SISCMSchool of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics

NewSIssue 4

Our students beat strong competition to win semi‑final of the IBM UK Universities Business Challenge

At the beginning of March, a team of

students from the Department of Information

Systems and Computing (DISC) won the

semi-final of the IBM UK Universities Business

Challenge. The competition, hosted by

SERCO, took place at the National Physical

Laboratory in Teddington. The team

successfully fended off strong challenges

from other universities, including Warwick

Business School, Portsmouth and Exeter.

They won themselves a place in the finals

which were held at IBM Bedfont Lakes at

the end of March. The DISC team eventually

came 8th out of an initial field of 243. This

clearly demonstrates the quality of Brunel

students. They can compete, and win,

against other top university students.

Our congratulations go to Abdul Ali, Saira

Ali, Russel Charman, Oluwaseyi Lawal

and Alexander Tamarinde who have acted

as excellent ambassadors for Brunel.

The Universities Business Challenge is the

premier business simulation competition

for all university undergraduates in

the UK who want to develop their

employability competencies, meet potential

employers – and have a life-changing

experience. The UBC is a true learning

experience for all those who enter.

Made in Brunel – Software Innovation

The School held its inaugural ‘Made in

Brunel – Software Innovation’ event

on 10 March. It was an opportunity for

selected Level 2 students to display and

demonstrate their Level 2 Group Project

prototypes for android-based mobile

trading applications. Prizes were awarded

by Sky, Sporting Index and the Brunel

Commercialisation Office, with one very

happy student receiving an iPad 2!

The students found the event very useful in

that it gave them a real a sense of achievement

and their Group Project work helped several

of them to secure placements with employers.

The companies that attended found the

event very enjoyable and were impressed

by both the students and their work.

The Department of Information Systems and

Computing plans to make this an annual

event, with future events featuring work

from Level 3 students as well as Level 2. Such

events allow us to develop our relationships

with companies, but also provide us with a

mechanism to stretch our students and improve

the innovative nature and quality of their work.

Good news for IT professionals seeking employment

Employment prospects are improving for IT professionals, according to the March 2011 issue of the e-skills Bulletin, the definitive source of information about changes in the demand/supply of ICT labour and skills in the UK:

Demand for ICT labour and skills in the UK outstripped supply for the first time since the end of 2008, as the volume of advertised positions on offer marginally exceeded the number of ‘ready candidates’ in the labour market in the third quarter of 2010.

Key findings also include:

• The number of advertised vacancies for ICT staff rose for the fifth consecutive quarter to 101,000 positions, while the count of ‘ready candidates’ (in/out of work ICT staff that were seeking new/additional jobs) declined to just over 100,000.

• The unemployment rate for ICT staff fell to 3.1%, with a comparison figure of 8.3% for the workforce as a whole.

• Though advertised rates for ICT professionals remained unchanged overall, large short term increases were noted for:

• Contract Web Designer and Operations Analyst positions

• Permanent posts for Senior Systems Administrators and MIS/IT Managers.

• Longer term upward trends in rates were also noted for:

• Contract Project Managers, Network Support Engineers and Network/ Communications Analysts/Engineers

• Permanent Business Analysts, Software Engineers, Systems Programmers and Communications/Network Managers.

• The incidence of education or training amongst ICT staff fell to 23%, while the comparative figure for ICT industry workers was lower still at 20% – the lowest level since the data series began. This compares with a UK average of 26%.

Source: e-skills Labour Market Bulletin – e-skills uk: http://www.e-skills.com

Brunel prides itself on preparing our graduates with all the skills and information they need to compete for the jobs they want. We have excellent links with business and we ensure that the latest developments in the commercial world feed into all our courses. As part of this process, we invite colleagues from industry to come and teach on some of our modules. This gives our students an invaluable insight into the real world and makes the courses more enjoyable too.

Our industrial colleagues bring the knowledge of day-to-day commercial practice to bear on the subject they are teaching. They help students to see how the theory learned from lectures and reading, and the experience developed from completing coursework, is applied in practice. This enhances, and contextualises the academic work, and helps students to prepare for the workplace.

