External projects

In this page, you will find projects proposed by external clients and approved by us. These projects have been grouped by the businesses/organisations alphabetically to provide you an easier way to access.

Please browse the businesses you are interested and contact the supervisors through emails for further discussion. If a supervisor is not listed, please contact the client to see if the project is still available.

Note the number after the client name indicates how many students have signed up for it.

Advance HE is the global member-led development agency for higher education. We help people make higher education the best place it can be to work and study. The majority of UK Higher Education providers are members of Advance HE and we also have a growing international membership.

Project Description: As part of Advance HE’s work supporting the Higher Education sector we often have to undertake complex searches of the ‘grey literature’ using Google Search i.e. documents that are in the public domain and available via institutional websites but are not published in journals or books. Grey literature can include strategies, policies, reports or even module and course descriptions.

The aim of this project would be to set up a process to enable effective searching and classification of this literature:

• Develop a user interface for the input of Boolean search terms and parameters
• Conduct Google search according to user input parameters
• Clean results to remove duplicates and sort results
• Conduct a refined search of results and extract context of search terms
• Output search results into a spreadsheet: URL, filename, title of document and context of where search term was found

Contact:

• Dr Vegard Engen (vengen@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Any academic from the Department of Computing and Informatics

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service works hard to protect its local communities, often working with partners to reduce the risks wherever possible. In addition to tackling fires, we help people involved in road traffic collisions and we will respond when all manner of emergencies arise.

However, we’re not just about providing a 24/7 emergency response. We place a great deal of focus on Prevention, aiming to reduce the risk of incidents happening in the first place, and working closely with partners to assist protecting people in our society.

We are particularly interested in working with BU Students to bring Gamification and Visual Interactive Learning to our Service. We have detailed some specific projects but would be willing to explore ideas that meet our priorities of protecting the public and supporting and developing our people. We are passionate about ‘Changing and Saving Lives.’

Contact:

• Dr Vegard Engen (vengen@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Any academic from the Department of Computing and Informatics

Our Road Safety Team would very much like to collaborate with students to help develop Virtual Reality Safety Awareness packages or a gaming App that helps to raise awareness and safety amongst young drivers on the dangers of driving. This will be aimed at future teenage drivers and those that have just started driving.

Our Learning & Organisational Development would welcome the opportunity to work to create a ‘fun’ and interactive learning packages across a range of subjects. Specific details can be agreed but the focus should be on using Apps, games and interactive methods that engage the user in using on-line training packages.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team are looking to develop interactive packages and Apps that take people through a learning experience on E, D & I to raise awareness and reduce bias and prejudices.

OutSystems is a low-code platform to visually develop an application, integrate with existing systems and add your own code when needed. Every aspect of OutSystems is crafted to help build better apps faster and make changes easily. From high-productivity visual development to powerful tools to deploy and manage apps.

Support and Assumptions

• The students are expected to use OutSystems and conduct a training. OutSystems will provide an access on-line training courses which will enable the students to get sufficient understanding of the system within a week.
• We propose monthly 2-3 days on-site visits (Exeter) that the students are expected to attend to work with the customer and align status and next steps (travel expenses to be discussed upon agreeing the project proposal).
• In addition we also propose weekly conf call meetings for a status follow-up.

Contact:

• Dr Vegard Engen (vengen@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Any academic from the Department of Computing and Informatics

As a user researcher I want a secure application for storing research material so I can share research outputs with DCC staff.

• A secure document upload method (scope to re-use document upload app for Blue Badge)
• External access utilising the OAuth2 authorisation standard enabled via a RESTFul API
• Store user research outputs
• User interface that makes it easy for users to access research material
• Search for content by type
• Click and view research outputs

As a DCC member of staff I want timesheet application so I can record time spent against a variety of activities.

• Secure login for all users to UI
• Users with administrator role can add and deactivate activities via UI
• Activities can be tagged with metadata enabling reporting on groups of activities, like “project work” for example
• Users can add, edit and delete entries for individual activities
• An API enables access to the data. This API should underpin the functionality of the UI
• External access utilising the OAuth2 authorisation standard should be enabled via a RESTFul API exposing the functionality of the API described above

BAE Systems is a global defence, aerospace and security company employing around 83,100 people worldwide. Its wide-ranging products and services cover air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology, and support services. During the project you will be co-supervised by developers and engineers at BAE Systems' Christchurch office.

BAE Systems support the design and implementation of secure networks and communications.

Contact:

• Dr Vegard Engen (vengen@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Any academic from the Department of Computing and Informatics

Using cross-domain gateway solutions – exchange of information across security domains can be achieved by breaking down and reassembling data to remove potential leakage of important data.

