Professor of University of Central Lancashire (UK) Janet Read visited SUSU. Janet Read is a Professor in Child Computer Interaction and is the Director of the Child Computer Interaction (ChiCI) research group at UCLan. Internationally known for her work on designing and evaluating technologies for children as well as for her work on text input with digital ink, Prof. Read manages research grants and research students, teaches research methods and advanced HCI and contributes to SET activities in local schools. She presented a course on the mathematical foundations of the user interface of software systems for SUSU students. We’ve talked about this course and her experience in Russia.

– Last Friday you presented the course on the mathematical foundations of the user interface of software systems. What is the role of mathematics and statistics in designing the user interface?

– Human computing interaction is a sphere where we look at how interfaces are designed in order to make them more useful for humans. Every time you go on your phone, you are texting, put data and so on, that all can be model mathematically. In terms of interface design, if we understand how data is transmitted, how each tiny little press is transmitted to the computer, how that then comes part of the message, we can build a better interface. The curious reality is that all interfaces are not very well designed. So, what are we going to talk about is how we might optimize that.

– In the frameworks of the course, you are planning on covering a very interesting socially significant project connected with developing the user interface for interactions with children with certain limited capabilities. Please tell us about this project.

– In my research group, we spend many years searching better design technologies for children. Children are really interesting because typically certain UK children can’t spell. Therefore, when they need to use text interfaces they find that quite hard, they would type things and they go wrong. We recently do the project with BBC, where they have us to look at how games are designed for children with special needs. They may have Down syndrome, they may have some physical conditions, some of the children have got difficulties with their hands, so they can’t easily select things, because they have some sort of shakes, for example. In our study, we go into people’s homes, talked to their children, talked to parents. We now try to think how to design better technology that they use, so they can play better with friends on these games, they can have better game experience, and also use it for communication. Because some of these children have no verbal communication, they need to use the computer to communicate.  It’s so nice to see or imagine what you can do for children in terms of computer interfaces because it can make difference to their lives.

– Your university is among leaders in the employment of students in Britain. What is the cause of it?

– In the UK, most students get jobs when they finish universities. If they do computer science degree they’ve got a good chance to get employed, because IT-industry is big, IT is everywhere. We have students doing networking courses, they’ve typically had jobs in public sector. Now we also have students who are working on software engineering, software programming, and they typically end up working in large project teams. When we teach them we make a point of teaching on communicating and talking to people, which is sometimes quite hard for computer science students.

– You have already got acquainted with SUSU. What is your impression of our university?

– It is my first time in Russia, and that’s really nice. I think I got what I expected. SUSU main building is absolutely gorgeous. And also, when you see a big student in front of it, you feel very inspired. We have a trip to see a supercomputer yesterday, we saw engineers and it was great too. I like the feel of the city. And I also feel like students here are very engaged. That’s really nice and I’m looking forward to teaching them.

For the first time, SUSU will become an international venue for education and the exchange of experiences in software engineering between postgrads and researchers from 6 countries and 11 universities. From May 15^th through May 28^th the international school on Mathematical and Computational Foundations of Program Engineering will be held at the university at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Director of the SUSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Gleb Radchenko told us about the project’s goals, the teaching format, and the unique opportunities for young researchers

– What is the Erasmus+ PWs@PhD International Project and what opportunities does it offer?

– PWs@PhD is an academic project being realized within the Erasmus+ program from the European Union, aimed at the development, modernization, and internationalization of higher education and its research portion at the PhD level and support for the foundation of new PhD programs in software engineering in partner countries. 11 universities are participating in this project: Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland), University of Rostock (Germany), The University of Central Lancashire (Great Britain), Aalborg University (Demark), The University of Jordan (Jordan), Yarmouk University (Jordan), The Jordan University of Science and Technology (Jordan), South Ural State University (Russia), Ural Federal University (Russia), and other universities. The project is totally financed by funds from the EU and gives postgraduates of partner universities a chance to gain unique experience and skills in bleeding edge methods of software engineering.

– Why was SUSU chosen as the venue for this project?

– SUSU is hosting this many honored representatives of the international academic society for the first time. We are one of the 11 partner universities of the international school. The project was initially thought up as a series of scientific schools in various areas of software engineering for the 2016-2018 period. Every half year a 2-week school for postgraduates for all of the partner universities is organized at one of the universities of the consortium. Our university works very closely with Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT, Finland) in dual degree programs for a master’s in Informational Technology where many of our talented students work. And it’s natural that LUT, as the project coordinator, referred to us as one of Russia’s leading universities in information technology.

– What meaning does this event have for the university?

– In my opinion, this is a milestone which will move the university to a new level and gives us the unique chance to move SUSU forward within the 5-100 Project. The university will be visited by many international professors and post-graduates who will get to know SUSU’s capabilities and, in the future, we hope that they will consider our university a possible place for their continued studies or research.

– And for participants?

– The project gives participants an opportunity for training the new generation of young researchers and teachers in various scientific areas within software engineering. Postgraduates will gain irreplaceable experience in joint projects and conferences. Taking part in the schools organized at partner universities, postgraduates will have a unique chance to open up new research horizons in software engineering.

– Which school activities you could highlight?

– A whole number of interesting courses are planned within the school which both participants of the school and any interested teachers and postgraduates can attend. For example, professor Janet Read from the University of Central Lancashire (Great Britain) will be offering a course in the mathematical foundations of software user interface. Within this course, she’ll speak about a very interesting, socially-significant project tied to the development of user interfaces for children with special needs. This is a visible example of the fact that mathematics and statistics play an important role in the development of user interface even for such complex tasks. A series of lectures in informational security and cryptography will be read by professor Franck Leprevost from the University of Luxembourg. Mr. Leprevost participated in the development of standards for information security (IEEE-01363, the international standard for open key cryptography), and also acted as an expert of encryption and cryptosystems in the European parliament. From SUSU, teachers of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will be participating, offering courses on the mathematical foundations of software engineering, modern databases, and data mining methods. I myself will be offering a course in modern methods of organizing distributed computing systems.

– What format will the international school be held in?

– It is an intensive format – lectures in the first half of the day, and in the second half of the day, in the majority of courses, there will be practical lessons. Within the school, specialists invited from Ural Federal University will hold business games in self-organization and schedule planning for researchers. For guest partners, the first day of the school will be a chance to get to know SUSU, visit the international laboratories and museums at SUSU, and on the weekend there will be a packed social program – a trip around Chelyabinsk to see our sights. Also, on May 22^nd there will be a trip to Yekaterinburg and Ural Federal University, where school participants will be able to get to know the leading developing companies in software engineering, including the companies Yandex and SKB-Kontur.

– What are the planning results for holding this international school at SUSU? 

– The final point will be an international conference on innovative methods of teaching and organizing education in information technology, the theses of which should be included in Scopus. Within the conference, here will be a presentation competition, the winners of which will receive diplomas, and all school participants will receive a certificate for their attendance. But the most important achievement is the organization of comanagement of research projects between postgraduates and professors from the partner universities of the PWs@PhD project. For example, at this time, our postgraduate student Dmitriy Savchenko is completing an internship at the Lappeenranta University of Technology, where he has already sent a scientific article for publishing in an international journal which he published with his advisor at LUT, professor Ossi Taipale. I hope that the meetings between SUSU and partners of the PWs@PhD project will allow postgraduates from partner universities to see us as a place for future productive scientific work.

News Source: https://www.susu.ru/en/news/2017/05/12/pwsphd-software-engineering-international-level