Here is a selection of some of the guest lectures we have had this year:

Jaguar Land Rover IT – From Transition to Transformation Stewart Bailey, Business Analyst

Pitney Bowes A day in the life of a software engineer Anthony Fitzpatrick, Engineering Manager

Practical Project Management Jeremy Leach, Project Manager

Quantel Evolving and maintaining large software systems Charles Tolman, Principal Software Architect

R R Donnelley Outsourcing Business Processes David Hindle, Senior Solution Architect – Offshoring and Inbound Services

Clinisys Bidding for a project Fiona Pearson, CEO

British Airport Authorities (BAA) A lecture about possible student and industrial projects - particularly operations management and supply chain management.

Representatives of the following companies are part of the lecturing team on the Risk and Regulations module within the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Royal Bank of Scotland Moorad Choudhry, Managing Director, Head of Business Treasury

Fitch Ratings Gary Van Vuuren, Senior Director

Paradigm Risk Limited Peter Bonisch, Managing Director

Guest Lectures

Mark graduated in 2010 and is now a graduate software engineer in the civil service, developing secure communications systems for government departments.

Mark beat 13,000 other graduates to become one of just 100 UK finalists in the Graduate 100 Awards 2010 – and

one of only 10 in the IT and Computing category.

During his time at Brunel, he helped bring national live music tours to the Students’

Union for the first time in years and worked as an ambassador for both his course and the University. He also taught conflict resolution and self defence in inner city schools – using the skills he learned as a member of the Brunel Ju Jitsu club – and represented Brunel for the IBM Universities Business Challenge. He still found time to take a 14-month placement as a software engineer at CERN in Geneva, and graduated with first class honours.

Mark described the nomination as a “nice surprise”, adding: “I had a really great

experience at Brunel, and the academic and support staff are brilliant. I learned

a lot during my time here and gained a degree I’m really proud of.”

Online petitioning and local government democracy – a SLOw BUrner?Within the broader debate of online engagement in local government democracy, English local authorities were required by December 2010 to offer an online space where the public would be enabled to petition the authority. Almost three months after this deadline, the first comprehensive national overview of local e-petitioning tools has found that the development, use and promotion of those facilities on English council websites is extremely low, with most available facilities as yet unused.

The study, carried out in early March by researchers from the Department of Information Systems and Computing at Brunel University, with funding from Fraser Henderson at ParticiTech, found that about 280 out of the 353 English local councils do feature some kind of e-petitioning facility on their websites. However, of these, some 69.2% (193) did not yet feature a single open petition; just 27.3% (76) had between 1 and 5 petitions open; and 3.7% (10 councils) had between 5 and 15 open petitions. Instructions and assistance offered by websites on using the systems was also found to be poor in some cases, with 62.6% (174) scoring 0 or 1 on a scale of 0-3.

Panos Panagiotopoulos, who with Chris Moody and Dr Tony Elliman led the Brunel research team, said that it was likely that two main factors lay behind the findings. First, many local authorities had not seen the need to introduce the systems despite being required to do so by law, and may therefore have “silently resisted” promoting them; and second, there had been confusion over the intentions of the new government towards e-petitioning.

One of the findings of the study was that use of e-petitions was higher in areas where household income was higher, appearing to confirm patterns of digital exclusion; and that often, the same people or groups of people had initiated and signed more than one petition, hinting at greater empowerment of certain groups. The research also found that better development of e-petition facilities was linked to better development of other e-participation activities by councils.

For more information about this study see the article at the Headstar eGovernment Bulletin (http://www.headstar.com/egblive/?p=831) or join the discussion at the ParticiTech blog (http://particitech.com/?p=494) or the ePetition Community of Practice (http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/comm/landing-home.do?id=2195982).

NOTE: Article originally published in E-Government Bulletin issue 332

The Industrial Dissertation Programme

Our Master’s students are encouraged to carry out their dissertations in collaboration with companies as a way of enhancing the skills and knowledge acquired during the course. Brunel has a long-standing history of industrial partnerships with employers helping us to produce talented, versatile graduates with highly sought-after skills.

