Innovative option for students

Professor John Hosking, head of Auckland University's computer sciences department, says the 25 students are placed with firms.

The summer job, or as it is called in America, internship, has been a stepping stone into a career for many students.

But many companies are too small to carry a student for three or four months, or they can't offer a project of sufficient interest to attract the best and brightest students.

A new ICT Innovation Academy being trialled this summer by Auckland University's computer sciences department tries to find a way around such problems.

Head of department Professor John Hosking says 25 students have been selected to work on projects submitted by local firms including Peace, Orion, Econz, the Icehouse incubator, Open Eye Displays and Glidepath.

"In the past we have helped companies develop internship schemes of their own. This time we are looking for ways to take out infrastructure costs and provide an environment where students can work for a company over the summer and receive proper management and mentoring," Hosking says.

The academy has received seed funding for three years from the Tertiary Education Commission to pay for students and staff, including professional project managers.

Hosking says many technology-related schemes have come to grief for lack of proper project management.

"We start with the project manager, the sponsor and the student defining the brief, scoping the project so it can be done by one or two students within three months. A lot of it is about managing expectations," he says.

"The students can work in the labs at the university or on the company site, depending on space and whether it is practical."

The first progress report is expected before Christmas, with a final report late February and a seminar report to the academy at the project's end. Students will get course credits for a paper on the project.

As well as their projects, the students are attending weekly seminars on topics such as career development, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, and technology and business context for ICT development.

Hosking says students are keen to find interesting projects, and are looking for work that will call on a broad range of skills.

"For companies, it means they get to work with potential new hires. They get to advance their own investigative projects, and they can also develop their own staff mentoring and project development skills.

"We have suggested they give the mentor role to someone in their organisation they want to develop as a leader."

He says the academy has also given the department the chance to work closely with more IT businesses.

"In the past we may have dealt in any depth with seven or eight companies. Now suddenly we have 20, 25 companies we are talking to, who I know something about and can think about doing more things with."

Lead project manager Peter Grundemann says a proper framework is needed to manage projects and measure success.

"It is easy for student projects in companies to lose focus, particularly when the company comes under commercial pressure," Grundemann says. "That is why we start by setting requirements, setting key performance indicators, setting objectives which are measurable and deliverable and with time frames set out."

The academy is using some project management software built by Grundemann, White Cloud.

"It is built around software project management, so it includes a source code repository, version control, scheduling, time sheets and all the other documents you need."

Projects include defining a test tool for generating test data in the health sector, creating a tool which will translate Word documents in the DocBook XML standard used for user manuals, and building an application to model databases in a visual fashion.

"A lot of the projects are around providing requirements or analysis for future work. Students are generally optimistic which is a really good thing, but it is important to put some realism next to it to ensure they don't take on too much," he says.

"It will give students a perspective on how projects are run in real life, and should help bridge the gasp between their university experience and their move into the workforce."