News & Events: 2005 - 2006 Academic Year

• Park Teams Place First and Third in Cerner Competition
  
• Guest Speaker - Daniel Green From Sun Microsystems
  
• Students Selected to Attend Google Workshop
  
• ICS Students Win Programming Contest
  
• Guest Speaker - Kevin Speck from the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory
  
• Guest Speaker - Dan Connolly from the W3C
  

Park Teams Place First and Third in Cerner Competition

Twelve Park University computer science and business students recently completed the Cerner Software Development Life Cycle course, with the teams placing first and third place. Park faculty Tim Hines, Ph.D., and Wen Hsin, Ph.D., served as the team advisors.

The student teams representing Park University, William Jewell College, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Baker University participated in the course. The teams' objective was to develop medical application software that can run on a wireless Dell Axim PDA and a web browser from Cerner's proprietary Millennium Objects Suite. Cerner provided to each team a brand new wireless Dell Axim PDA to use for project development.

The teams, consisting of a project manager, documenter, tester, software architect, solutions manager and software programmer, met weekly with Cerner employees throughout the spring semester to develop their projects. During the meetings, students heard from Cerner experts who provided information regarding their roles and experiences. The student teams also met twice during the semester with a Cerner pharmacist, doctor and the company executives to gather information and to ensure they were meeting the requirements for the software system they were developing.

On May 3, the teams presented their solution to the Cerner executives. The executives scored the teams according to eight criteria ranging from solution functionality to the ability to answer questions.

Park's teams performed exceptionally well competing to win the business from the Cerner executives. The winning Park Team Atlas members each received a Dell Axim PDA for their efforts.

Park's Team Atlas placed first. Its members include:

Andrew Romer - project manager Amanda Bourland - solutions manager Daniel Jiregna - tester Paul John - software architect Nick Kreeger - programmer Kesiann Francis - documenter

Park's QPA Team placed third. Its members include:

Denzil Ross - project manager Carol Liberty - solutions manager Anna Terranella - tester Virginia Maikweki - software architect Josh McKinzie - programmer Kahlia Ford - documenter

Guest Speaker - Daniel Green From Sun Microsystems

The ICS Department will host a speaker presentation on Wed, Apr 19 11am-12pm in Science Hall room 16. Using Windows Media Player (or a compatible player), view the presentation here.

Daniel Green will talk about how Sun will offer its technology - both software and hardware - to the community for open source participation. According to Green, "Proprietary technology limits both revenue growth for a company and the adoption and development of new innovations. Sun has demonstrated commitment to the open source development model, including the recent opening of the Solaris OS, the Sun Java Enterprise System, and the Sun N1 software. Sun announced that its OpenSPARC initiative has released the UltraSPARC Architecture 2005 and the Hypervisor API specifications to jump-start the porting of Linux, BSD, other operating systems, middleware, and applications to the UltraSPARC T1 processor with the CoolThreads technology. The development community now has the information needed to port Linux to the CoolThreads technology-based architecture and take full advantage of the chip's multithreading capabilities. Sharing the UltraSPARC T1 processor- based source code reflects Sun's continuing commitment to the open-source development model, and to offering customers greater choice."

"Sun refers to this as the Participation Age. The Participation Age is built on a model of networked human beings who share, interact and solve problems. Their participation creates ideas, information, opportunities, entertainment and value - social and economic - everywhere on the network."

Students Selected to Attend Google Workshop

Google has invited Park University ICS students Virginia Maikweki and Patricia Kengne to attend a workshop for women engineers at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. on Saturday, Jan. 21.

Along with more than 100 other students, Maikweki and Kengne will have the opportunity to hear from Google engineers about the latest trends in computer science, take a behind-the-scenes look at Google technology, and meet with women engineers about their career paths since graduating from college.

ICS Students Win Programming Contest

On Nov. 5, Park's Information and Computer Science Department participated in the annual Association for Computing Machinery programming contest at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Park's team consisted of junior Nick Kreeger and senior Josh McKinzie. The coaches were Wen Hsin, Ph.D., associate professor of information and computer science, and John Dean, assistant professor of information and computer science.

Ten colleges and universities participated in the Western Missouri portion of the competition, including teams from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Northwest Missouri State, Rockhurst University and Central Missouri State University. Park University's team earned first place.

The purpose of the contest was to solve as many questions as possible within a five-hour duration. The teams had nine problems to attempt to solve. The judges determine which teams answer the most questions correctly. Park won the contest by completing a third problem with only 15 minutes to spare.

Despite a last minute flurry of solution submissions by the other teams, none were able to solve a third problem, said Dean.

Guest Speaker - Kevin Speck from the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory

On November 30 in Science Hall 110, Kevin Speck from the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (HARCFL) spoke at Park's ACM Club meeting. Using Windows Media Player (or a compatible player), view Kevin Steck's presentation here.

Kevin talked about his experiences heading up a forensics lab that works with the FBI. Much of the lab work is computer based, and with a computer-major audience, he'll emphasize the computer-related side of things. Additionally, Kevin talks about a possible future internship program with Park's ICS Department. The following is a detailed description of what he'll talk about.

The Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory is part of a national network of full-service digital forensic laboratories providing law enforcement with access to cutting-edge electronic equipment, as well as the combined experience and knowledge that only a team of highly trained and experienced Forensic Examiners can provide. The laboratory is located just north of downtown Kansas City, occupies approximately 15,000 square feet of space and houses several million dollars of state-of-the-art digital forensic equipment. Having provided computer forensics is support in cases such as the "BTK Serial Killer" investigation, the murder of Mrs. Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the removal of her unborn fetus, and the murder by Kansas State University Professor Thomas Murray of his ex-wife, the HARCFL is comprised of 13 full-time examiners and six administrators detailed to the laboratory from 15 different participating law enforcement entities. A presentation will be given regarding the administration and operation of the HARCFL, as well as potential internships associated with laboratory and the criminal justice and computer science programs.

Guest Speaker - Dan Connolly from the W3C

On October 27, Dan Connolly from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) spoke at Park's ACM Club meeting. The W3C is the governing body for the Web and Dan is near the top of the W3C hierarchy (just under HTML inventor, Tim Berners-Lee). During his presentation, Dan spoke about the inner workings of the W3C and more specifically about his recent work on updating the W3C's Web Architecture Recommendations. Using Windows Media Player (or a compatible player), view his presentation here.