ECS senior lecturer Dr Mike Wald has won a prestigious national award which recognizes teaching excellence in higher education.

Dr Wald, of the School’s Learning Societies Lab, has been named a National Teaching Fellow by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) for his work on accessible technologies.

The citation on the HEA web site reads:

"Throughout his teaching career Dr Wald has improved learning for students through his excellence in teaching and his innovative creation, development and use of technology. He has helped change national policy, won many awards and achieved international recognition as a scholar and a champion for disabled students.

"Dr Wald advised and helped establish the disability services at Southampton and many other universities, directly benefitting the learning experiences of many thousands of students. When speech recognition technologies first became available, he identified their potential for enhancing learning for disabled and dyslexic students and worked closely with international colleagues to turn this potential into a reality. His most recent innovation, Synote, is being used by universities worldwide to transform learning for all students.

"A student at the University of Southampton commented: 'Synote is the best system I have ever seen for assistive technology it is very useful for me to understand what the lecturer taught after class I hope all school majors could integrate this system - thanks.'

Dr Wald enjoys seeing others make use of the free technologies he has developed to enhance the learning of their students, and looks forward to developing further Synote and other technologies for the benefit of all students in HE.

Academic colleagues in Europe and North America commented: 'Dr Wald is a model academic worthy of our praise - he genuinely cares about teaching and learning, conducts world-class research, engages students in cutting-edge learning opportunities, and collaborates broadly both within the academic community and beyond on educationally focused initiatives . . . The systems he has envisioned, designed, and deployed are being used in many countries around the world. More importantly, they're providing real, tangible benefits for students. The ripple effect of his dedication to teaching excellence is profound and far-reaching. His approach and his insight make him a "technology visionary", able to build strong bridges between the field of IT skills and those more closely related to educational issues and learning processes."

Simon Kemp, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton also received a National Teaching Fellowship and he and Mike were among 50 awarded in the UK as a whole. Professor Debra Humphris, University of Southampton Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education), says: "The award of National Teaching Fellowships to Simon and Mike provides clear recognition of both their national standing and the esteem in which they are held by the University. Their commitment to students is outstanding and I am delighted that this has been nationally recognised."

This year’s Fellows were chosen from nearly 200 nominations submitted to the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme by higher education institutions, and each will receive an award of £10,000, which may be used for professional development in teaching and learning or aspects of pedagogy.

The Higher Education Academy supports the sector in providing the best possible learning experience for all students. The Academy is an independent organisation funded by grants from the four UK higher education funding bodies, subscriptions from higher education institutions, and grant and contract income for specific initiatives.

Dr Wald commented: "I am very pleased to have my work recognized and look forward to more universities and teachers using Synote as it enhances learning for all students." He is pictured here with the EUNIS Dorup E-learning Award 2009, one of a number of awards he has received for Synote.

ECS Professors Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Professor Dame Wendy Hall, and Professor Tony Hey have all been taking part in the Royal Society’s 'See Further: Festival of Science + Arts' at the South Bank Centre, London, this week, and Professor Nigel Shadbolt has been taking part in the Guardian 'Activate 2010' conference, also in London.

The See Further celebration is part of the 350th anniversary celebrations for the Royal Society and is a 10-day event exploring links between the sciences and arts, through cross-disciplinary collaborations, scientific and artistic events.

Tim Berners-Lee and Wendy Hall were panel members in the Future Technologies event which took place on Monday 28 June in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, joining Stephen Fry, Dr Jim Haseloff of Cambridge University and tech critic Bill Thompson of the BBC to discuss how current inventions could change our image of technology and the culture we live in. The panel discussion can be viewed here.

On Thursday 1 July Wendy Hall gave the keynote at Tomorrow’s Giants which was organized in partnership with 'Nature'. The event considered what is required across three different themes: Careers, Data, and Measuring and assessing to enable academic achievement of the highest quality .

