The University of Kent has developed a reading list prototype called 'List8D' designed to help academic staff create and manage web 2.0-friendly reading lists more easily. This prototype saw the university win the first prize in JISC-sponsored competition meant for encouraging innovation and collaboration among Higher Education (HE) software developers.

“List8D” commits to allow the delivery of personalised reading lists to students, with direct links to catalogue items and books for purchase via Amazon. A judging panel spokesman said that it “demonstrates what the user would see, and demonstrates the applicability of the solution, both immediately and in the foreseeable future”.

The university pledges to reinvest its £5,000 prize money into developer hours and the specific hardware and software needed to turn this prototype into a working application.

JISC, which funds IT in education, launched the competition in February this year at the ‘Developer Happiness’ event that gathered software developers from HE and commercial backgrounds, to collaborate and work on innovative ideas for solutions to common educational issues.

The second prize was awarded to a tool called “Lazy Lecturer” that aims to help academics in collecting and assembling learning objects from Internet resources, facilitating tagging, downloading into presentations and subsequently sharing with students.

Another prototype “Sh!” that focuses on the Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) was also short-listed. Connecting those searching their local OPAC with others sharing their interests, it aims at connecting librarians and users in an immediate sense, allowing the sharing of experience and insight.

Andy McGregor, JISC programme manager, said: “The event has produced a number of very useful prototypes that present some interesting ideas for the future of software in HE.”

JISC is further planning for a project dedicated to supporting, promoting and enabling the software development community in HE and exploring links to other relevant sectors.