M. HOLCOMBE ET AL.
takes place in Semester 2 and is followed by the implementa-
tion stage—again swapping applications to a 3rd example. Fi-
nally they receive the documents and code for their original
system and evaluate it, writing a report on this stage. This ex-
perience is intended to underline the importance of coherent,
informative and concise documentation and provides them with
some wider-ranging experiences of building a piece of software
from concept to delivery. This is the foundation for the 2nd year
Software Hut experience where they are working with a real
external business client.
In year 3 the students carry out an individual research project
alongside their advanced technical courses.
Following this, a grant was awarded (under the Fund for the
Development of Teaching and Learning) to develop the ideas
further. This coincided with the UK Government introducing
the SARTOR (Standards and Routes TO Registration) for the
engineering profession that required the introduction of a 4th
year of study for engineering accreditation. It was decided to
introduce a radical new approach into the 4th year that built on
the Software Hut experience.
A company was set up within the University which would
carry out commercial software development activities and
which would be largely run by the students as part of their 4th
year studies. This article is a record of some of the activities,
successes and lessons learned during the past 16 yea rs.
The Early Days of the Company
Initially, the numbers of students taking the 4th year were a
minority – less than a dozen, so the company started small and
this provided the academics with an opportunity to learn
quickly and without too much embarrassment! The first issue
was to find some premises in which to house the company and
some computing infrastructure. This was achieved by the use of
a small laboratory in the Department and money from the
FDTL grant. At the beginning these machines were managed by
the Department’s technical support and the company concen-
trated on getting business and developing both a set of com-
pany processes and a good reputation. The students were given
a great deal of responsibility for these issues and this worked
out very well as they were both motivated and sensible about
what was introduced. The students negotiated contracts and set
the price of projects with advice from us. The general policy
was to charge at a rate that the clients could afford rather than
at commercial rates. This allowed us to develop a niche market
that did not compete with established software companies.
Genesys has provided many small start-up companies, charities
and others with an opportunity to have bespoke software cre-
ated for their businesses and organizations that they would
otherwise never have been able to afford. This in no respect
made the intellectual challenge of the projects different from a
full commercial one.
In fact, the decision to give the students a lot of responsibi-
lity for running the business has proved to be a very successful
one. Initially the main focus of activity was on producing fairly
standard software systems suc h as databases and planning tools
for a variety of organizations—small business and charities and
public sector departments with the health service providing
many such projects. These projects used a fairly standard soft-
ware development approach with the students working closely
with their clients and managing the projects. As their supervi-
sors the academic staff met the teams regularly and provided
support, training and advice. The company had regular board
meetings that were chaired by a student and the emphasis of the
meetings were to provide a means of sharing information about
the projects and the technologies used, deciding on which fu-
ture contracts to accept and planning out the company strategy.
This latter included: defining the company profile, corporate
image, web site as well as the internal processes, quality assur-
ance, standard tools and templates. The students had many
good ideas and usually made best use of the latest technology.
Business was fairly easy to come by—it was mainly through
word of mouth or contacts inside the University and research
collaborators in other universities. The new course was becom-
ing more popular and reached a point when there were 50 stu-
dents in the company. They spent one sixth of their time doing
the module and it soon became clear that this was not enough—
both the students wanted to spend more time in the company
and the business was there to justify it. One other factor was
that there was some risk that the enthusiasm for the company
meant that some students spent more time on this work with the
result that their other modules suffered. We thus agreed to dou-
ble the time for the course—this meant that the students were
expected to spend 15 hours per week—one third of their study
time. This has remained in place and has been a positive de-
velopment.
By this time we had our own premises away from the De-
partment and our network was completely independent from the
University’s. This meant that some of the students had to be-
come fully-fledged systems administrators running a network
of up to 30 PCs with full file store, software infrastructure,
internet connection, a highly secure system and full 24/7
back-up. I have always been impressed at the professionalism
and technical skills that these students display—in many cases
the systems they run are better—more modern, more reliable
and generally provide a better service than some offered by
full-time professional services!
At the end of their studies the company board meeting, in-
cluding the students, looked at the balance sheet and the stu-
dents decided what to do with profits—typically this involved
holding back some for reinvesting in the company infrastruc-
ture with the rest being split amongst the students as a cash
payment. Of course, the students were also getting academic
credits towards their degrees.
We have also had a long-ter m relationship with IBM ( Hur sl ey
Park) who have provided three experienced developers as
mentors for many years. These mentors come up every term
and provide advice, training courses, as well as “adopting”
some of the teams having telephone conference calls and e-mail
discussions at other times. This is highly appreciated and the
benefits are in both directions.
Becoming a Fully Constituted Company—The
Next Stage in the Company’s History
The students were running the company during term time but
in vacations there was a gap. On occasions there were opportu-
nities for business over the vacations that we couldn’t take ex-
cept at the cost of employing students after they had graduated—
this we did a few times but the administrative load was rather
heavy. There was also the issue of maintenance which did arise,
usually it was for an extension to a client’s system but some-
times it was necessary to fix some problem. With an “empty”
company over summer this was a potential issue.
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