Roger Boyle: research and other projects

Roger Boyle is Professor of Computing at the School of Computing at the University of Leeds.

Any comments made on these pages made be taken for publication, with due attribution, without seeking permission.

This page is always slightly out of date.

Current projects

Visual behaviour monitoring of crowds. With Mr Ian Hales, Dr Kia Ng. 2009 -	Crowds occlude and self occlude - we are interested in characterisiong normal and aberrant behaviour. Part of this is groundplane geometry recapture in difficult environments. Key Publications: An Unsupervised Approach to Anonymous Crowd Monitoring I Hales, R D Boyle and K C Ng, BMVA Techical Meeting on Aerial Image Analysis and Classification, May 2010.
AWESOME With Dr Vania Dimitrova, Dr Lydia Lau, Dr Royce Neagle conducted as part of the Active Learning in Computing CETL. 2009 - 2010	We are interested in student academic writing skills. AWESOME is funded by JISC to prepare Web-2 tools to support this skill. Academic writing is heavily discipline dependent. ALiC is resourcing a Computing incarnation of the AWESOME tool. Key Publications: What is the Real Problem? Using Corpus Data to Tailor a Community Environment for Dissertation Writing. L Lau, R Neagle, S Bajanki, V Dimitrova and R D Boyle. Proceedings of 4th Int. Workshop on Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Ill-Defined domains, 10th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2010), Pittsburgh, pp.45-52, June 2010.
Fusion and Visualization of Coronary MRA and DCEMRI With Mr Constantine Zakkaroff, Dr Derek Magee and Dr Sasha Radjenovic. 2008 -	We seek to correlate high resolution 3D MRA imagery with 2D DCEMRI data. Key Publications: Spatio-Temporal Image Analysis for Longitudinal and Time-Series Image Data C Zakkaroff, D Magee, A Radjenovic and R D Boyle, Proc. Mediated Spatiotemporal Registration of Cardiac DCE-MRI and Coronary MR Angiography, MICCAI 2010, 1-12, Beijing.
Analysis of student use of time With Dr Royce Neagle conducted as part of the Active Learning in Computing CETL. 2008 -	We are studying how and where students spend their time physically in studying for a degree: the hypothesis is that undisciplined and unregulated study time in isolation, outside the academy, may be detrimental. Key Publications: Evolving modes of student use - whither the VLE? R D Boyle and R Neagle and N D Efford, Proceedings of Informatics Education Europe, Venice, December 2008. Evolving patterns of working: do they matter?, R D Boyle, N D Efford and R J Neagle, European Journal of Engineering Education, 35(6), 667-677, 2010. Data summaries may be read.
Watermark extraction from archaic documents With Mr Hazem Hiary 2006 -	We are looking at using backlighting to extract data about paper manufacture and marking from difficult and damaged originals. Artifacts of interest such as chain-lines and watermarks are often damaged and heavily obscured, but are of interest to papyrologists and similar scholars in tracing the origin and manufacture of paper. Key Publications: Watermark location via back-lighting and recto removal, R Boyle and H Hiary, IJDAR, 12(1), 33-46, 2009. The Leeds Arabic texts projects provides data.
Developing UG internships to feed the teaching-research ethos conducted as part of the Active Learning in Computing CETL. 2005 -	We wish to introduce research into the undergraduate experience both as curricular material and, more importantly, as an ethos. We have researched ways of maximising the intern experience. Key Publications: Making Research Internships Work, R D Boyle and J Briggs. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference Meeting the Growing Demand for Engineers and Their Educators 2010-2020, Munich, November 2007.
Maths matters for Computer Science - digital materials to motivate and explain mathematics; conducted as part of the Active Learning in Computing CETL. 2005 -	Maths is the standard problem for introductory CS courses and motivation for is is key: it is simply not enough to say "This stuff will be useful for you one day". We are producing materials that put substance into the [true] statement that will present as short (5 minutes or so) web-readable "videos". Key Publications: Chance and uncertainty, 2009. Games, 2009.
Determining the place of computing in the academic landscape Ongoing	Issues surrounding the teaching of computing, and why this might be different to the teaching of other subjects, are an ongoing concern in university CS departments. Key Publications: Bringing Professionalism to Computer Science, R D Boyle, Proc. 3rd Annual Conference on Teaching Computer Science, 31-36, Dublin City University, 1995 A keynote address was given at ITICSE 2008. We are accumulating data to analyse where our students come from.
The value and use of pre-university qualification for CS degree study with Dr Martyn Clark 2001 -	Computing occupies a difficult place on the landscape with regard to preparation for HE; it is often suggested that prior qulaifications are detrimental to university study. We have been interested in the history of this issue and consider the current state of flux as an area of study. Key Publications: Computer science in English high schools: we lost the S, now the C is going, M A C Clark and R D Boyle, Proceedings of the International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools (ISSEP), Vilnius, Lithuania, Springer Verlag LNCS 4226/2006, 83-93, 2006. Pre-university issues R D Boyle, A McGettrick, R D Boyle, R Ibbett, J Lloyd, G Lovegrove, K Mander, Grand Challenges in Computing: Education (18-20), BCS, 2005, What makes them succeed? Entry, progression and graduation in Computer Science, R D Boyle, J E Carter, M A C Clark, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 26(1), 3-18, 2002,
Understanding and developing the project experience now being conducted as part of the Active Learning in Computing CETL. 1997 -	The project experience is of the highest importance to students, staff and employers but is often incompletely understood. Experience is often concentrated in selected individuals whose expertise can approach irreplacable, but who rarely interact with each other. We seek to address these issues across departments, faculties and institutions. Key Publications: Computer Science Project Work: Principles and Pragmatics, S A Fincher, M Petre, M A C Clark, R D Boyle, P Capon, G Evans, K Mander, W Milne, Springer Verlag, 2001. A personal theory of teaching computing through final year projects, M A C Clark and R D Boyle, Computer Science Education, 9, 200-214, 1999.

For more information: Prof. Roger Boyle.
School of Computing
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
United Kingdom

+44 113 343 5487
+44 113 343 5868 (fax)