Professor Tony Hey, Corporate Vice President of External Research at Microsoft, and former Head of School of Electronics and Computer Science, was a member of the afternoon panel along with Lord Drayson, former Minister for Science and Innovation. Dr Martin Charlton of the ECS Nano group was one of the event’s organizers.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt took part in The Guardian’s Activate Summit, as part of a very distinguished group of industry, academic and media representatives. The panel event was titled Technology, Society and the Future: Changing the world through the Internet and Nigel was part of the Panel talking about Politics, Democracy and Public Life, along with Martha Lane-Fox, UK digital champion, Steven Clift of E-Democracy, and Beth Simone Noveck , Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House Open Government Initiative.

See the news flow on Twitter.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453.

The University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) EPrints repository of research publications is now one of the top ten in the world, according to the official world ranking of institutional repositories (published this week).

Southampton ECS EPrints is ranked number 10 in the world, just behind MIT and the combined campuses of the University of California. The University of Southampton’s university-wide EPrints repository (excluding ECS) is ranked number 27 and University College London’s repository is ranked number 79 – the only three repositories in the UK to rank in the top 100. There are 80 UK institutions in the top 800 institutional repositories.

The rankings are based principally on the number of links into the repository from external websites, demonstrating the impact of an institution’s research on the rest of the Web.

Dr Les Carr, EPrints Technical Director, comments: “This is excellent news for Southampton, since it clearly demonstrates the value of being able to archive all our research publications on the Web and provide open access to them.

“It also underlines the success of the Open Access Initiative which, together with developments in semantic technologies in which Southampton is also in the forefront, will help ensure in the future that the world can have access to all its scientific research and that the results can be analysed and linked through the World Wide Web.â€?

The aim of the global ranking is to support Open Access initiatives which provide free access to scientific publications in an electronic form. The School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is a world-leader in the technology and design of open access repositories as well as in the design of institutional open access policy.

The University of Southampton institution-wide mandate was introduced in 2008. Wendy White, Repository Manager of University of Southampton EPrints, comments: “Providing global open access to our research ensures that a range of sectors including governments, charities and businesses can make full use of this work.â€?

“The Ranking Web of World Repositoriesâ€? is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain. The rankings have been published since 2006.

Not only was ECS the first academic institution in the world to adopt a self-archiving mandate (2001), it also created the first repository-creating software (EPrints), now used by institutions worldwide. The School’s digital library researchers have also demonstrated the citation-impact advantage of self-archiving, and continue to maintain the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), tracking the number, size and growth of institutional repositories worldwide, as well as ROARMAP, tracking the global growth of self-archiving mandates by institutions and funders. Professor Stevan Harnad, the leader of the global “greenâ€? open access self-archiving movement, holds a Chair in the School.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

A conference which will propose structures for the widespread adoption of e-assessment in education will take place at the University of Southampton next week.

The 2010 International Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) Conference: Research into e-Assessment, to be held on 20 and 21 July, is a two-day research-led event hosted by the University of Southampton and organised by its School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) with the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the Open University. The Conference aims to advance the understanding and application of information technology to the assessment process (e-assessment) through rigorous peer-reviewed research.

According to conference organiser Lester Gilbert of the ECS Learning Societies Lab, it is generally accepted that e-assessment fits the student mindset much better than setting three-hour exams, and the challenge now is to have adaptive e-assessment which provides prompt feedback to students so that they can learn more effectively.

Therefore, the key theme of this year’s conference focuses on new ways to enhance student learning through e-assessment, and will address topics such as using student contributions to online discussions as assessment tools; the key obstacles to widespread adoption of e-assessment in higher education across the UK, and effective ways to mitigate the emerging threat of remotely administered online exams being compromised by identity fraud.

The keynote address will be delivered by Dr Paul Brna, Educational Consultant, who will focus on the importance of using e-assessment to provide feedback to learners and to make it a major part of personalised learning.

