Computer Information Systems at UM

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Isabel Evans has been awarded the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the supervision of Prof Chris Porter (Information Systems) and Prof Mark Micallef (Computer Science). Her thesis, titled “A Framework to Support Test Tool Design and Acquisition,” makes an important contribution to the field.

The Department congratulates Dr. Evans on this achievement and wishes her every success in her future endeavours.

Further research news from our department.

The BrainWeb research team has won the "Best Interactive Experience Award" at this year’s CHItaly, the 16th ACM Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter held in Salerno. The award recognises the team’s innovative work on Boggle, a fully featured brain-controlled web browser, designed to make the internet accessible to people with severe motor impairments.

The award was received by Marie Buhagiar and Daniel Calleja, members of the BrainWeb team at the Department of Information Systems, who did a fantastic job planning, developing, and leading the sessions in Salerno. Along with Chris Porter, the team comprises Prof. Tracey Camilleri and Prof. Kenneth Camilleri from the Centre for Biomedical Cybernetics and the Faculty of Engineering. During the Interactive Experience session at CHItaly, participants had the opportunity to try out this technology and gain first-hand insight into the challenges faced by individuals who cannot use conventional input methods or commercially available assistive technologies.

Boggle is part of the BrainWeb Project, which is funded by the University of Malta Research Excellence Fund.

Chris Porter delivered a workshop on the EU's Web Accessibility Directive at the Citadella in Gozo. Aimed at government IT officials, the workshop was organised in collaboration with the Malta Communications Authority, the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, the Foundation for Information Technology Accessibility (FITA), and the Faculty of ICT.

As part of the Air Save project, our MSc student, Jurgen Aquilina, under the supervision of Dr. Peter Xuereb from the Faculty of ICT, along with Prof. Ing. Paul Refalo and Prof. Ing. Emmanuel Francalanza from the Faculty of Engineering, participated in the 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Measurements and Networking, held from July 2nd to 5th, 2024.
Jurgen presented a paper titled “A Comparative Analysis of Application Layer Protocols within an Industrial Internet of Things Monitoring System”, and we are delighted to announce that he was awarded a Student Travel Grant for this outstanding contribution - see https://mn2024.ieee-ims.org/awards

The full paper can be accessed here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10615777
We extend our sincere gratitude to our industrial partner, AIM Enterprises Ltd., for their unwavering support, and to the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering for their close collaboration and invaluable expertise in this field.

Dr. Colin Layfield's Voynich Research Group gets a mention in the September issue of the Atlantic magazine. The article chronicles Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis' relationship with the Voynich along with some of the work done on it.

Dr. Fagin Davis visited Malta recently and spent some time with Dr. Layfield and participated in some Voynich research by the pool!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/09/decoding-voynich-manuscript/679157/?gift=seTIbv7R-dGg0q0c4Fvv7StpmrnMfUv7A2Ujx_JcOKo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

If you'd like to get involved in cutting-edge research in Human-Computing Interaction and Accessibility, Dr Chris Porter is hiring a Research Support Officer I/II/III for the BrainWeb project - a brain-native web browser for people living with highly restrictive motor disabilities. This work is being carried out at the HCI Lab (Faculty of ICT) in collaboration with the Systems and Control Engineering department (Faculty of Engineering) - UM.

This position is available at three levels: graduate (or close to graduating), postgraduate and doctoral researchers. More information here:https://www.um.edu.mt/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/523305/FTRSOIorIIorIII-32-BrainWeb-12.03.24.pdf

Please share this with anyone you think would be interested!

Dr Chris Porter was included as one of the plenary session speakers at the first UM Research Expo 2023 held on the 17th of May at the Valletta Campus. Chris presented ongoing work at the HCI Lab within the Faculty of ICT with a presentation titled "Web Accessibility and Severe Motor Impairments – Research at the HCI Lab".

The first University of Malta Research Expo 2023 (UMRE23) aimed to give UM researchers the opportunity to showcase their research activities to the wider UM community and to encourage the sharing and cross-pollination of ideas.

Welcome back! Reminder: Important CIS information for students can be found here: https://www.um.edu.mt/ict/cis/students/resources?fbclid=IwAR1f_W0BJXKnebqxrqYY3gw-z4nFlRbg7FnoMcYwrN5HOx_TEKm-ICiLvrc

Students resources - Department of Computer Information Systems - L-Università ta' Malta Students resources

Reminder for ICT students that useful resources may be found here:

Students resources - Department of Computer Information Systems - L-Università ta' Malta Students resources

Master of Science in Digital Health

For more information visit 👇
https://www.um.edu.mt/ict/study/digitalhealth

📢 Master of Science in Computer Information Systems
and
Master of Science in Information and Communication Technology (Computer Information Systems)

For more information visit 👇
https://www.um.edu.mt/ict/study/msccis/