Abhijeet MoreMSc Business Systems Integration (with SAP Technology)

“ As a part of my Master’s degree I was given the opportunity to write my dissertation on a business challenge faced by iPSL. This involved working on a real world problem, rather than on a hypothetical case. I learned many professional skills, such as IT project management, presentation skills, and participated in technical collaboration meetings. This internship will certainly give me the edge in the employment marketplace. ”Dr Simon KentMSc Supervisor

“ One of our MSc students was placed at iPSL where he worked on a real business problem that they were facing. He was able to use this experience as a case study for his Master’s dissertation, allowing him to integrate a ‘realworld’ dimension and a research dimension; something that would have been very difficult to achieve without the support of iPSL. The student also gained some valuable work experience which will strengthen his position when seeking employment following his study. ”

Computing student wins Google Scholarship

Bahareh Heravi, one of our PhD students, has been awarded a €7000 Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, an award given annually by Google to recognise outstanding young women scholars in computer science and

related fields. The Scholarship is highly competitive and awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computing.

Bahareh is a final year Doctoral student working as a member of the Dynamic Information Systems Engineering Group (DISE) within the Centre for Information Systems Research (CISR). As part of the award, Bahareh has been invited to Google’s Engineering Centre in Zurich for a networking retreat, which is sure to be a fantastic experience!

Congratulations Bahareh!

School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH Tel +44 (0)1895 265939 Fax +44 (0)1895 269728 E-mail cs-msc-courses@brunel.ac.uk

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TeL‑Map project

The TEL-Map project, which was launched in October 2010, successfully hosted its 2nd General Assembly meeting from 20-23rd March in the Department of Information Systems and Computing, with the participation of all the partners from the European consortium including the presence of the European Commission project officer himself.

TEL-Map, coordinated by Brunel, involves 10 partners from 7 European countries, and receives funding of €2.2 Million from the European Commission. The mission of TEL-Map includes (a) roadmapping towards new forms of learning and (b) awareness building and knowledge management around Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). TEL-Map aims to support TEL research and Europe’s TELcommunities to achieve earlier, stronger and longer-lasting results from their investments in TEL and use of TEL, and to provide consultation services to policy makers, with significant input to the European Commission’s forthcoming Framework Programme 8. Dr Lampros Stergioulas heads up the team with Dr Cecilia Loureiro-Koechlin, Carole Bromley, Robert Digby and Vana Kamtsiou. For more information see: www.telmap.org

ICOPer project

The ICOPER project was nominated Project of the Month by the European Commission in October 2010. ICOPER is a best practice network that seeks to collect and further develop best practices for the design, development and delivery of interoperable content supporting competency-driven higher education. For more information see: www.icoper.org

The Centre for Systems and Synthetic Biology

The Centre for Systems and Synthetic Biology at Brunel University provides an interdisciplinary environment for researchers from a wide range of disciplines in Brunel including the biosciences, computer science, engineering, environmental studies, mathematics and statistics, as well as ethics and law. The aim of the Centre is to research into systems and synthetic biology and to apply this research to challenging real-world problems, especially in biology, environment, engineering and health science. The Centre is jointly shared between the School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics and the School of Health Sciences and Social Care. It also involves the School of Engineering and Design as well as the Institute for the Environment.

Current research areas include

• BioModel engineering, including the development of methods for in-silico modelling and analysis with an emphasis on the relationship between qualitative and quantitative data, and approaches for multiscale modelling at the intracellular and intercellular levels.

• Systems biology of disease, for example cancer, Friedreich’s ataxia, muscular dystrophy, glaucoma, tropical parasites (malaria, trypanosoma, schistosoma).

• Multi-scale modeling.

• Systems biology approaches to the analysis of the effects of environmental pollution.

• Synthetic biology approaches to the rational design and construction of novel microRNA systems for transcriptional control; component-based design for biochemical pathway systems.

• The design and construction of computational systems to support systems and synthetic biology, including the appropriate application of high performance computing.

• The development of algorithms and methods to analyse high-throughput biological data including gene expression, epigenetics, proteomics and metabolomics.

• Related activities including bioinformatics, medical bioinformatics, and mathematical biology.

Contact detailsFor further information please contact:

Professor David Gilbert, School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics.

Email: david.gilbert@brunel.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1895 267665 Website: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/centres/cssb

SPOTLIGhT On reSearCh

Members of the Centre for Systems

and Synthetic Biology