News

Stay up to date with what's happening today in the Department.

The most recent news items are listed first. Note that only items of lasting interest are retained.

N.B. The University has launched a new website. Links from this website to pages on the previous Swansea University site have been adjusted accordingly, replacing 'www' by 'old-www'. Links to Computer Science pages are unchanged.

See also the Events page for announcements of events organised by the Department.

• Technocamps to host inspirational teachers’ event
• Beti Williams has been awarded an MBE, see also another report
• The styling of the Computer Science website has been adjusted to resemble that of the new University website (14 Nov 2011). Most of the content will move to the University's content management system in early 2012. If a page is displayed with an orange logo, try reloading it.
• HP award helps Computer Science students compete at international event
• Professor John V Tucker has been elected to the Academia Europaea
• The Department is launching a series of Distinguished Lectures in Computer Science, starting in November 2011. This new series supersedes the previous series of Departmental Colloquia.
• The University website has been redesigned; the previous pages are available on an archive
• Technocamps deliver first landmark workshop
• Novel interactive computing workshops for schools
• Sports visualisation app used by Wales in Rugby World Cup 2011 – see also the BBC News story
• The Computer Science Course Handbook (PDF, 1.5MB) is now available online (printed copies will not be available). It provides general information about the staff and administrative organisation of the Department, and full details of our current teaching.
• New research grant: Faster and higher quality global illumination
• Masters award for human-computer interaction researcher
• Minister hails importance of computing at school
• Swansea students win at national IT competition
• New research grant: NISCHR Biomedical Research Unit: Advanced Medical Image Analysis and Visualisation (with Bangor, Aberystwyth and Cardiff)
• Scaling the Rural Enterprise
• New research grant: PLanCompS – Programming Language Components and Specifications
• Swansea student shines in British Council's International Student Awards 2011
• Prof Matt Jones has been appointed Head of Department, with effect from March 2011.
• Technocamps: announcement of £6m project led by Swansea University in partnership with the Universities of Bangor, Aberystwyth and Glamorgan, to deliver a series of outreach programmes to schools and colleges, inspiring young people to study computing-based topics.
• New research grant: Bridging the Rural Divide: Inclusive Technology in the Countryside
• SAW: Software Alliance Wales has been launched. This £13m project is led by the Department's industrial liaison unit ITWales, and delivered in partnership with Glamorgan, Bangor, Aberystwyth and Wales Trinity Saint David Universities.
• Prof Min Chen has been appointed Head of Department, with effect from September 2010.
• New pedestrian navigation app to encourage exploration
• The Computer Science Course Handbook (PDF, 1.3MB) is now available online; printed copies will be available by the beginning of term. It provides general information about the staff and administrative organisation of the Department, and full details of our current teaching.
• Community-generated media to benefit billions in the developing world
• The School of Physical Sciences is offering a new taught MSc scheme Modelling, Uncertainty and Data starting in October 2010.
• Bridging the Gaps grant brings researchers together
• Swansea student wins first prize in BCSWomen competition
• A step towards minimising human error …
• Obituary: Prof Robin Milner FRS, Honorary Fellow at Swansea …
• Swansea students in software design competition final …
• Our Future Interaction Technology Lab, in collaboration with UCL, Queen Mary, and City University, has recently been awarded an EPSRC Programme Grant to improve the usability and, more importantly, the safety of interactive medical devices. Using a combination of formal interaction design models, and the study of human error in hospitals, the multi-disciplinary team aims to reduce the 74,000 annual deaths and serious injuries that occur due to the accidental misuse of medical equipment.
• A page about Ethical Consent Procedures, and links to information about the REF, have been added to the Research section.
• One Wales Research Institute of Visual Computing established. Education Minister Jane Hutt recently announced £5m to establish a premier Research Institute of Visual Computing (RIVIC) in Wales. Read more about the launch.
• The Computer Graphics Forum cover competition was won by Ben Spencer and Mark W Jones. See the image here.
• A Scientific Symposium in honour of Prof Peter Mosses will be held during the 3rd Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science (CALCO) in September 2009, Udine, Italy. Read more about the event.
• Researchers in the Visual Computing group win best paper award at Eurovis 2009. Read more about the award.
• An HCI Reading Group has been added to Research Group Seminars.
• Some new pages have been added to the Research section of this website:
  • Research projects: sources of funding, advice on writing grant proposals, currently funded projects
  • Postgraduate research: regulations and procedures, information about funding
  • Training courses: staff development courses, postgraduate student development
  • Research committee: membership, calendar, responsibilities
    
    
• The RAE 2008 results have been announced! As the Vice-Chancellor wrote:

"Swansea University has demonstrated an extraordinarily strong performance against other UK universities in the disciplines of Engineering, Medicine and Computer Science, where almost all staff were classed as producing world-leading or internationally excellent research".

Moreover, only 12 departments in the UK submitted a higher percentage of world-leading research in Computer Science than Swansea. See our Research page for further details.

• The Scientific Computation: Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics research group moved to the School of Engineering in August 2008.
• Dr Phil Grant has been appointed Head of Department, with effect from 1 August 2008. The former Head of Department, Prof John Tucker, was appointed Head of the School of Physical Sciences in December 2007.
• Swansea University's History of Computing Collection was launched at an event celebrating 50 Years of Computing in South Wales on 22 May 2008.
• A book by Professor Harold Thimbleby has won a prize in the 2007 USA Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards for Excellence. Read more about the book and the award…
• A major renovation of this website was completed in December 2007. See About This Website for some details of the technology used on the website and of the staff involved in its development. The Site Map gives an overview of the structure of the website.
• Swansea rated "best student experience" in November 2005.
• Swansea rated equal 6th for student satisfaction in September 2005.