SOFTWARE 'GIFTS' WORTH £4 MILLION FOR GEOSCIENCE TEACHING AND RESEARCH

Professor Graham Williams, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, has negotiated software 'gifts' worth more than £4 million for Keele from two globally-leading software companies: 

 'Kingdom Suite' is a market leading seismic interpretation software suite developed and marketed by Seismic Micro Technology Inc. of Houston Texas.  The software is actively used in exploration and production operations by virtually all the world's major petroleum exploration companies.  The 'gift' takes the form of a 25 seat license for three years with a market value of US $2.99 million. 

'Move' software has been developed by Midland Valley Exploration of Glasgow, Scotland.  It is described as a structural geology modelling 'toolkit' and is used by major oil and mining companies in exploration and production activities. The 'gift' is a 10 seat license for three years and it is commercially valued at around UK £2 million.

Both suites of software will be used in Geosciences teaching in order to provide students with invaluable exposure to real-world software applications using real industry data.  Also, the software suites will be used and pushed to their limits in existing and future geology/geophysics research projects.

Professor Williams said: "Having access to these leading software packages gives us a genuine advantage when generating research grant applications as they can be counted as 'gifts in kind', which add impact to the application when addressing the value for money, the beneficiaries and sustainability of the research. 

"Both Seismic Micro Technology and Midland Valley Exploration are sincerely thanked for their generous software gifts to Keele."

GO GREEN AT KEELE

Keele celebrated its first ever Go Green Week with a packed programme of special events this week.

To mark the start of the week the Students' Union unveiled its 'Ecoverter', a reverse vending machine for cans and plastic bottles, and a recycling scheme was launched across halls of residence. There were also presentations on sustainability teaching, research, outreach and on the ambitious plans to use sustainable energy sources to make Keele a carbon neutral campus.

Other activities taking place during the week included a 'leave your car at home day' on Thursday, sustainability films and the start of the Barnes Hall of Residence Energy League, which will see each block compete to save the most energy.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Janet Finch, said: "Go Green Week is a chance to celebrate and share what has already been achieved at Keele, to raise awareness of ways in which we can reduce our negative impact on the planet, to challenge ourselves and others to do more and to have a little fun along the way."

The picture shows Talah Omran, KUSU President, trying the Ecoverter in the Students' Union.

NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY AT KEELE

The National Student Survey (NSS) 2009, the annual Government survey of all final year undergraduates in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and participating Higher Education Institutions in Scotland, began for Keele this week.

Final year students receive an email from Ipsos MORI inviting them to complete the survey online at www.thestudentsurvey.com. This is followed up by postal and telephone contact.

The survey provides students with an opportunity to make their opinions on their higher education student experience count at a national level. The results are analysed and used to compile a year on year comparison of data.

It is vitally important that as many students as possible provide their feedback for the survey to generate reliable information - within any given subject area in an institution, the aim is to achieve a response rate of at least 50%.

The NSS is now in its fifth year and the 2009 results will be published on the Unistats website (www.unistats.com), which aims to assist prospective students in making informed decisions about what and where to study.

Through the survey, all final year undergraduate students will be asked to provide feedback on the quality of teaching; assessment and feedback; academic support; organisation and management; learning resources; personal development and overall satisfaction.

MOLECULES OUT AND ABOUT

A new Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Partnership for public engagement award of £211,911 has been made to Dr Graeme Jones, Professor Pat Bailey and Tess Phillips, Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics. The project, "Molecules Out and About", builds on the success of DNA-DAY, Make it Molecular and Molecular Mardi Gras and recognises the strength of the School of Physical and Geographical Sciences in communicating chemistry to the general public across the UK in novel and entertaining ways.

Said Graeme: "Just imagine cycling around beautiful countryside encountering massive molecules models; walking through a massive Red Blood, Green Blood molecular sculpture at the Eden Project and seeing with your own eyes the similarity between the heme and chlorophyll porphyrins or a group from the WI making models of breast cancer drug molecules and sharing their experiences - this project will put molecular models into places and hands they have never been before and inspire people to reconnect to their molecular world."

KEELE – LOS ALAMOS LINK

Dr Rob Jackson, Chemical Sciences Section, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, was invited to the USA for a meeting with scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico, USA), and the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss the development of new 'nuclear' clocks, which involves inserting a specific isotope of thorium (229Th) into a transparent crystal. These clocks will potentially be a million times more accurate than the current caesium-based 'atomic' clocks, and may lead to the re-evaluation of some fundamental physical constants.

Dr Jackson's contribution to the project will be carrying out detailed computer modelling of the processes involved, before the experimental programme starts.

LOCAL LIVE!

Local Live!, a special evening of writing by regional poets, was held on campus this week.  This was a hugely successful new development in the Poetry Live! Series, with a capacity audience in the informal setting of Le Café in the Chancellor's Building. 

Chaired by Jim Sheard, the evening comprised four main writers, Donna Bailey, Peter Bransom, Susan Law-Webb and Roger Elkin, who read poems with a very diverse range of themes and styles of writing.  Keele's Creative Writing students were well-represented by Donna and energetic readings of single poems by Jonny Coughlan and Chris Prendergast. 

Many of the audience commented positively on the standard of writing, the relaxed setting and the welcome presence of more students than usual.