School of Computer Science students Carl Gowan, Jack Laurel and Scott Ringham now have two publications to add to their CVs following their participation in last year’s SoCS undergraduate research opportunities scheme.
The students worked alongside SoCS staff Bruce Hargrave, Dr Kevin Jacques and Dr David Cobham to carry out research into the benefits of setting up on-campus student enterprises. The research focused on a previous project where a group of students from across the University participated in a structured hackathon event called “Appfest”. After the hackathon event had taken place a number of those who had taken part were invited to form a student enterprise to develop apps for clients both inside the University and from further afield.
Scott, Jack and Carl’s research was into the effectiveness of using hackathons to set up high tech student businesses. Their first paper was accepted at the 11th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference and the three travelled to Valencia (pictured here with Dean for Transnational Education Dr David Cobham) to present their findings. A second paper was then written focussing on the successfulness of the student enterprise created, one year on from the original hackathon. This has been accepted and will be presented at the 9th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies in Barcelona next week.
What is the SoCS undergraduate research opportunities scheme?
Each year a number of students successfully apply to take up paid employment through the month of July working on a range of research projects in the School. As well as contributing to the Schools research outputs the scheme is an excellent opportunity to bring staff and students together to work on research projects and for students to hone their technical and research skills. All students are encouraged to write up their findings and, with the help of the academic members of staff involved, to submit the paper to a conference or a journal. Where these are accepted the School undertakes to cover the cost of travel and attendance at the conference. Previous students have presented at conferences not only in the UK and Europe but also as far afield as Canada, the United States, China and Taiwan.