ECS is celebrating a record year for student intake on undergraduate and MSc courses, with 446 students enrolled at the end of Freshers' Week.

This year 275 students are enrolled on our 23 undergraduate programmes, and 171 students enrolled on our nine MSc programmes. 'This is a great endorsement for our determination to provide high-quality education within a world-leading research school,' said Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of School.

'We are continually assessing our programme syllabuses to ensure that our courses meet the needs of future graduates, as well as the needs of business and industry,' said Dr Andy Gravell, Director of Undergraduate Studies. 'It's really gratifying to see that our students are in such demand by global high technology companies, who really value the type of education and skills training that we are able to offer in ECS. Our undergraduate programmes also provide an excellent basis for further specialist research on PhD or Engineering Doctorate programmes.'

Over recent years the MSc programme at ECS has expanded significantly and now offers nine different courses. Professor Darren Bagnall, ECS Programme Director, said: 'We are really pleased that our portfolio of MSc programmes, covering the range of expertise across the School, is proving popular with so many high quality students from around the world.'

During their JumpStart Freshers Week, new students in ECS have had the opportunity to take part in team-building challenges, social events, acclimatization sessions, and to find their way round the facilities in Zepler Building. However, learning begins in earnest on Monday 6 October, when Semester 1 courses kick off.

The Language Box, an ECS-led project which will make it possible for language teachers to share their learning resources easily, will be launched next week

The new lightweight repository which is the first such resource for language teachers in the UK, is part of the Faroes project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and led by the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS).

The Language Box, which draws on the best-practice principles of Web 2.0, will be launched at a workshop at the University of Portsmouth (one of the project partners) on Wednesday 15 October when it will go 'live' as a beta.

From that date the Language Box will act as a host for language teachers to deposit their resources and share them with friends and colleagues in their community.

'This has never been done before in the field of languages,' said Dr Yvonne Howard, Language Box Project Leader at the ECS Learning Societies Lab. 'It's a kind of YouTube for teachers. We were clear that we didn't want a dusty old place for information to rot or screens full of metadata. Instead we have developed a facility that really gives teachers what they need to do their job.'

The launch event will take place at the University of Portsmouth (Park Building) from 10.15am-4.15pm on Wednesday 15 October. Those wishing to attend should contact Stavroula Varella at: stavroula.varella@port.ac.uk.

New modelling tools which can simulate the next generation of computers will be described in Professor Mark Zwolinski's inaugural lecture on 15 October.

Professor Mark Zwolinski from the ECS Electronic Systems and Devices Group will deliver his inaugural lecture entitled 'Virtual Computing: Simulation by and of Computers' on Wednesday 15 October, during which he will claim that sophisticated modelling tools are needed if smaller, multi-processor systems are to work in years to come.

'We are reaching the physical limits of transistor sizes and we are getting to a point where it is becoming too expensive to manufacture them,' he said. 'Therefore, we can no longer cobble together massive systems with lots of processors in the hopes that they will work. We have to simulate them first.'

Professor Zwolinski will go on to describe that as chips are being developed which accommodate semiconductor structures below 32 nanometres, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce circuits which are reproducible, behave in the same way and are fault tolerant.

'If we build systems that have lots of processors, they will have faults, so we must build systems that are fault tolerant,’ he said.

At the moment, Professor Zwolinski and his team are developing hardware and software so that they can construct virtual prototypes of fault tolerant systems so that they can assess the feasibility of big computer systems before building them.

The lecture takes place in Nightingale Lecture Theatre, bdg 67 at 4 pm on Wednesday 15 October. Refreshments are available from 3.30 pm.

The lecture will be chaired by Emeritus Professor Henri Kemhadjian.

Silicon.com has named ECS Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, as its No.1 Agenda Setter.

The annual list chooses the top 50 most influential individuals in the worldwide technology and IT industries – business leaders, CEOs, CIOs, techies, open source gurus, security experts, visionaries, entrepreneurs and political figures. Although Sir Tim has been featured on the list for many years, this is his first time at the top spot.

His citation reads:

"His win reflects the profound impact the web has on how we live and work today.

