UQ Ipswich students win national grants for IT projects

UQ Ipswich information environments students have won two of eight Apple University Consortium (AUC) seeding grants awarded nationally.

Bachelor of Information Environments students Michael Reeves and Lachlan Pearce each won a year's use of a Macintosh computer plus software, self-study materials and enrolment in the Apple Students Developer program.

The awards are made through the Apple University Development Fund (AUDF), a joint venture set up by Apple Computer and the AUC. The Fund provides about $100,000 annually to support and encourage development using Apple technology in education.

Michael Reeves, a first-year student who started designing computer games and programs at school, is developing a time management program with potential to manage multiple projects such as class timetables or exams. Advantages over existing programs include a capacity for users to view components individually or as a "big picture".

Third-year student Lachlan Pearce is developing a cooperative work tool to facilitate work over a network. This may include capacities for communication between multiple users, remote awareness through two or three-dimensional views and virtual artefacts for remote file or information sharing, for example through whiteboards.

For more information, contact Michael Docherty, Director of the Information Environments Program (telephone 3381 1122 or 3365 3239) or Moya Pennell at UQ Communications (telephone 3365 2846).