Business Systems and Knowledge Modelling Lab

Media Release

Students develop system for state-wide talent search

For the first time this year the popular `Science Talent Search' for Victorian school tudents will be helped by the 'talents' of La Trobe computer software engineering students.

With support from the Faculty of Science and Technology and the School of Computer Science and Computer Engineering the third year students have developed for the Search a Science Competition Management System.

Venue for the competition organised by the Science Teachers Association of Victoria (STAV) in recent years has been La Trobe's Bundoora Campus.

The Search, says lecturer in software engineering Dr Rajiv Khosla has been run by the STAV since 1952. But its organisation has become more complex: there are now more than 5,000 entrants from 200 primary and secondary schools Victoria wide. And the efforts of some 300 judges, forty voluntary committees, and ninety sponsors have to be processed in four phases: entry; evaluation; results and awards; and exhibition.

The La Trobe students automated these phases and helped streamline the system. This followed an approach last year to the School of Computer Science and Computer Engineering by Search Co Director, Michael Sarbinowski. The requirements for the system were outlined in meetings between Dr Khosla, who co ordinated the project at La Trobe, Mr Sarbinowski and Peter Craig of the STAV.

The students then developed the system as a part of their two semester software engineering project course.

Their tasks involved planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing, project demonstration and documentation of all aspeats of software development including user and reference manuals.
The system, says Dr Khosla, has helped reduce entry and processing time of Talent Search competition data; sped up retrieval of information through bar coded input scanning; devised a 'window based, menu driven friendly user interface'; and enabled the rapid printing of competition reports for competition staff and schools.

'Most importantly, the project has provided real world experience for our third year computer science students, most of whom go direct into the industry'.

'Projects such as this indicate to prospective employers that our students are able to interact with clients and that they have engineered a software system with substantial content.'

And their work has certainly impressed the client. When the students demonstrated their product to the STAV Mr Sarbinowski said they had 'not only implemented the core requirements, but also demonstrated some novel enhancements.'

He said he was impressed with their enthusiasm and determination. 'The interest and individual motivation was evident and I believe these students have progressed a long way to the interactions likely in commercial environments'.

One of the students involved, Patrick Bettels, was also declared the most outstanding student in the Bachelor of Mathematics and Computer Science for 1995 by the Australia Computer Society. He was also placed on the Dean's Honour roll for obtaining good marks in computer science. The other students who participated in the final delivery of the software system were Philip Ivanovski and Marnie Newlove.

From left: the STAV's Mr Sarbinowski, Dr Khosla
and award-winning third-year student Mr Bettels.

– La Trobe Bulletin, 1995