Berners-Lee is as relevant now as he was when he invented the world wide web back in 1989. He continues to push the boundaries of innovation as well as work tirelessly to bring the web to developing countries and maintain its openness.

It's the breadth and depth of his efforts that earn him the title of the most influential individual in the tech industry. As one Agenda Setters judge put it: "When he talks others listen."

Berners-Lee is a leading advocate of the development of the next-generation semantic web, in which 'intelligent' computers will be capable of analysing everything on the web and automatically performing tasks done today by humans, such as finding, sharing and combining information.

He heads up the Web Science Research Initiative with colleagues from MIT in the US and the University of Southampton in the UK to promote the study of web science and help lay the foundations for the future development of the web.

Through his directorship of the World Wide Web Consortium, which he founded in 1994, Berners-Lee is at the forefront of the development of web standards. He has also been an outspoken campaigner for net neutrality, arguing against restrictions on content, sites or platforms and the introduction of tiered services by ISPs.

Earlier this year Berners-Lee unveiled the World Wide Web Foundation to spread the web to developing countries and maintain its openness. He says the foundation, which was launched with a $5m grant, is needed to ensure the web serves humanity by connecting people.

The Agenda Setters panel praised Berners-Lee for being "a guardian and promoter of the fundamental social and technical innovation of our era, who is still pushing its boundaries and continues to set the agenda".

Here is an Agenda Setter about whom one can honestly ask: what would life be like without him?"

Other Agenda Setters in the top five were: Steve Jobs, Apple CEO (2); Richard Thomas, UK Information Commissioner (3); Jimmy Wales, Wiki Media Founder (4); and Mike Lynch, Autonomy Founder and CEO (5).

See the full list.

dr mc schraefel has been awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellowship, sponsored by Microsoft Research, to improve the path to discovery for scientists.

Over the five year duration of the award, dr monica mc schraefel, Chief Imaginist for Interactive Strategies in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, will research which environmental conditions (social, physical, informational) are optimum for human creativity and which best lead to the cognitive leap that synthesises new information in the 'pre-eureka!' moment.

PODCAST:150

A vital part of this research will be the quest to improve quality of life for scientists through more efficient information flows.

'Almost all of us struggle with time management and life management,' said dr schraefel. 'The vision of this work is to be able to clear a path through all the information out there to help the right information to get to the right person right away - less search, more discovery!'

dr schraefel also plans to address how environment is a major factor in the discovery and innovation process and to look at factors which hinder creativity.

She believes that exercise and physical activity are underrated by research environments, so systems could be geared towards illustrating that activity has benefit, particularly as obesity costs the UK £3.5 billion a year and low back pain, stress and anxiety all contribute to absenteeism. 'Geeks are notoriously out of shape and we know from related research that folks who move work better and feel better,’ said dr schraefel. ‘Our challenge is to look at having systems that help represent researchers’ status to them in such a way that could give them options to move and see that activity has benefit. Perhaps their heart rates are lower and their brain waves more susceptible to creativity after moving. We need to find ways to encourage and represent this.’

The Senior Research Fellowships Scheme provides funding for Senior Lecturer/Reader level appointments, at UK universities, in order to enable individuals with several years post-doctoral research experience to progress in their chosen field. The Royal Academy of Engineering aims to strengthen industrial/academic links through co-funding the appointments with industrial organisations, over periods of five years, to establish, or enhance, an internationally renowned centre of excellence in an identified area of engineering.

Robert Barrett, Head of Research Programmes at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: ‘The Academy is delighted to support such a world-class research engineer to this prestigious Senior Research Fellowship together with Microsoft Research.

‘mc is already internationally recognised and has collaborated with other outstanding scientists working in fields relating to knowledge engineering and we feel sure that this work will further the position of the UK as an international leader in innovation and discovery.’

‘Microsoft Research is delighted to sponsor dr schraefel’s Senior Research Fellowship,’ Ken Wood, Deputy Director at Microsoft Research, Cambridge added. ‘Her work on developing systems to foster creativity is important for scientists, but also for the wider business world and even for people at home, including children. We look forward to dr schraefel’s continued work in these and related areas over the course of her fellowship, and we hope to collaborate with her on specific projects where our research interests overlap.’

