www.thepooch.com. This collaboration was made possible with a grant from the Friends Programme at Lancaster University.
Read the University press release
Technology Captures War Memories
Memories of wartime Cumbria are set to be preserved with the help of cutting-edge technology from Lancaster University.
This month The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal will hold an exhibition called Evidence marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Local people are invited to bring along their own recollections of the war as well as 1940s memorabilia from gas masks to ration books.
These personal accounts and objects will be preserved for posterity with the help of new technology being developed by computer scientists at InfoLab21.
Tales of rationing and every day life on the home front will be recorded in a big brother style video diary meanwhile an interactive installation will allow visitors to create digital live art by arranging war time memorabilia. The installation is called the Kirlian Table and was developed by .:thePooch:. - a new media collective based in the North West.
Read the full press release.
New EPSRC Project: ASSIST
ASSIST (Automated Semantic Assistance for Translators) is a new EPSRC-funded project that aims to address the problem of providing contextual examples of translation equivalents for words from the general lexicon. We will employ comparable corpora, an existing semantic field annotation system for English and develop a new semantic field tagger for Russian.
More information on the project is available at http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ucrel/projects.html#assist.
Information In Healthcare
The Computing department recently organised a workshop focusing on information in healthcare, which brought together sociologists, computer scientists, healthcare professionals and members of the IT industry. The workshop was organised as part of an ongoing collaboration between members of the department and researchers at the University of Edinburgh. Together we are looking at how healthcare professionals work with information and how information technologies can better support that work.
More information on the workshop is available at http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/projects/ideal/workshop.
Lancaster Gets Rural Community On Line
A remote Lancashire village is now online thanks to a unique partnership between computer researchers and a determined local community.
Villagers in Wray had been waiting to receive broadband in their village for years when they hooked up with computing experts based in Lancaster's new information and communications technology centre InfoLab21. Before then the only Internet access had been a slow, often unreliable, dial-up service.
Researchers at Lancaster were keen to discover how wireless technology performs in remote, rural environments so when they heard of the village's campaign to get on line they decided to offer wireless broadband to the village as a free service and use the network as a research test bed.
The ICT Rural Matrix project has provided Wray residents with valuable advice and training in the basics of using the internet and installing end users onto the broadband network. They are also working with the University and the villagers to test the mesh technology and learn all about it.
Read the full press releaseeCampus Art Project
In April, the Computing Department's technocratic performance group, .:thePooch:. are beginning a month-long collaboration with international artists Welfare State International to create an interactive art installation for the eCampus initiative. The collaboration will take place in InfoLab21 and at the Lanternhouse in Ulverston, Cumbria.
Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt launches InfoLab21
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| Rt. Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, Professor Paul Wellings, Bryan Gray NWDA Chairman |
February 2, 2005: Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt officially opened InfoLab21, Lancaster University's new Information and Communication Technology Centre. She described Lancaster as "a truly entrepreneurial university".
Congratulating the University on its progress she said: "This is a very exciting building and a very exciting partnership making Lancaster a leader in the world's knowledge driven economy."
InfoLab21 is a Lancaster University initiative to establish a world class Centre of Excellence for research, development and commercialisation of Information and Communication Technology. A key aim of the Centre is to promote and accelerate technology transfer between the ICT research in the University and the local and regional industry, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The Centre was made possible with financial support from the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), who have contributed £10 million to the project, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Read the press releaseEuropean Funding for AOSD-Europe
Lancaster University's Computing Department is leading a major European software development project that has been awarded Eur 4.4m - around £3.1m - by the European Commission. The project, called AOSD-Europe: European Network of Excellence on Aspect-Oriented Software Development, will be funded for four years and brings together 11 leading European organisations - nine academic and two industrial - including universities in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Israel, Ireland and Spain, plus Siemens AG, Germany, and IBM United Kingdom Ltd. More information.
Lancaster is at the forefront of research into Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) - earlier this year the University hosted a five-day international conference on the subject, attended by experts from universities and software companies around the world.
"No One Opens Attachments Anymore"
InfoLab21 recently played host to the two day "No One Opens Attachments Anymore" workshop, which brought together artists and scientists from different disciplines. Organised in collaboration with the Folly new media centre, the event produced several prototype projects and ideas for future art/technology collaborations. A review of the workshop is available from Usability News.
High Tec Homes
A Lancaster University researcher has helped give autistic people greater independence thanks to a cutting-edge accommodation project, which opened this month. Lancaster University Computer Research Associate Guy Dewsbury helped put together over 50 unobtrusive, custom-made technology packages for a groundbreaking specialist accommodation development in Aberdeen. Read the full article here.
InfoLab21 Open for business
The Computing Department has moved into InfoLab21 - a major new Information and Communication Technologies facility on campus. The £15m building, which was made possible with funding from the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), houses the Departments of Computing and Communication Systems and hosts 250 academics, research assistants, research students and support staff. Areas of expertise in InfoLab21 will range from software engineering to satellite communications. Designed by FaulknerBrown Architects and built by HBG the copper-clad building with distinctive bronze windows includes state-of-the-art computer facilities, offices, teaching space, a glass atrium and café with a roof terrace. InfoLab21 provides space both for University research and teaching and for business. The next stage of development will see a new 1,500 m2 Knowledge Business Centre (KBC) opened in InfoLab21. Discussions are now well advanced with a range of ICT based SMEs (Small to Medium-sized Enterprises) that are expected to take up residency before the year-end. The facility will also provide space for larger international companies to further strengthen their relationship with the University with co-located research projects. The KBC will act as an innovation hub, enabling the University to strengthen its links with business and enterprise through industry training and technology transfer. The project is part of the Government's "third mission" which aims to bring universities, businesses and communities together. It enables Lancaster University to offer its support to regional businesses, promoting long-term business growth, forging lasting business relationships and enhancing economic prospects in the region.