Steganography is the practice of concealing information within innocuous digital media, such as images or audio files – this not only hides the information itself, but also the fact that information is being communicated. This technique poses a risk to secure networks, as it may be used to hide the exfiltration of information. This project therefore poses the student with the challenge of developing techniques to detect, disrupt or remove steganography, offering a mitigation to this risk.

Using cross-domain gateway solutions – exchange of information across security domains may be achieved by enforcing unidirectional flow and performing content inspection in various environment to deliver systems that are mobile and flexible, with reduced size, weight and power.

This project asks the student to investigate innovative concepts for small portable cross-domain gateways. The scope of this task is broad, with potential for the student to propose and explore their own ideas. However, two specific challenges have been identified:

1. Build an example cross-domain solution using small form-factor, low power hardware.
2. Consider of protocol break and content inspection methods for simple and/or complex data formats. Content inspection may work by disassembling datagrams, stripping out any unexpected or unauthorised content, and re-assembling according to specification. Complicated protocols may be converted to and from a simpler protocol for performing content inspection.

Information systems may be implemented in an air-gapped configuration, meaning that they have no interconnection with external networks. This approach mitigates many of the common cyber-attack vectors.

As the Stuxnet malware has demonstrated, air-gapped networks are still not immune to cyber-attack; air-gapped systems may be attacked by deceiving human users into manually performing malicious actions. Traditional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems may not be configured to recognise this kind of malicious behaviour.

This project poses the student with the challenge of investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data techniques could be used to effectively process and analyse vast quantities of information generated by SIEMs, thereby better protecting air-gapped networks by identifying unconventional attack vectors.

YouGo.world is a new tech startup offering an online marketplace for remote telepresence. The platform provides a way for people to create connections with and experience the lives of others around the globe. All of this is done online using technology such as real-time video streaming, mobile and AR/VR devices.

The world of mixed reality offers new opportunities to create engaging and natural human computer interfaces using voice, gesture and gaze as inputs. It would be very easy for VR engineers to create 2D controls for their software and simply replicate what is really done in a 2D screen but this would be missing the opportunity to create something much more engaging and easier for users to learn to use. The ‘rules’ for interacting with software in a mixed reality world have not been written yet and this creates a tremendous opportunity for engineers to contribute to the future of computing.

Contact:

• Dr Vegard Engen (vengen@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Any academic from the Department of Computing and Informatics

Project Description. As a business focussed on future innovation and with a strategy based around creating the most compelling and realistic ‘virtual travel’ environments for their users, YouGo.World has already experimented with the use of AR as a tool that allows human guides to share their experiences with small online audiences across the world. What they would like to do is provide the ability for their audiences to share this using VR and/or AR headsets.

YouGo.World would like to look at how they might make the process of searching for guides around the world, signing up to and then joining the online tours, an enjoyable and engaging experience. This means looking more deeply at how people engage with each other in the real world and how some of these principles may be applied to the YouGo.World VR application.

Project Aims

• Investigate existing methods of human computer interaction being used in VR/AR software today and identify good examples where it has made good use of the new technology to create a more natural experience for users.
• Create a 3 or 4 design concepts on paper that describe how users might search for an online guide for a tour somewhere in the world, sign up and pay for it and then take part in that tour (note that currently the tours are 2D video although in the future they will become 360 degree video).
• Turn one of those designs into a working prototype running on a VR headset.

More details and ideas for the project are available on request.

Project Description. Investigate the potential for 5G mobile data networks to support the transmission of high quality 360° video. If possible, create a 5G simulation in Matlab or similar, to demonstrate how it might work.

Project Aims

• Understand the technical characteristics of 5G mobile networks
• Determine whether or not the technology has the potential for 4K+ streaming
• Understand what limitations 5G may impose as a result of the part of the radio spectrum it uses, the network protocols, routing hardware etc which might affect the user experience of consuming it in VR
• Investigate the likely timescales for general 5G roll out across the UK and more globally.
• Model a 5G network simulation to demonstrate how this might work.

More details and ideas for the project are available on request.

Project Description As a business focussed on future innovation and as an online marketplace primarily based around micro-transactions, YouGo.World must look at whether or not existing blockchain technologies such as Distributed Applications are ready for use by mainstream platforms to deliver back-end services.

Project Aims

• Unordered List ItemDetermine the current status of blockchain technology and providers with respect to its ability to deliver services to mainstream online platforms
• Unordered List ItemIdentify any blockchain providers that might meet the needs of YouGo.World i.e. global scale, multi-currency micro-payments, distributed application logic
• Compare the use of blockchain vs traditional methods for delivering these services
• Understand how users of the platform might be able to pay or get paid

More details and ideas for the project are available on request.