“Students want more and more feedback,â€? said Denise Whitelock, IET, CAA Conference Chair. “Therefore we want to make assessment more bespoke so that academics are more focused and effective and all students get some level of feedback. When students get feedback, they become more reflective learners.â€?

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.44(0)23 8059 5453.

In what is believed also to be a world-first, ECS has become the UK’s first University department to release all its public data in open linked data format.

The School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton is at the forefront of the open linked data initiative through the work of its Professors Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt.

Now, in accordance with the spirit of the initiative, ECS has released all its own data for public reuse. This includes data about research papers in the EPrints archive (announced this in the official global rankings as one of the top ten in the world), people in the School, research groups, teaching modules, seminars and events, buildings and rooms.

All public (RDF) data from rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk and eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk is now available and can be reused for any legal purpose, including derivative works and commercial use. The School has opted for a creative commons public domain (CC0) license to allow the data to be reused.

Christopher Gutteridge, ECS Web Projects Manager, comments: “We believe that in the future this will become common practice for certain types of open data, and it is our responsibility to lead the way in setting the standards of best practice.â€?

“We have decided not to make attribution of our data a legal requirement, as this makes it difficult to create large scale mashups.

“So, rather than ‘MUST attribute’, our policy is ‘please attribute’. Obviously an attribution would be nice, but we don’t want to restrict innovation by requiring it under all circumstances.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt comments: “The University of Southampton has pioneered some of the most important developments in the Semantic Web and Open Access in recent years. This announcement will ensure more data is released in the right format to enable new innovative uses of the information.

“This kind of open data policy will become the standard by which all public institutions are judged. Working with the UK government over the past year Tim Berners-Lee and I have been looking to change everyone’s attitude to data. Publicly-held non-personal data is now being released all over the country and as this continues we’ll see innovation to exploit it and applications that use it.’

All the ECS information released is already available as HTML on the School’s websites. Contact details of people are only included if they have previously opted into the University's public directory.

“What’s new about what we are doing now is that by providing the RDF we are making it possible for other computers to understand the information,â€? says Christopher.

“We have no idea how people will reuse our data,â€? he adds, “but we are excited to find out!

More information on the available data from ECS: http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/docs/

Over the summer the School plans to make the ECS SPARQL endpoint available to the public as part of its supported website features such as RSS or iCalendar files. In the near future SPARQL will be used to build parts of the School’s own websites.

“We’ve found the process of ‘eating our own dogfood’ very educational,â€? says Christopher, “since it has resolved many issues with our RDF data which we would not have otherwise been aware of. We are already using this in a limited way to dynamically build http://www.southampton-nanofab.com/about/news/ and http://www.southampton-nanofab.com/research/researchprojects.php using the SPARQL.

The ECS data can be explored in a browser here: http://graphite.ecs.soton.ac.uk/sparqlbrowser/?endpoint=http://rdf.ecs.soton.ac.uk/sparql/

ECS has provided RDF data for around five years.

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

Over 200 students will attend Graduation ceremonies this week to receive University of Southampton degrees gained in the School of Electronics and Computer Science.

The students will graduate at two ceremonies to be held on Friday 16 July: at 9.30 am for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information Technology in Organisations; and at 4.45 pm for degrees in Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electromechanical Engineering. The ceremonies will be followed at 10.30 am and 5.45 pm by Graduation Receptions for graduates and their guests, to be held in the University's Reception Marquee (morning ceremony), which is situated in front of the Students' Union; and in the Garden Court (afternoon ceremony).

Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of School, will tell graduates: "All of us who know ECS know that it is a unique place and that it is the members of our community who make it so. For the last three or four years you have been an integral part of that community as much as any of the researchers and teachers whose work contributes to the School’s international reputation."

The majority of students graduating from ECS have already found jobs, despite the difficult economic conditions. Excellent employability figures for the School's graduates were a contributing factor in the School's outstanding league table results this year, and with many companies already booking for the ECS Careers Fair in February 2011, prospects for future graduates also look excellent.

Congratulations to all ECS students graduating this week!