New BSc/MSci in Computer Science Innovation
From 2005 the Department is introducing a new BSc/MSci degree in Computer Science Innovation, offering students the opportunity to work with word-class research groups on innovative new ideas in the field. See here for further details.
IT Jobs Booming - And Wages Will Follow
According to silicon.com, UK's leading website for IT and Business Decision makers, the IT jobs market is in its healthiest state for two years, with IT organisations falling over themselves to hire new bodies. Research from Reed recruitment has found that 68 per cent of IT organisations will be recruiting in the coming quarter, with an extra 26 per cent saying they'll be making new hires to keep up staff numbers. Read the full article here.
Computing Department receives highest award in Periodic Quality Review
The Computing Department at Lancaster University impressed the judges panel of the May 2004 PQR with the quality of its teaching at all levels: undergraduate, postgraduate Masters and Doctoral programmes. A judgement of "full confidence" was passed with particular commendations for:
- Radical and innovative design and delivery of undergraduate courses
- Highly distinctive Masters programme emanating from research skills
- Strong PhD programme with impressive student numbers
- Innovative and flexible PhD scheme for experienced industrial researchers
- Research-led teaching strategy
- Strong team spirit and collegiate management style
The report also comments on the strong level of student satisfaction across all levels of the teaching programme.
The Head of
Department, Prof. Gordon Blair, welcomed the report and
said "I am absolutely delighted by the outcome of this
review and the strong endorsement of our teaching processes.
This is testimony to the hard work of the department at all levels
including my talented and enthusiastic academic colleagues and also our
outstanding support staff. We have now received very strong recognition
for both our research and teaching placing us in the very top tier of
Computer Science Departments in the UK and indeed across Europe".
Dr Awais Rashid receives University Staff Prize for Research
Dr Awais Rashid, Senior Lecturer at Computing, has been awarded the University Staff Prize for his outstanding research contributions. Dr Rashid was Organizing Chair of the 2004 International Conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD'04) which was held March 22-26, 2004, at Lancaster University.
Prof Steve Pink joins the Department
The department is delighted to announce the imminent arrival of Prof Steve Pink, an internationally renowned expert on Internet protocol engineering. Lancaster University is already one of the leading groups world-wide in networking and Steve will add considerable value to our work, particularly on studies of next-generation internetworking protocols for use over advanced networking technology links, including high-speed fibre optic and wireless.
Steve has previously led research in this area at the University of Arizona and also SiCS and the University of Lulea in Sweden. Dr Pink was a founder of Effnet AB which has commercialized several new networking technologies developed at Lulea including IP header compression. Most recently Steve, along with colleagues from the University of Arizona, has founded a new company called Procito Inc. that develops solutions for routing and compression in ad-hoc networks.
Dr Corina Sas joins Computing Department as new HCI lecturer
Corina
Sas has been appointed as a lecturer in HCI in Computing
Department, University of Lancaster, since May 2004. Her current
research areas are spatial cognition and behaviour in virtual reality,
usability studies, user modelling, individual differences and sense of
presence.
Prior to joining Computing Department she was a scholar reading for a PhD in Computer Science at the University College Dublin, Ireland on the topic of individual differences in navigating and experiencing presence in desktop Virtual Environments.
Her previous studies include a MA in Industrial and Organisational Psychology from the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science and a BA in Psychology, from the "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu, Romania, where she also worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Associated Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.
Lancaster University Computing Department is founding member of E-NEXT, a new European FP6 Network of Excellence
Lancaster University is involved as a founder member in E-NEXT, a recently launched European FP6 Network of Excellence. The general objective of E-NEXT is to encourage technological excellence in Europe in the area of networking through inter-institutional collaboration.
Research interests of the network members include quality of service, programmable networks, multimedia content distribution, and IPv6, to mention a few. See http://www.ist-e-next.net/ for more information.
Contact person at Lancaster University Computing Department is Prof David Hutchison.
New Computer Linguistics Project Starting May 2004
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: "Unlocking the Word Hoard" applies to highly canonical literary texts the insights and techniques of corpus linguistics. Involves 2 researchers from Departments of Computing and Linguistics, along with a team at Northwestern University (Chicago). Lancaster's involvement in the project is the linguistic annotation of Shakespeare texts. See http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ucrel/projects.html#wordhoard for more information.
Contact person at Lancaster University Computing Department is Dr Paul Rayson.
Move to InfoLab21
The Computing Department will be moving into the new InfoLab21 building in the Summer 2004. This new purpose built building will house the Computing Department and Department of Communication Systems. The aim is to become the North West centre of excellence for ICT.
Events
Conference: British HCI 2007
3 - 7 September 2007, at Lancaster University. Find out more at the conference website
Open Days
Dates of Department Undergraduate Open Days for the current academic year:
Undergraduate Open Day dates for 2007
- 24th January, 2007
- 3rd February, 2007
- 14th February, 2007
- 28th February, 2007
- 14th March, 2007
There are also University wide open days.
Postgraduate Open Day dates
- 27 November 2006
- 31 January 2007
Find out more information and book online at the University postgraduate open day page.