The contribution to the School of three long-standing and eminent members of staff was celebrated at a joint retirement event this week.

The three staff members, Professor Dave Nunn, former Head of the ISIS group, Dr Neil Ross of the ESD group, and Maralyn Knight, PA to the Head of School and Secretarial Services Manager, had between them over 60 years service to the School, and their contributions were described and tribute paid to their achievements by (respectively) Professor Bob Damper, Professor Chris Harris, and Professor Harvey Rutt.

Professor Ghazy A Makky Almakky, Cultural Attache to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London, visited the new Mountbatten Building today (22.10.08).

Professor Almakky was paying a visit to the University, which has recently seen a surge in the numbers of students from Saudi Arabia, and during his visit to ECS he met Saud Al Garni, who has recently begun an MSc in Nanoelectronics, and Saqib Khursheed, who is working on a PhD in the Electronic Systems and Devices group.

He also met Head of School Professor Harvey Rutt, who gave Professor Almakky and his party a short tour of the new £55M Mountbatten Building.

Students who signed up to act as mentors in this year's Student Robotics challenge have begun their training on programming the robots and mentoring the teams taking part.

This year a larger number of teams has joined the competition, even from as far afield as Alton. The competition is entirely run by student volunteers, drawn largely from the School of Electronics and Computer Science, but also involving students from the Faculty of Engineering, Science and Mathematics.

The University students undertake the building of the robot electronics, but the school students then have the task of programming the robots to perform a specified task, which forms the basis of the Grand Challenge final, taking place at the University in April.

Sponsorship for some of the local school teams is still being sought. If you are interested in providing sponsorship, contact enquiries@ecs.soton.ac.uk

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using open source software, including ECS's EPrints, in its bid to become one of the most high-tech political parties in the world.

The party, which has 24 million members, has embarked on a policy to go digital in all its activities to increase communications between headquarters and state units and to provide a modern and dynamic image to potential voters.

EPrints is being used by the party as an internal document library. According to linux.com, the party's IT Cell believes that promoting open source and open standards is an imperative for India and is expected to lead to further developments in the future.

Exactly three years to the day from the fire that destroyed a leading research facility, the imposing building that has taken its place is now open to students and staff.

The new Mountbatten Building on the Highfield Campus occupies the same footprint as its predecessor, and is a substantial architectural triumph. The £55M building is also one of Europe’s leading multidisciplinary and state-of-the-art clean room complexes. It provides flexible research space for world-leading technology development in nanotechnology and photonics for the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science and the Optoelectronics Research Centre.

Both inside and outside, with its laboratories, teaching space, and impressively spacious atrium, the Mountbatten Building makes a statement. The design is bold and modern, the building’s glass curtain walls – graced by a mathematical fractal pattern – enable those outside to view the research taking place in the clean rooms.

“The new building has literally risen like a phoenix from the ashes of its predecessor,â€? said Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science.

“It provides the environment and facilities that will enable us to carry out fundamental and transformative research at the nanoscale and our cleanrooms will enable us to forge new partnerships with others working at the leading edge of technology. It fully realizes the University’s commitment made the day after the fire, to ensure that our research would continue in even better and more appropriate surroundings.â€?

“On behalf of the ORC, I am very excited at the prospect of getting our laboratories back after three years of making-do in temporary facilities,â€? said Professor David Payne, Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre. “This magnificent clean room building is unique and world leading in its imaginative vision for the integration of nanoscience, photonics and optical fibre technology. With the devastating fire well and truly behind us, we can now rapidly rebuild our reputation as the foremost photonics centre in the world.â€?

With staff and students now based in the building, fitting out of the clean rooms is under way to ensure the extremely rigorous environmental conditions required for the research to take place at the nanoscale.

The day following the fire, the University’s Vice-Chancellor Bill Wakeham had promised that: “We are committed to rebuilding, and that out of these tragic events will emerge something bigger and better.â€?

Today Professor Wakeham commented that: “We have been able to fulfil my promise made three years ago. Staff and students are starting to move in to this stunning new facility and I look forward to seeing the positive impact that this will have on their world-leading research.â€?