Projects

David has been involved in the running of a number of funded projects. The current, and longest-running projects as it happens, are CECIL and Concur. These are now being extended to provide resources for STEM initiatives in the community.

• CECIL: is a low-level language designed to run on a simplified and simulated microcontroller, the "SIM20" (preceded by the KIM10). The aim is not to help students to become assembly language programmers, but to provide a vehicle whereby they can learn about hardware design concepts through practical activity. This is a long-running project. It was first developed as a concept in the late 1980s, has been used at various times in at least 6 institutions, and is still in use in at least 4.
• Concur: is a parallel programming environment developed to test out the thesis that parallel programming is only difficult because we train parallel thinking out of our students before introducing it to them towards the end of their degrees as "hard". Concur is a simplified parallel programming environment orientated towards control. It has been successfully used with 7 year olds, and demonstrated that computing students were more likely to (inappropriately) apply serial strategies to parallel problems than 7 year olds. There's obviously more to it than that, but that will do as a summary.
• eCert: is a design for a secure user-centric "eCertificate" system. By working with representatives of the community to establish use case scenarios, the design was verified by building a demonstrator, and then by testing the demonstrator within the group. The demonstrator is based on a code library which has been developed, and both demonstrator and code library have been placed in the public domain.
• ASDEL: is an assessment delivery engine to the IMS Question and Test Interoperability version 2.1 specifications that can be deployed as a stand-alone web application or as part of a SOA-enabled Virtual Learning Environment. The project integrates with Cambridge's "Minibix" item banking project and Kingston's "AQuRate" item authoring project. There is a demonstrator, with all software available and in the public domain.
• EFSCE: stands for "E-Framework Services for Course Evaluation"; the project enables users to create applications that provide and consume services for course evaluation. The toolkit focuses on the authoring of evaluation questionnaires, their use by students, and the authoring of course reports by tutors based upon questionnaire answers.
• PeerPigeon: is a working Peer Review infrastructure, implemented in Ruby, that uses a Ruby script to manage to logic of the peer review process. It uses REST Services for resource submission and distribution to peer review groups.
• Widening Participation: heavy involvement with Southampton's Widening Participation project meant significant time spent on WP and part-time issues. There are a few observations (papers) on that.
• Disc Prot: A commercial disc copy-protection system.