The University of West London

Top computing award goes to University staff member

Tuesday 24 January 2012

A member of staff at the University's School of Computing and Technology has won the British Computer Society best undergraduate computing project.

Bob Guinn, Technology Enhanced Learning Developer and Consultant, studied Bsc Computing and Information Systems at the University.  He was awarded the honour for his project on maintaining and updating a data warehouse system that predicts student performance and dropout possibility.

The original system, the Mining Course Management System (MCMS), identifies students with poor performance who are at risk of dropping out and flags this up to their lecturers and the student themselves.

The London branch of the British Computer Society gives an award annually for the best student undergraduate project.  After impressing the judges with his project Bob was given a cash prize and a one year membership of the British Computer Society as part of his award.

Commenting on his win, Bob said:

'I am very pleased, surprised and honoured to win the award.  Studying at the University has been extremely useful in my chosen field of Technology Enhanced Learning because it has enabled me to gain a large range of software development knowledge and project management skills.'

Bob added:

'It has also been very useful for me to experience first-hand how students engage with the e-learning systems at the University such as Blackboard and Turnitin.'