FoCus Faculty of Computing Weekly Staff Newsletter Issue 55 7th December 2009 Edited by Peter Chalk - Associate Dean

FoC Industrial Liaison Group

The Industrial Liaison Group met on 25th November. Eleven of the external members attended the meeting representing the following companies: Smile-on Ltd., Entertainment Fund Management Company LCC, LIFELINE IT, Swift Computers Ltd, ST-Ericsson, Disability Essex, SGS International Ltd, Ask Direct Ltd, Castle Microwave, Morgan Fraser, and Ericsson. The meeting was very stimulating and generally set the scene for this group activity. As there were quite a few new members, the meeting provided an opportunity for the group to get to know each other better and each other's background and interests. The role of the external members is mainly advisory and the remit of the Group is to enhance the student experience. At the meeting we were pleased to learn that some of the external members are interested in participating in the Student Enterprise Workshop to talk about their experience, technical aspects of their work and soft-skills for graduates like employability, project management, writing application letters for jobs. Some of the members also expressed an interest in providing our students with industrial placement opportunities. This is great news as we know some of our students cherish the idea of working as part of their studies and engage in real projects. We were also encouraged to visit our members' companies in order to find out more about their business activities and explore the possibility of further engagement. From our discussions it became apparent that companies like Ericsson provide undergraduate and postgraduate projects including research related projects. This is something project supervisors can investigate and encourage students to explore before they pick their projects. Some useful ideas of revenue generation was discussed too that included exploring niche markets related to developing IT products to aid disabled people. We are very grateful to our external members to voluntarily give up their time to engage with the Faculty and give us their industrial perspective.

Jeliot Program Animation Seminar Last Friday, FoC and LTRI jointly presented a seminar by Professor Mordecai (Moti) Ben-Ari from the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. He described results from using Jeliot http://cs.joensuu.fi/jeliot/ a software tool that automatically

generates animations of the execution of Java programs. Jeliot has a plug-in for Blue. In response to questions he also demonstrated an introductory animated multimedia program environment, Scratch from MIT: http://scratch.mit.edu/. Both Jeliot and Scratch were discussed as possible contenders for supporting introductory programming here at LondonMet.

HE Academy ICS Student Competition Please let your students know that applications are now invited for the HE Academy ICS Student Competition. Details can be accessed at http://bit.ly/ICS_Students_Essay_Competition_2010

LondonMet FoC takes part in K12 Online Conference Alan Hudson, one of his MSc E-Learning students Lawal Muhammad, (pictured) and Virtually Linked, the makers of Second Life London, are presenting at this year's K12 Online Conference. The conference is centred around a series of online videos supported by blogs and wikis for attendees to comment on, exchange ideas and make connections. The video shows examples of their work in introducing new users to Second Life. It was created without the three parties meeting in real life. Discussions and plans were made using Skype and Second Life and various very large files were uploaded and downloaded to enable the whole video to be assembled before being uploaded to the conference site. The conference starts officially on December 7th and is free http://k12onlineconference.org/. The LondonMet video will be released on December 9th.

FoC Graduation Ceremony Erupts with Applause

Everyone at the Barbican cheered wildly when The Dean of FoC Dominic Palmer Brown announced the fifty years of research that led to the prestigious award of Doctor of Science for Edward Steers, pictured with Dr Bal Virdee and two of FoC graduates Sajid and Marjid Afzal who are working on various WoW projects. Two other staff were also awarded degrees, Bash Patel, senior technician in Comms Tech, got first class honours in BSc Computer Networking and Freddy de la Cruz, visiting lecturer for CISCO, was

awarded an MSc in Computer Networking with merit.

Teaching Fellowships Scheme Since its inception, London Metropolitan University has considered and approved nominations to the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS). In 2007, the University launched its University Teaching Fellowship Scheme (UTFS) to recognise outstanding contributions to learning and teaching within the University as well as within the wider HE community. All nominations must be based on the intention of submitting for a national award. The NTFS and UTFS is open to all those involved in teaching and in supporting the student learning experience in higher education. Both full-time and fractional University staff are eligible to apply. Colleagues may nominate themselves or others for an award. However, a nomination must be supported by the Dean, who is also required to provide a supporting statement to go with the application, prior to submission to a University review panel. For more details and the Information Pack, (deadline 11 January 2010). See: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/capd/fellowships/fellowships_home.cfm

