Referencing within Code, how?

A paper has been accepted for publication at The 2012 China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education (CEISEE’2012), Shanghai on the problem referencing within code.

Gary Hill and Scott Turner

ABSTRACT
Traditionally computer sciences courses will assess software code. It is common and accepted good practice (as in written reports) to reference other sources of appropriate material. However there appears to be no explicit method, recommendation or advice available to computer science tutors and students on a referencing approach! 


This paper aims to stimulate discussion from peers involved in software engineering education. By discussing the apparent lack of ‘referencing within code’ advice to students and proposing suggestions for appropriate solutions. This will be based on the authors’ experience of assessing code and the current advice given to their students.

student internationally published

A paper has been accepted for publication at The 2012 China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education (CEISEE’2012), with an finalist student from 2011 as one of the co-authors.

To avoid potential bias for work on student experience during a problem-solving module; from tutors and to get honest feedback, the survey data collection and some of the analysis was carried out by an undergraduate computing student (one of the co-authors Kumuditha Achini Kariyawasam) under an URB@N funded project. URB@N stands for 'Undergraduate Research Bursaries at Northampton'. It is a bursary scheme that offers undergraduate students an opportunity to participate in a pedagogic research project taking place at the University of Northampton

Is it Visual? The importance of a Problem solving Module within a computing course

K A Kariyawasam

S J Turner

G J Hill

ABSTRACT
This paper looks at student’s view of the usefulness of a problem solving and programming module in the first year of a 3-year undergraduate program. The School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton, UK has been investigating, over the last seven years the teaching of problem solving. Including looking at whether a more visual approach has any benefits (the visual programming includes both 2-d and graphical user interfaces). Whilst the authors have discussed the subject problem solving and programming in the past this paper considers the students perspective from research collected/collated by a student researcher under a new initiative within the University.

All students interviewed either had completed the module within the two years of the survey or were completing the problem-solving module in their first year.

opinion: easy as Pi!

Reblogged from: http://blogs.northampton.ac.uk/expertsatnorthampton/2012/03/09/easy-as-pi/

There has recently been quite a lot of excitement about the Raspberry Pi, and rightly so. At around £25 for a computer (you need to have a keyboard and TV) it has lots of features that make it interesting.

For me though its most interesting feature is it is a no-frills device that doesn’t look like the black box in the corner – it’s a circuit board with some chips and connections. Why is that interesting? Well, that’s what a computer essentially is.  It is cheap enough that if it breaks it is not a serious problem, and in most cases people are unlikely to write something that will break the machine anyway.

There has, quite rightly, been a lot of excitement – because of the price, and for encouraging school children to learn to program. I agree with this whole-heartedly, but there is potentially a more interesting feature, what else can you do with it? Yes, you can word process, run video or connect to the internet, but what if you connected it to something else?  What if you combined them together or connect cameras to them – what could you produce at a relatively low cost?

A low cost device that can be used to encourage ideas to be played with, where it doesn’t matter too much if it goes wrong –  that is where the excitement should be. I do not know what is going to come out of it, but I am very interested to find out.

What do you think?

Kinect, Autodesk and 3D stereo

John Marsh a third years student on BSc Computing (Computer Networks Engineering), University of Northampton has been working on using Microsoft's Kinect with 3D stereoscopic imagery. Producing a system where by hand gestures or head tracking 3D images can be rotated or zoomed in or out on. This work has been carried out with NVision and as well as commercial applications the potential for assistive technologies is being considered. The video below shows John using the system.

To learn more contact NVision

Computing Courses

BSc and HND Computing Provision (click on the links below for more details of the courses)

• BEng/MEng Computing (Computer Networks Engineering)
• BEng/MEng Computing (Computer Systems Engineering) 

• BSc (Hons) Computing (also available part-time)
• BSc (Hons) Computing (Graphics and Visualisation)
• BSc (Hons) Computing (Internet Technology and Security)
• BSc (Hons) Computing (Mobile Computing)
• BSc (Hons) Computing (Software Engineering)
• BSc (Hons) Computing - One Year Top-Up 
• BSc  Computer Games Development
• HND Computing (Compute​r Net​works Engineering)
• HND Computing (Computer Systems Engineering)
• HND Computing (Graphics and Visualisation)
• HND Computing (Internet Tech​nolog​y and Security)
• HND Computing (Mobile Computing)
• HND Computing (Software Engine​ering) 
• HND Com​puting

The University of Northampton's, Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies offers five courses within the MSc Computing postgraduate provision (shown below) all available either part-time or full-time. 

• MSc Computing
• MSc Computing (Internet Technology and Security)
• MSc Computing (Computer Networks Engineering)
• MSc Computing (Software Engineering)
• MSc Computing (Immersive Technologies)

The contents are the opinion of the author(s) and not necessarily the view of the University of Northampton.

First prize

Rashmi Dravid and Ali Al-Sherbaz's  poster presentation paper on 'Mobile Mesh Networks for Disaster Management', presented at the Mobile4Development conference in India has been award the 'First Prize' in the category. 

This is further to them receiving a special mention  and prize from Nokia, in Nokia's  'Ideas4Develoment' challenge.

BCS funding for Women in STEM event

The BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT has provided £1500  funding for the forthcoming International Women's Day event on 7th March.

7th March 2012

Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures

University of Northampton, Newton Building

For more information contact Rashmi Dravid. 

Outreach

View more PowerPoint from Scott Turner