Research IT

Introducing our New Mobile App Development Service

There was a bumper turn out at the April Research IT club which focused on our new mobile applications development service. There were many new faces and a lot of questions about how the service will run, how the collected data will be stored etc. If you were unable to make the club you can catch up now on the presentations at the links below.


Introduction to the Research Software and Applications Team

Robert Haines, Research Software Engineering Team Manager

Developing Mobile Apps for Research – Case Study: #BrazilBreathing

Joshua Woodcock, Research Software Engineer, Research IT

#BrazilBreathing is a citizen science project aimed at engaging the Brazilian public to record information about the impact of the environment on their health and allergy symptom severity via a mobile app.

Research IT worked alongside researchers at the University of Manchester and the Federal University of Technology in Brazil to develop #BrazilBreathing by building upon the successful Britain Breathing project, which developed the original app; through translation and the addition of localised features.

This talk looks at the challenges and the lessons learnt from developing #BrazilBreathing, and how they inform Research IT’s new strategy for developing mobile apps in future projects.

Developing Mobile Apps for Research using Research IT’s RSEs

Adrian Harwood, Research Software Engineer, Research IT

The prevalence and affordability of mobile phones and tablets makes them an excellent platform for engagement in research projects. However, their potential can only really be unlocked by the development of suitable mobile applications. Whether you want to collect data from a population or increase the impact of your research work through a more feature-rich initiative such as a game, training researchers to develop potentially complex mobile software may not be a viable approach for many research groups. In this talk I aim to highlight some of the challenges associated with mobile application development and illustrate some of the successful mobile projects Research Software Engineering has already delivered in this area. I will also present our evolving strategy which will enable us to offer agile, robust, cross-platform, mobile application development to researchers across the university.

Research Infrastructure Update

Simon Hood, Research Infrastructure and Platforms Team Manager

Research Lifecycle Programme

Kamie Kitmitto, Research Lifecycle Programme Manager

The last Research IT club of this academic year will be held in June. Details of the speakers etc will be announced on this blog, Twitter and newsletter.

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