COMPUTER SCIENCE

The practical application of students’ computer skills is already benefitting Bristolians says Dr Dan Schien

Bristol is a student city. There are more than 20,000 students enrolled at the University of Bristol and contributing to the vibrant city life. What you might not know is just how UOB computer science students have been contributing their knowledge and skills to organisations in Bristol while they undertake a compulsory software engineering project in their second year of study.

Students learn to build software, from idea to finished product. The twist: instead of working on theoretical projects for their teachers, they’re doing it for real –to the benefit of Bristol businesses and individuals. Over the past six years, senior lecturer in computer science Dr Dan Schien has been running the unit, working with more than 100 SMEs, charities, public sector and international corporations; mainly from Bristol, but also elsewhere in the UK and beyond. One of the organisations that has been working with students throughout this whole period is Bristol Museum. Mark Pajak, head of digital at Bristol Museums Galleries and Archives, has largely had students develop prototypes of novel information management solutions for the museums’ burgeoning archival data.

“The programme has enabled us to get novel solutions to technology problems and a way to prototype our ideas around digital products for museum audiences,” he says. “Through working with the students we have learnt as an organisation how to improve our approach to open data in order to enable new products to be designed, for example mobile gallery interpretations systems. This has often challenged internal processes where we find that we need to update our terminology to meet the needs and expectations of external collaborators and our own audiences. It has enabled skills sharing with our in-house digital team around software design and agile development methods.”

The students have built prototypes for the museum to help annotate hand-written texts, increase the performance of databases and help add location information to photos from around Bristol. But not all software solutions were meant for the back offices of archival management. One of the more unusual projects created with Mark was a computer vision-based visitor counter that the students built from an old Xbox. The student even crafted a wooden gateway that could be placed at the entrance to the museum.

Many of the projects are prototypes of solutions that help kick-start nascent ideas. But not all –two projects built for Children’s Hospital charity The Grand Appeal were released and utilised by many members of the public. For the legendary 2018 Wallace & Gromit trail, run with support from Aardman, the students contributed to the trail mobile app. In an augmented reality feature, trail visitors could have their selfies decorated with Wallace & Gromit paraphernalia and share them on social media. A second group built a collage maker that cleverly combined hundreds of the shared photos in tone and colour such that they would resemble famous scenes from Wallace & Gromit movies.

The bulk of projects comes from small businesses and charities. The folks at Pilgrim Brewery, who had the Ale Trail App built for them to guide pub visitors, said: “The students have gone above and beyond the brief, and have created a fantastic and professional app that we can’t wait for our clients to use.” Another project that produced output seen by many Bristol locals was a sustainability metrics info board for Cabot Circus. For the students, it’s a unique learning experience.

Rather unlike what students experience within the lectures in the university walls, the workplace that awaits graduates is constantly evolving: requirements respond to changes within organisations and their environments, clients increase their understanding of what software should do for them as projects go on, and data that was anticipated does not become available in time.

This is all in stark contrast to traditional computer science projects which are typically isolated from the end users –“with our group projects, students see first-hand the output of their work making a real difference to people’s lives,” says Simon Lock, who teaches the unit with Dan Schien. “It can’t be understated the motivating influence that this has on our student cohort.”

The experience makes for an excellent highpoint in students’ CVs. Projects developed with large organisations and international brands (such as the Environment Agency, Hewlett Packard or Mozilla/Firefox) really make their work portfolios stand out from the crowd. Feedback from students indicates that such high-profile and challenging projects provides essential topics of discussion for interviews and other recruitment activities.

The benefits are manifold for all, it would seem; Dan Schien certainly finds it rewarding. “Through the work with the students we have had a unique chance to work with so many individuals and companies in Bristol,” he says. “It is a huge privilege.” n

A second group built a collage maker that combined hundreds of the public’s photos such that they would resemble famous scenes from Wallace & Gromit movies • If you have a project idea and would like help from Bristol’s students to make it a reality, find out more at bristol.ac.uk/software-engineering