FoC in the news - Games careers Fiona French and Laura Weir, the HR manager for Jagex (the games company who developed Runescape, the most popular free MMORPG http://www.jagex.com/ were asked by icould, the careers website for teenagers, to contribute towards an article on computer gaming, which involved answering questions from contributors. The article went live on 4 Dec 2009. Fiona has written for icould previously, contributing an article on how to choose a degree in computer games. See: http://icould.com/talk/are-you-considering-a-career-in-video-gaming/

Soft Skills Industrial Lecture – Financial Education On Weds 9th Dec 12.05-12.50pm there will be a Soft Skills Industrial Lecture in the Henry Thomas Theatre provisionally entitled, "Financial Education". It will be given to first year students on degree courses in Communications Technology. The speakers are Justine Robson & Des Morant from Genistar Limited, London. If you intend to come along, please confirm by email to Dr Mori Nejad Vaezi-Nejad m.vaezinejad@londonmet.ac.uk

Student Enterprise Workshop The FoC are delighted to invite you to come to our 3rd event in the current Student Enterprise Workshop series. It will take place in Henry Thomas Room TG-30 5:30pm - 6:30pm Wednesday 9th December. Session One will cover: How to build an IT career in the financial industry, by Michael Beaver the Head of Finance at BATS Europe. Session Two will cover: Cisco Networking Academy evolution and meeting current market demands, by Jaskaran Kalsi an Associate Technical Manager of Cisco Networking Academy.

Research Funding Success FoC staff have been awarded two of the SWAP (Supporting Writing for Assessment Purposes) research grants offered by the joint CAPD, Write Now CETL & LearnHigher CETL SWAP project Dafna Hardbattle and Ken Fisher's project follows on from last year, when they obtained funding from the Write Now CETL to develop a reflective practice learning object. The aim of this new project is to design a generic pattern to make the learning object adaptable to reuse in different teaching contexts. Maureen Kendal and Alan Hudson's project links the Second Life space and personalised avatar-selves to meet the needs of the different stages of the writing process, from research and reading, through to note-making, role-playing to stimulate the concept of the "Argument". Both projects are worth £2,000.

EU Grants to participate in Summer School related with Technology-enhanced Language Learning The European Commission has approved the organisation of the following Training Course: Exploiting Mobile and Wireless Technologies in Technology-Enhanced Lifelong Language Learning. The training course will take place in Athens, Greece from 22/08/2010 until 27/08/2010. The description of the Training Course is now available at: http://bit.ly/europa_education_training_db Teachers and Trainers have to ask for the specific Application Form or download it directly from the websites of their National Agencies. The list of all European National Agencies is available at: http://bit.ly/europa_lifelong_learning Teachers and Trainers will need to complete the Application Form and send it to the National Agency before 15th January 2010. For more information, please contact the Training Course Organisers Mrs Katerina Riviou at kriviou@gmail.com or Dr Yannis Kotsanis at kotsanis@hol.gr

NATS - Industrial Placement Opportunities NATS (actually Air Traffic Control!) are currently recruiting for their Industrial Placement Scheme. This year they have opportunities in: Systems Engineering in Dept of Asset Engineering – Responsible for projects delivering new systems and support of existing Air Traffic Control systems. Closing date for applications is 31st January Operational Analysis, which supports decision making processes by providing expert technical capability – from safety and operations analysis to forecasting, fast time modelling and system validation. Closing date for applications is 14th February. Applications should be made online at http://natscareers.co.uk/

JISC funding call The JISC invites proposals to develop a range of activities and tools aimed at improving business modelling and sustainability planning in the public and not-for-profit sectors for practitioners and policy-makers in the development of sustainable digital content. The deadline for proposals is 12 noon on 11 January 2010. Funding of between £75,000 and £85,000 is available. A full version of this open ITT can be found at: http://bit.ly/jisc_funding_scabusinessmodelling

Diary Monday 7th December.....1.pm-2.00pm SEM (L&T) Meeting room T9-05

Wednesday 9th December ................12.05pm-12.50pm Soft Skills Industrial Lecture - room TG30 ...................................1.00pm-2.00pm Research Seminar - room TG30 .............................................5.00pm-9.00pm SEW Series - room TG30

All items for future newsletters by Thursday 17.00 to r.stevens@londonmet.ac.uk