Alex Watkins

I am currently studying a Computing for Internet and Multimedia degree, I chose to undertake an industrial placement in order to gain valuable work experience.  I managed to acquire my placement by getting in contact with the University placement office when I heard that some placement opportunities were being opened up to the 3rd year direct entry students.  I was placed at iicorr Ltd who are based in East Tullos Aberdeen and assigned a project that was to design and implement a web based induction system for all iicorr’s new employees.  I gained a massive amount of experience not just within the technologies that I was using to work on the project but also with things like time management and communication skills.  I encountered a few problems while working on the project mainly programming issues that required problem solving in order to come up with a solution to iron them out.  I feel that taking the work experience has shown me that I have made the correct career choice for myself, and I hope that the experience I have gained will make me a more desirable candidate than others after graduation.  The best thing about my placement is knowing that the company is happy with what I have created and that they will find is useful, I have had no regrets about undertaking my placement and it has met all my original expectations.

Jon Dunbar

During my time at Aker Kvaerner Offshore Partner Ltd (AKOPL) I have been working hard on the Common Operating System and Project Execution Models. 

The Common Operating System is not an Operating System in the software sense (as in Windows or Linux). It is the system of processes and procedures under which Aker Kvaerner operate as a company.

The Common Operating System is the company-wide Aker Kvaerner business management system. It will replace the BEM (Business Execution Model) as the place where the company's processes, guidelines and work instructions are accessed. It has links to Group policy and shared processes within the MMO group as well as those specific to AKOPL.

I have had to overcome many problems during the completion of the COS, with network problems, coding problems and content problems.  All of these have successfully been overcome with a lot of time and effort and the Common Operating System for Aker Kvaerner is due to roll-out on Friday the 31st August.

The images below are screenshots of  COS Model and PEM model. 

My Summer Placement

By Quintos Henderson

During the Summer I Worked for a company called NCR which Specialises in financial solutions (Kiosks, till screens etc), if you look on most VDU’s you will see the NCR logo.
I spent the first 3 weeks getting up to speed on what the projects involved and getting a clear understanding of what was to be done.

The first project I was introduced to was called Spider. This was a concept where I was going to develop a flash interface for Self Service Application which would be intended to be run on a kiosk in Post offices and would communicate primarily with Ebay but had intentions to communicate with Amazon and PayPal. The advantage to this would be for people who couldn’t get debit cards. who would rather purchase via cash or Didn’t have other means of internet access.

I have been working alongside Ahmed Al-saffar and Heather McCracken who were handling the Background code and I worked on providing a visual front to display the information in flash.

I was introduced to another Project which we refered to as the Biometrics project which was going to be an experiment for a phsychology student called Chris Riley,with the intention to examine users interaction with biometric sensors and find means of improvement for possible use on kiosk interfaces.

I was introduced to 3 sensors, finger print, palmvein and Finger swipe.
What I was required to do for this was provide a graphical user interface with a pin pad, a screen for displaying the data from the sensors and a questionnaire for the end, as well as handling the navigation in flash.
 
The biometrics Project gradually became more and more complex with things like animated tutorials, Dynamic text etc As Chris began to develop his ideas and get a clearer understanding of what he wanted the final product to be like.

Around Week 8 Chris told me that his project was to be separated into 2 projects which we later named Bio_Blue and Bio_Red. Bio blue was still going to be used for the original purpose but Bio red was going to be used as a method of Recording students coursework submissions.

My time at NCR has been very enjoyable, has allowed me to improve my actionscript Abilities and has inspired me to try some other things with Flash.

Summer 07 Placement Testimonial

Student: Alexander Hayward
Course: Computing For Internet and Multimedia (Stage 3)

I chose to undertake a placement in the summer of 2007 in order to experience computing in a real world business environment.

After several interviews and finding that the placements that were on offer through the university were not to my satisfaction, I decided to get a placement myself, as I knew of a company where I would like to work. The company with whom I gained a placement is Monitor.

For my placement I was given a project to complete which would assist in testing of one of the Monitor Legacy Products namely MPower4.

I had to create a tool which analysed the MPower backend database, i.e. pages fields etc. From that analysis then create a script which would drive the interface for mpower4 and test the interfaces for the database.

This involved creating oracle database connections, executing queries and modelling the database in Java. In order to write the script, I had to create a library of Watir commands. Watir is an extension for ruby which will drive an internet explorer window and interface with the HTML displayed on the webpage.

I also had to create a complex GUI to allow the user to select what tests to perform and to show the progress of the test generation.

In the course of my placement I have learnt to work to a brief and to deadlines and produce deliveries. I have developed a pride in my own work.

I encountered no problems as such, I only really found I had to learn about a lot of Design patterns (used in programming) and I also had to gain a good working knowledge of ruby from scratch. 

My placement experience has taught me that it is easy to learn a new language. It will mean that I will have a more structured way of approaching programming projects at university.

The best thing about undertaking a placement at Monitor this summer was that I got to work in a real work environment.

My only regret is that I was unable to have a holiday this summer; however I am now able to afford a splendid one because of the money I earned on placement.

David Marshall

For 12 weeks during the summer I took up a work placement working in the IT department at Weatherford in Dyce. Weatherford is a global oil company, but with Aberdeen being their main site there were a lot of daily tasks which were vital to the smooth running of the company. Daily tasks ranged from building new computer systems to patching phones into the network. During the tasks, I had to do a lot of troubleshooting to work out why systems weren't working. Some of the problems were easy to resolve but on occasions they were quite complicated and took a lot of time and work to fix. The course that I am doing at university is Computing for Internet and Multimedia which has a lot of programming and design based modules, so the placement has given me a valuable insight and experience with the manual side of computer systems and networks. I feel that the placement has given me a better understanding of working in a professional office environment with strict deadlines to follow. The experience I have gained along with my course has provided a wide area of computer knowledge and understanding, which I feel will allow me access to a large variety of jobs once I have graduated.

Name:              Izan Zannie Zaini
Course:            BSc. (HONS) Computing for Internet and Multimedia
Company:         Aker Kvaerner Subsea Limited (AKSL)
Position:           Trainee Engineer
Supervisor:       Mr David Benison
Placement Date:      4th June 2007 – 21st September 2007

My 16-week Summer Placement in Control Systems Engineering Department at Aker Kvaerner has been mainly related to development of database system for the company’s Competency Management System (CMS) which will host records of employees’ competencies in their relevant job, and also identify the training and development needed to get the employees up to standard. The assessment process for each employee will be done by both the employee and his supervisor, and will then be compared to the Expected Level of Competency (ELC). Individuals’ prominent skills and weaknesses can be identified and thus managed accordingly with respect to the project he’s assigned to. The system prototype is being developed using Microsoft Access 2003 for a small scale pilot group. Another project I have been assigned to is the Knowledge Base; a knowledge library system that will host information and know-how on company operations and everything related to it. From this placement I have gained essential experience in professional working environment, being able to identify proper ethics, discipline and team-working needs in producing results as required, and also in communicating with other professional individuals. I had also learned a lot on time and resource management where applicable.