Some may think that summer is a quiet period where it comes to activities at the University. For the IT Innovation Challenges, however, the summer is a very busy period. Having competed the third 2015/16 challenge in June (see Spring 2016 – successful projects for details), the new projects were set up, which involves a certain amount of admin to get paperwork signed and accounts created, ready for the new projects to start. For earlier projects, the summer can be the time when staff can focus (more or less) exclusively on the projects. This year’s student projects have been making excellent progress. Some examples here (click on title to see project abstract):

• OAR (The Oxford Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform). The project is creating a platform to host a new online journal and allow for discussions around topics shared by practised-based research. The project is making good progress, and will be launching the platform at an event in late October (more information).
• MYSH (Manage Your Self Harm). The project is producing an app to be used as a tool for people who self-harm to resist or manage their urges, but can also be of interest to anyone who comes into contact with a person who self-harms and wishes to understand the ways that a person who is self-harming could be supported to stop. Content for the app has been produced and the newly-created interface is now being populated with images and text.
• The Student Marketplace project aims to reduce the waste produced by the University by enabling users to donate and sell unwanted items within their community through an online platform. The project has developed the back-end functionality and is now working on finalising the design of the new site.
• The Exchange is creating an application that connects people across colleges over formal dinners. Users will be able to link up and either invite others to share their college dinner or attend dinners in other colleges. The new platform has been developed and will be launched in Fresher’s week.

As there will be no staff challenges this coming academic year (see previous post), activities in the next few months will focus on preparing for the student challenge which will launch in January. We are also looking forward to following the progress of existing project, about 20 of which are due to finish by Christmas. More details to follow.