School of Computing News

The School of Computing continues its upward trend in the league tables. It has been ranked 25th out of 105 UK CS departments in the Complete University Guide 2014 – a rise of eight places from last year. The University of Kent has been ranked 28th out of 124 UK institutions – up five places from last year. This rise, combined with the University’s third place for overall satisfaction in the most recent National Student Survey (2012) and ...

Lecturer John Crawford has been shortlisted for the Kent Union Teaching Awards 2013 in the category of faculty award for Sciences. Although the award winners will be announced at a ceremony on 15th May, John can be confident of his chances of success, as he is in a shortlist of one in his category. Alex Murray, Kent Union Vice-President (Education) said: “Kent Union Teaching Awards recognise the tremendous impact that your academic and professional ser...

Computing Officer Tim Bishop completed the London Marathon on Sunday 21 April. “It took me 5 hours, 1 minute and 4 seconds. That’s slightly longer than I had estimated, but I’m still really pleased to have finished. It was one of the most physically challenging things I’ve ever done, but it was definitely worth it. The atmosphere was brilliant, and the weather held out too.” Tim trained and raised money with his friend Laura Dancer, who set a target of raising &p...

Second year undergraduate students at the School of Computing have been awarded a prize for best Software Engineering project sponsored by Accenture Technology Solutions. The students took part in a group project is based on requirements from external customers. The topic was a chronicling system for social workers, by Professor Darrel Ince of the Open University (now retired), based on his analysis of the failed Integrated...

Students from all over the world got a taste of higher education and computer programming at the School of Computing on Wednesday 27 March. The group of students from Pestalozzi International Village Trust, based in East Sussex, visited the Canterbury Campus of the University of Kent. The group represented seven different nationalities from countries including Belize, Nepal and Uganda. The students are in the UK to study the International Baccalaureate, bef...

Kent alumnus Hannes Ricklefs returned to campus on Tuesday 19 March to share his experiences of the visual effects industry with students from the School of Computing and the School of Engineering and Digital Arts. Hannes graduated with a BSc in Computer Science with a Year in Industry and a Master's in Animation. He has worked for MPC (The Moving Picture Company) for eight years. MPC produces visual effects for feature films such as Skyfall, Prometheus...

Professor Michael Kölling has received the Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education award by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). Dan Joyce, SIGCSE Vice Chair, presented Professor Kölling with the award at the SIGCSE Symposium in Denver, Colorado, on 7 March. The international award recognises Professor Kölling's work in the Computer Science Education f...

Four final year Computer Science students have won a cash prize for a project which the Kent Innovation and Enterprise team (KIE) judged to the be most attractive investment and development opportunity. The prize of £200 was awarded to a group that developed Medominder, a system for monitoring medication use remotely, at the final year undergraduates’ project fair on Friday 15 March. The Medominder team aimed to make medication a worry free exper...