MSc Poster Demo Session 2014

Last September a diverse group of students arrived at orientation to begin, their MSc journey.

Start of the journey: September 2013

After a year of hard work, and an intensive summer project, students submitted their final dissertation last week. Earlier today they had an opportunity to present their posters and demonstrate their project artefacts.

MSc Poster Session: Pinning, Preparation and Presentation

End of the MSc journey: August 2014

With prizes awarded to the top 3 posters and cakes for all, the session proved busy and provided the perfect occasion to meet with second markers, reflect upon the dissertation journey and appreciate the projects completed by their peers.

Congratulations to Alice Herbison (overall winner): The design and implementation of DentalAnx, (best runner-ups) Bejamin Yakubu: AMLA Android Multimedia Learning Aid, and Thomas Brunner: Interactive Realtime Analysis of Social Media Data, all three received the coveted amazon vouchers.

Clockwise from left: Benjamin, Alice and Thomas complete with their winning poster. Receiving Amazon vouchers for top 3 posters.

Clockwise from top left: Benjamin, Alice and Thomas complete with poster. Receiving Amazon vouchers

We wish them all, every success with future plans, and look forward to seeing them again at December 2014 Graduation!

NSS 2014: Computer Science Students 100% Satisfied

The results of the 2014 National Student Survey (NSS) were released this week and 100% of our students reported themselves “satisfied” (20%) or "very satisfied” (80%) with their course. This places Computer Science at St Andrews top in the UK.

The School was also top in a number of other categories including “Staff are good at explaining things”, “Assessment arrangements and Marking have been fair”, “I have been able to contact staff when I needed to”, “Good advice was available when I needed to make study choices” and ” I have been able to access general IT resources when I needed to”.

The NSS collects satisfaction levels from undergraduate students in the UK, via a survey. The survey is sent to all students in the UK a few months before they graduate and gets a very high return rate.

We are delighted that our recent graduates feel so positive about their student experience and wish them every success with future endeavours.

Computer Science Graduation 2014

Read more about the survey, the 2014 results and its ongoing review at the Funding Council website, in the University news and in the media.

“Love Learning” Video Competition Winner

Congratulations to James Montgomery, the overall video winner in “Love Learning” an annual competition run by UCAS and The Times.

James viewed the contest as an opportunity to express the passion that he has developed for computing during his first year of study in the School of Computer Science. We congratulated him earlier this week, and asked him to comment on the motivation and inspiration behind the video.

I was particularly inspired by lectures on abstraction levels, and discovering that sliced onion lends itself so well to animation was a deciding factor in choosing my subject matter. I’m delighted to have received the overall prize, and hope my video will encourage more people to consider pursuing computer science at university.

UCAS love learning seeks to inspire the next generation of students to study a related subject at university and encourages students to bottle their enthusiasm and distil it into a winning formula.

Very, well done to James. You can view his winning video along with other entries on the competition results website.

Lectureship In Human Computer Interaction

We seek applications for a SICSA lectureship in Human Computer Interaction or a closely related area. We welcome applications from excellent researchers in any relevant area who are keen to cooperate with others within St Andrews Computer Human Interaction (SACHI) and the School of Computer Science. We are especially, but not exclusively, interested in those working in HCI and:

Input and Interaction methods
Information Visualisation or other techniques relevant to Data Science (e.g. machine learning)
Ubiquitous Computing or Systems
Digital Humanities

You should have a PhD, a period of postdoctoral experience and have an outstanding research record as demonstrated by publications and research funding. You must be willing to cooperate with other researchers across Scotland and contribute to the work of SICSA, especially its Human Computer Interaction theme, and to teach in any area of Computer Science. Teaching is important to us and you should be a committed teacher, with appropriate experience.

Candidates interested in this post are welcome to informally contact the Head of School (Steve Linton hos-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk) to discuss possible options. For informal discussion on St Andrews Computer Human Interaction, please contact Professor Aaron Quigley aquigley@st-andrews.ac.uk. We would welcome interaction with any established groups wishing to move to St Andrews.
Information on how to apply.

MSc Summer Barbecue

MSc students take time out of their busy schedule to enjoy a summer BBQ. A sunny July day presented an opportunity to relax and reflect on all their hard work, before submitting their dissertations. Later this month they will present their posters, and demonstrate their project artefacts. We look forward to viewing the culmination of a journey that started a year ago.

Images courtesy of MSc students.

Finalist in Scottish Software Engineer of the Year

Congratulations to St Andrews student Simone Ivan Conte, who has been selected as one of the four finalists in the Young Software Engineer of the Year Award 2014.

Simone’s project (pictured below) involved creating a haptic device and API for displaying vector graphics (e.g., trees and graphs) for people with visual disabilities. According to his Senior Honours dissertation supervisor, Dr. Miguel Nacenta

this work demonstrates a lot of ingenuity and has a large potential impact.

The Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards are given for the best undergraduate software projects completed by students studying computer science and software engineering in Scotland.

Simone graduated in Computer Science from St Andrews earlier this year and is currently working for Adobe on a summer internship. In September he will start his doctoral studies, funded by Adobe, with Professor Alan Dearle at St Andrews.

Previous finalists and prize winners have included Thomas Grimes, Alistair Scott, Craig Paul, Angus MacDonald, Ben Catherall and Graeme Bell. Further testament to the quality of talented students graduating from the School of Computer Science.

The winners of this year’s award will be revealed on 2nd October 2014! Fingers crossed.

Teaching Fellow in Computer Science

Applications are invited for a Teaching Fellow in Computer Science in the School of Computer Science. In the first instance, at least, this is a fixed-term position of nine months with a start date of September 2014. We require a Teaching Fellow to assist with the development and delivery of high quality, innovative teaching. Applicants should have at least a BSc in Computer Science, preferably a PhD, and previous lecturing and tutorial experience at undergraduate level. Preferably they should also be able to demonstrate ability to deliver a range of core Computer Science courses, in particular within the field of HCI, in classroom, laboratory and small-group tutorial environments; experience in the development of innovative material for learning and teaching; and/or experience of contributing to pedagogical studies in the sciences. Information on how to apply.

An award and a PhD for Iain Parris

Iain Parris had a busy week at the end of June. On Monday 30 June he travelled to Madrid for the 6th International Workshop on Hot Topics in Peer-to-peer computing and Online Social neTworking (HotPOST), where his paper Friend or Flood? Social prevention of flooding attacks in mobile opportunistic networks won the best paper award. He then returned to St Andrews on Wednesday to defend his PhD thesis on Practical privacy and security for opportunistic networks. Fortunately he wasn’t too tired from his travels and his examiners, Dr Mike Just and Professor Aaron Quigley agreed that he should pass with minor corrections. The examiners and the soon-to-be Dr Parris are pictured.

Honorary Professor John Stasko delivers EuroVis 2014 Capstone

This June Honorary Professor John Stasko delivered the EuroVis 2014: Capstone on The Value of Visualization…and Why Interaction Matters

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Computer Science: Graduation 2014

Congratulations to the Senior Honours Class of 2014, our MSci (Honours) students and our PhD students, who graduate today. Students were invited to a reception in the School to celebrate their achievement with staff, friends and family. Our graduates will move on to a wide variety of interesting and challenging employment and further study opportunities, and we wish them all well with their future careers.

Images courtesy of Saleem Bhatti and Lisa Dow

Computer Science Blog