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"IT phone home…."

As students seem wedded to their mobiles nowadays, it occurred to Bernie Breton of the Department's Multimedia Group that this could provide a rapid means of sending them potentially urgent information directly. He and Dr Nicholas Caldwell proposed a fourth-year project for students to develop a messaging software package.

Simultaneously Tom Ridgman was anxious to find a better way to communicate with his 40 students on the Advanced Course in Design, Manufacture and Management (ACDMM). His students spend most of their year travelling around Britain in small groups, visiting and undertaking projects in companies. "We often need to contact a particular group to tell them where they are staying that night, or where they have to be in the morning and when." Currently Tom has to rely on faxes and emails to group leaders, who are responsible for passing on the news… obviously this can and does go wrong.

Two fourth-year students, Rudi Airisto and Matthew Webb, volunteered for the project, producing the ACDMM-Messenger software package.

Student names and contact details are held on a database. Course administrators (and the students themselves) can form groups of students as needed. Members can receive messages according to their preferred mode of access (text message or email), and importantly for Tom, receipts are sent back to senders so that administrators know the information has reached the right people. Sending messages is equally easy - students can use ACDMM-Messenger to send a message to individuals or entire groups. They only need to send one message (by email, text message, or the web) to ACDMM-Messenger, and it forwards the message to all the intended recipients. No need to remember (or store) up to 40 email addresses and phone numbers; no need to type out and pay for 40 SMS messages! There's even a filtering mechanism so that "general interest" messages are only delivered to students who are likely to be interested in them.

Tom hopes to start using ACDMM-Messenger in earnest during the next academic year. Bernie, Nicholas, Rudi and Matt are interested in seeking potential partners to transform it into a commercial package, suitable for deployment in other organisations.

For further information, please contact Bernie Breton, T:01223 339760.