DCU hosts transition-year computer course - ComputerTY
19 January 2005

Sean Foley, Computety tutor, with Adrian Delaney, a student from The Donahies Community School

Each week during the month of January, over 120 transition year students from local second-level schools will attend a specially-designed web-design course at DCU called “ComputeTY”.

The idea for the course originated with Professor Alan Smeaton in response to industry concerns that Ireland will experience a large shortfall in the supply of computing graduates in the coming years if current levels of students entering computing degrees do not improve (ref. 3rd Report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, Oct. 2003 www.skillsireland.com).

According to Professor Alan Smeaton, “DCU is committed to developing community relations and to encouraging participation in further education for all members of its local community. This initiative promotes positive community spirit by disregarding the socio-economic backgrounds of children within the community and encouraging participation by all. It is also hoped that the initiative will show students first-hand how interesting information technology can be, and thereby encourage them to consider computing as an exciting and attractive career option”.

ComputeTY is an on-line, self-pacing Web Design and Development course. Classes will be comprised of students from different schools, and emphasis will be placed on integrating the various school groups in attendance. DCU will provide trained tutors in each laboratory, who will be on hand to provide assistance to the students. In addition, each school is providing a supervisor for at least one day of the course, which will run during normal school hours. All students are required to produce a web site that will be presented to supervisors at the end of each week and graded by an academic from the School of Computing. Students will receive a certificate from the University in recognition of the grade achieved.