For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453

An ECS researcher is part of a team which has just secured funding from Google to make the classics and other ancient texts easy to discover and access online.

Leif Isaksen, of the University's School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), is also part of the Archaeological Computing Research Group in the School of Humanities. He is working together with Dr Elton Barker at The Open University and Dr Eric Kansa of the University of California, Berkeley on the Google Ancient Places (GAP): Discovering historic geographical entities in the Google Books corpus project, which is one of 12 projects worldwide to receive funding as part of a new Digital Humanities Research Programme funded by Google.

The GAP researchers will enable scholars and enthusiasts worldwide to search the Google Books corpus to find books related to a geographic location and within a particular time period. The results can then be visualised on GoogleMaps or in GoogleEarth. The project will run until September next year.

"We are very excited about the potential of this project," said Leif Isaksen. "Up to now many ancient texts have been accessible only at elite institutions or have been very hard to find; now a much wider range of people will be able to discover them. This work will really help open up the field and lead to many further projects." ECS will work on a Web Service and Web Widget for the project. This will make it possible for Webmasters to add links to the ancient texts within their websites, enabling the public and researchers to search for them easily. The Widget will also be embedded in the Hestia (Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) and Open Context projects.

Leif Isaksen is completing a PhD at Southampton with Dr Kirk Martinez (ECS) and Dr Graeme Earl (Archaeology) on integrating archaeological data using Semantic Web technologies. “Google’s recent acquisition of Freebase, the Semantic Web encyclopaedia, means there is a range of exciting possibilities for convergence in the future,â€? he said.

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Leif Isaksen is a member of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. If you are interested in doing PhD research in this group you can find out more on our Postgraduate Admissions Pages.

For further information about this news story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

An academic at the University of Southampton is studying the potential for damage posed by lightning to carbon fibre composites (CFCs), which are increasingly being used in aircraft manufacture. The research will aim to reduce damage and minimise repair costs.

Dr Igor Golosnoy, of the University’s Electrical Power Engineering Research Group within the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), is working with EADS Innovation Works UK on a three-year project which aims to assess the effect of lightning strike on modern CFCs materials used in airframes or wind turbine blades.

Aircraft manufacturers are increasing the use of CFCs because they are lighter than aluminium and provide significant weight savings.

But according to Dr Golosnoy, CFCs have a significant drawback because of their peculiar structure. They contain several layers of long carbon fibres impregnated in epoxy resin and bonded together. The fibres are laid in different directions in each layer, making the composites highly electrically and thermally anisotropic (which means they have different physical properties in different directions). As a result, any lightning strike damage would present differently in each layer, making it more difficult to repair composites.

“We’re not talking about any immediate danger,â€? says Dr Golosnoy. “Modern jets can still fly safely despite lightning strike damage. The problem here is that any damage should not remain undetected and must be repaired promptly. Our role is to establish in detail how the damage occurs in composite structures and to give suggestions on repair and protection as well as to look at possible improvements in CFCs themselves.

“Although CFCs are strong and provide a superior mechanical performance, their electric and thermal conductivities are much lower than those of aluminium alloys. As a result the energy from the strike does not dissipate quickly enough along the unprotected surface, making them more susceptible to damage,â€? he continues.

“There are several ways to protect the composites, such as having a layer of metal mesh or thin foil on the top, but this increases the overall weight and means that both the coating and the composite get damaged. It also makes the repair procedure even more complicated.â€?

Over the lifetime of the project, which will look mainly at the fundamental physics of the phenomenon, Dr Golosnoy plans to develop a qualitative mathematical model and predict the airframe behaviour during lightning strike. He will also undertake a parametric analysis of how the layup of composites affects their thermo-electric performance.

For further information about this news story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

If you are interested in doing PhD research in the EPE group see our postgraduate admissions pages.

Academics are launching a study this week to understand what aspects of Twitter content are considered valuable, and how that impacts presentation and perception of online identity.

