Source: MIL-OSI Submissions
Source: Ara Institute of Canterbury
One of the benefits of studying at an organization that is home to a wide range of study disciplines is the opportunities that are available for learners to hone their growing skills on real-world challenges from other disciplines.
ICT programme lecturers from the Enterprise and Digital Innovation (EDI) Department at Ara Institute of Canterbury Ltd have recently worked with the Department of Applied Sciences and Social Practice (Allied Health) to create real-world tech solutions for their areas of professional practice.
During the last Christmas break, two Ara EDI students – Alliah Czarielle Calla and Lei Lu – were approached to work on a project involved the development of a web app that would permit clinical lecturers to monitor students’ clinical hours and performance during their placements. The project aimed to transform paper-based reports to online gathering, recording and reporting of the information. Paper-based reporting is time-consuming and provides challenges in keeping an accurate record of information for future reference.
The online application brought a significant improvement to the process and now provides tutors with a stream of constantly updated data. This resource is beneficial to the Department as it streamlines auditing and moderation processes involved in the work done by clinical lecturers within the region’s District Health Boards.
The project was supervised by EDI’s Dr Bernard Otinpong and Dr Luofeng Xu, who in addition to expressing gratitude to the two students involvedt, acknowledged the support given by Dean Patfield from Ara’s ICT Division, and James Jowsey and Dr Kesava Kovanur Sampath from the Department of Applied Sciences and Social Practice who made sure the application met the needs of Ara’s Allied Health programmes.
Nigel Young, Head of Department for EDI says, ‘We are committed to ensuring our ICT learners are work-ready by the time they graduate. This involves working with industry partners to solve the real issues they are experiencing. We are a business too of course, and it’s a great opportunity for some of our learners to solve internal issues for other areas of our business – particularly when a solution like this improves the education of health learners as well as the experiential learning for our ICT learners.”
