Departmental News 2012
2012-11-30 New B.E. (Hons) in Software Engineering
We're pleased to announce that the new B.E. (Hons) in Software Engineering has been approved by CUAP (the committee who approves new programmes). A final formality is needed before we can officially enrol students, but we expect this to be signed off by mid December.
Here's what to do if you're interested in enrolling for a Software Engineering degree:
- If you are about to start first-year courses in 2013 then you need to enrol for the Engineering intermediate selecting courses appropriate for the Software Engineering stream. http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/subjects/seng/
- If you have completed 100-level courses in 2012 that include COSC121, COSC122, and 30 points of maths, then you may be eligible to start First Professional Software Engineering (200 level) in 2013. There is no requirement to have completed the engineering intermediate to make this application, we will consider applications on a case by case basis. If that is the case then;
- Enrol for one of the other engineering programmes (e.g. Computer Engineering) and then change once Software Engineering is an official option. Please do this by the 1 of December 2012, and
- Email the College of Engineering Academic manager (Lisa Carter: lisa.carter@canterbury.ac.nz) to notify your intention to take Software Engineering by Tuesday 4 December 2012.
- Second and Third Professional Software Engineering Years will be offered in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Details about the new program are at: http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/open/students/intending/softwareengineering
General enquiries about the B.E. (Hons) in Software Engineering can be directed to Tim Bell: tim.bell@canterbury.ac.nz, who is the Director of Studies for Software Engineering.
2012-10-17 Top 101-150
Our department has been ranked in the top 101-150 Computer Science departments in the 2011 International QS World University Rankings.
2012-08-22 Tim Bell Wins UC Innovation Medal
Dear Colleagues
I am delighted to announce that the recipient of the UC Innovation Medal for 2011 is Professor Tim Bell - this award was approved by the Executive Committee of Council today.
An academic member of staff in the Computer Science and Software Engineering department, Professor Bell's creative work in developing new materials and methods for teaching basic computer science has had an enormous impact on the world.
The project 'Computer Science Unplugged' was first conceived by Professor Bell 20 years ago and since then he has driven its development and uptake. The teaching initiative has revolutionised the way computer science is taught within New Zealand and internationally. Translated into 17 languages including associated websites and videos, it has been adopted by school districts and by university-based science outreach projects across the globe. It is recognised and celebrated as an international movement among mathematics and science educators.
The award of an Innovation Medal is a tangible outcome of the University's strategy to have stronger connections with its external stakeholders in terms of uptake of work done by university staff that will contribute to the economy and to societal needs. The award this year honours Professor Bell's academic research and work which has been adopted into the wider New Zealand community and internationally.
The UC Innovation Awards is only into its second year with the competition again being very strong. I am delighted to see that innovation at UC is expanding and developing as evidenced by the number of nominations received.
I hope that you will join me in congratulating Professor Bell on his achievements.
An event to celebrate his success will take place in October.
Professor Steve Weaver
Assistant Vice-Chancellor Research
University of Canterbury
2012-02-10: COSC366/COSC486 Summer Projects Presentation
The presentation of eight summer research projects for COSC366/COSC486 will take place at 9:00am - 12:20pm on Friday, 10 February, in Erskine 031. A detailed program is below. This is a good opportunity to find out what kind of research topics are happening in the department, and also how far students can go in research just after they finish stage 2 and stage 3. All students and staff are encouraged to attend.
Date: 10 February 2012
Room: Erskine 031
9:00-9:05 Opening address Prof Tanja Mitrovic
Session 1. Chair Prof Tim Bell- 9:05-9:25 Steven Rutherford, 3D Mesh Construction from HRCT Images of the Lung
- 9:25-9:45 Joshua Scott, Implementation and Analysis of Bounding Interval Hierarchies for Realtime Ray Tracing
- 9:50-10:10 David Johnston, A Graphical Tool for the Two All Pairs Shortest Path Algorithms
- 10:10-10:30 Joshua Leung, Sculpting as an Efficient Posing Method
10:30-10:50 Morning tea
Session 3. Chair Prof Krys Pawlikowski- 10:50-11:10 Tegan Harrison, Are personal cues more effective to participants when remembering a set of tasks in comparison to provided cues?
- 11:10-11:30 Scott Ogden, Creating and evaluating problem templates for problem generation within the context of stroke cognitive rehabilitation
- 11:35-11:55 Michael Norrie, Concept mapping of Separate Constraint Based Tutors
- 11:55-12:15 Adam Freeth, Searching for Effective Truncation Methods for the Initial Transient Phase in Quantitative Discrete-Event Simulation