People often reach for Twitter when they have just had a great breakfast, updated their blog, feel exhausted, or want to share a news article. The question being explored in the study is - Who gives a tweet? Responding to the widespread perception that the majority of Twitter updates are boring, inane, or largely sandwich-related, researchers from the University of Southampton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Georgia Institute of Technology want Twitter users to anonymously rate their friends' tweets.

"Social networking sites currently take an optimistically positive view of status updates,â€? says Paul André, graduate student at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science. “Facebook enables users to 'like' their friends’ updates, and Twitter has 'favourites'. But this ignores the value that could be gained from understanding which updates are disliked and why." Michael Bernstein, PhD student at MIT, comments: "Analysing the negatively rated tweets, and the consensus that forms around them, will help us understand the emerging approved or accepted norms in these new forms of online communication."

The researchers have launched the website WGATweet.com (Who Gives A Tweet), and are asking Twitter users to sign up and receive ratings from both followers and strangers. "The site allows us to gather a more nuanced type of feedback than is currently available, and offers users an insight into how their updates are perceived by different groups, helping them understand what their impact really is," explains Kurt Luther, graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology. Twitter users can sign up (for free rating and analysis of their tweets) at http://wgatweet.com.

This research is part of Paul André's doctoral research, along with supervisor dr mc schraefel, in examining how to get more value both into and out of social media, towards enhancing personal and social awareness.

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Paul André is a member of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia research group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. If you are interested in doing PhD research in this group you can find out more on our Postgraduate Admissions Pages.

For further information about this news story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

The School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton has signed a research-based collaboration agreement with Oxford Instruments.

Oxford Instruments has 10 systems installed in the University’s state-of the-art Southampton Nanofabrication Centre (SNC), operated by the ECS Nano Research Group. Oxford Instruments’ process engineers will have use of this and selected other equipment at the SNC which opened just last year.

This will in effect expand Oxford Instruments’ research capabilities, and increase the already extensive process offering the company is able to make its customers. Oxford Instruments’ systems installed in the SNC include: FlexAL ALD tool, Ionfab300Plus ion beam tool, Plasmalab System400 sputtering tool, Plasmalab System80Plus RIE plasma etch tool, Nanofab1000 nanoscale growth tool, System100 PECVD plasma deposition and System100 ICP380 plasma etch tools.

In addition, Oxford Instruments is funding a post-doctoral position to work on a collaborative project with the SNC and other partners. This project will build on work funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) at the SNC as part of the Nanotechnology Grand Challenges for Healthcare research programme. The project will research novel materials and technologies for use as nanowire biosensors. The ultimate objective of both the Oxford Instruments and EPSRC projects is to build a nanowire biosensor system that can be used as a diagnostic tool for point of care applications.

Professor Peter Ashburn, Director of the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre at the University, comments:

“This collaboration with Oxford Instruments is undoubtedly a clear indicator that our research expertise and facilities are among the best in the world. We are certain the relationship between our two organisations will be mutually beneficial and our aim is that it will result in a commercial product for use in the life science and healthcare markets.â€?

Frazer Anderson, Business Development Director at Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, is equally positive about the collaboration: “As a leader in systems and processes for etch, deposition and growth, Oxford Instruments has an established relationship with the University of Southampton, with a substantial range of its equipment already installed in the SNC. One of Oxford Instruments’ key objectives is to pursue responsible development and deeper understanding of the world through science and technology, and this collaboration with such a prestigious research university is just the type of activity that will achieve this end.â€?

Dr Alec Reader, Director of the NanoKTN, was instrumental in facilitating the initial discussions between Oxford Instruments and SNC and has strongly encouraged industry-university collaborations of this type. Oxford Instruments is currently involved in discussions with the NanoKTN on ideas for taking this research forward to the next stage. ____

Professor Peter Ashburn is Director of the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre and a member of the Nano research group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science. If you are interested in doing PhD research in this group you can find out more on our Postgraduate Admissions Pages.

For further information about this news story contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.