Project: A Collaborative Tool to Share Projects

This project could have SE and Comp students AND BIT/ITM students working on it:

Project description:

• This project has an oversees client residing in the USA, and the client meetings will have to be arranged accordingly.
• Users can upload project, and invite collaboration.
• They should be able to set different levels of transparency, and there could be a gamification element.

SE or Comp students (or students with fairly good development skills):

• Academic aspects for SE students could be gamification, transparency, collaboration and its traceability.

BIT students:

• An action plan for developers who want to capitalise from a project they developed to gain traction for the product they developed.
• This may include a cost-benefit analysis and recommendations for licensing.

Contact:

• Dr Gernot Liebchen (gliebchen@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Hugslock systems is a security & safety service provider offering infrastructure operators best-in-class incident prevention and response management. The company has launched its flagship product an “intelligent” access cover. Hugslock has redesigned the traditional access cover and made it “intelligent”, allowing for remote monitoring 24/7 and remote locking.

The company offers jointly supervised projects in the areas of dashboard security and development, IoT.

Contact:

• Dr Natalia Chechina (nchechina@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Project: Web based accounting tool

Bowraven is a business software vendor providing accounting tools to small businesses. Some of their tools are provided as macro-enabled Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. As there is an increasing demand to have web based solutions, they would like to turn these spreadsheets into web apps.

Contact:

• Dr Nan Jiang (njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Russell Bowyer (client)

This project will involve Dr. James Palfreman-Kay and colleagues from the Equality and Diversity office of BU.

A series of on-line videos will be created for different scenarios with facilitator questions to prompt reflection or discussion. The on-line resource will enable students who watch the videos to respond to the scenarios by answering a series of multiple choice questions. It shall also enable students to click on certain moments and mark them as offences and then describe the case. The on-line resource will provide a forum for discussion of each video and scenario and provide different gamification and digital motivation elements to encourage students to actively participate and invite others e.g. badges, points, most useful content, etc. This will also enable further research and investigation on how to motivate the youth to take part in learning and knowledge sharing in sensitive domains. Existing resources developed within and outside the University will be included in the resource which would also include the project evaluation.

Please note that a project needs only to cover some parts of this system.

Please contact Dr. Raian Ali: rali@bournemouth.ac.uk for further information

Further information http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Pages/changing-the-culture-final-report.aspx http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/2017/CL,202017/CL2017_20a.pdf

TBC

TBC

Project: Packing case visualisation

We want to be able to produce 3D/isometric (if possible) drawings or sketches of the various packing case designs that we make such that we can alter various parameters such as the length, width and height, thickness of materials. The idea would be to be able to produce the sketches in a quick and an effortless way, with just a few parameters that can be varied.

We would like to be able to utilise the drawings on our website and in quotation emails that we send to customers, and also to communicate with staff internally.

Contact:

• Dr Nan Jiang (njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• David Pipe (client) (TBC)

Project:

Met Police is happy to consider and support any potential project related to their day to day activities, especially for those related to public.

Contact:

• Dr Nan Jiang (njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Catherine Tuckwell (lead contact at Met Police) (Catherine.Tuckwell@met.pnn.police.uk)

Note:

You should consider this as a direction and make sure the actual project will reflect your degree outcomes.

Problem An online bi-directional support hub that allows University staff and NHS staff to work collaboratively by sharing their ideas with and seek support from each other.

Contact:

• Dr Nan Jiang (njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Dr Morad Margoum (TBC)

The project is now under review.

Problem:

Dr Martin Taylor, Endocrinologist & Internist at Royal Bournemouth Hospital would like to develop a user-friendly mobile app for healthcare screening.

Website:

• http://www.rbch.nhs.uk/

Contact:

• Dr Huseyin Dogan (hdogan@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Dr Nan Jiang (njiang@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Project 1: Application Container Monitoring

Context: There are a number of new container technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, CoreOS etc. A container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of a piece of software that includes everything needed to run it: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries, settings. It’s available for both Windows and Linux based apps, containerised software will always run the same regardless of the environment (https://www.docker.com/what-container).

Tasks: Sysdig Falco (https://github.com/draios/falco), an open source tool, provides some basic rules to detect odd behave on containers and apps.

• We need a student or couple of students who can prototype Falco, and extend the rules currently available so that a variety of threat scenarios can be detect on containers.
• To monitor containers to detect when they have been compromised, or to detect odd behave in the application

Skills Required:

• App development.
• Coding and software designs.
• Micro-services
• Linux/Unix
• Security skills e.g. OWASP

Desired Outcome: A documented prototype, packages and extended rules

Project 2: Custom Rules Development for Application Container Monitoring

Context: There are a number of new container technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, CoreOS etc. A container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of a piece of software that includes everything needed to run it: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries, settings. It’s available for both Windows and Linux based apps, containerised software will always run the same regardless of the environment (https://www.docker.com/what-container).

Task: To develop additional security monitoring on Sysdig Falco (https://github.com/draios/falco), an open source tool, to detect a variety of threat scenarios.

We need a student or couple of students who can extend the current rules capabilities available on Falco to detect a variety of threat scenarios against containers misuse.

Skills Required:

• App development.
• Docker, Kubernetes, Coding and software designs.
• Micro-services
• Linux/Unix
• Security skills e.g. OWASP

Desired Outcome: A documented custom security rules developed on Falco as an extension to existing basic rules.

Website: http://www.research-series.com

Contact:

Dr Cyril Onwubiko (Cyril@research-series.com)

TBC

Project 1: Threat Model Application

Technognomi Ltd developed an architectural framework called SEFTM (Secure Enterprise FrameworkTM). Part of this framework is the SEFTM Threat Modelling Method, which is a method for developing threat models. Technognomi Ltd would like to sponsor a final year project to produce a software application prototype to assist in the developing and the generation of threat models using the SEFTM Threat Modelling Method. Users should be able to develop threat models visually with the aid of defined shapes, and the prototype should generate end to end views and reports, based on the shapes and their parameters.

The platform should be platform independent, ideally based on a client server architecture, preferable thin client, and developed in Java.  

Project 2: Case Management Application

Technognomi Ltd would like to sponsor a final year project to produce a software application prototype of a Case Management System developed on the Camunda platform using Java, BPMN v2.0, CMMN v1.1, and DMN v1.1. The aim is to utilise BPMN, CMMN, and DMN modelling notations to develop a simple Case Management application. If needed, then Java can be used to fill in gaps or to improve the system. The modelling notations are available from the Object Management Group (OMG) and Camunda is an open source Business Process Management System (BPMS).   Project 3: Application of Time Driven Activity Based Costing

Technognomi Ltd would like to sponsor a final year project to research the topic of Time Driven Activity Based Costing (TDABC), to develop scenarios using BPMN on a business process simulator, and to apply TDABC on the modelled business processes. 

Note:

For all above listed projects, A report should contain the finding of the project and Technognomi Ltd will provide the requirements and the necessary development tools.

Contact:

• Prof Vasilis Katos (vkatos@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Alex Baruttis (client) (alex.baruttis@technognomi.com)

Testing and SW:

1. Test specification.
2. Test automation (software in Java/python to automate test generation).
3. Web interface environment for data science applications (web interface for research contributions into an integrated toolchain)
4. Code generation.

Automation

1. Advanced Software Development- require strong programming skills.

Cloud architectures

1. Advanced Programming and Networking skills.

Application areas: Several BT customers such as medical application, weather predictions, etc,

These projects are set in collaboration with BT research in Adastral park and the work has been set by their industrial/research requirements so the students will work in real case studies. Some of the projects require good software development and data science knowledge and some only good software development skills.

More projects will follow.

Contact:

• Dr Sofia Meacham (smeacham@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Project Background: Humans are some of the greatest colonisers on our planet. Over the past 100,000 years we have colonised everywhere from the tropics to the arctic. Over the past 10,000 years since the invention of farming, colonisation has involved transportation of people and plants/animals to new places. However, while we understand the timing of these events, archaeologists don’t understand how farmers set themselves up in new environments. This project will use computational modelling (agent based modelling) to develop models for the colonisation and settlement of New Zealand.

Project: The early colonists arrived in New Zealand after a 2,000 mile journey over the Pacific Ocean. In their canoes they carried a number of plants and animals that were the basis of their economy and diet. The difficulty of returning to their homeland meant they had to ensure these species were established in New Zealand or risk death. This project will develop an agent-based model, which investigates the best strategy for the establishment of domesticated species in an unknown environment (e.g. is it best to invest heavily in one place or spread resources across multiple areas). The project will be carried out in either NetLogo or Python.

Note: It is expected that this work will be developed into a publication in collaboration with Dr Iza Romanowska (Barcelona Supercomputing Centre).

Contact:

• Prof Marcin Budka (mbudka@bournemouth.ac.uk)
• Dr Andrew Brown (aabrown@bournemouth.ac.uk)