CTImusic
News

Summer 1996

The European Academic Software Awards 1996

Lisa Whistlecroft

The end of May saw the Finals Ceremony of the 1996 European Academic Software Awards in Klagenfurt, Austria. For the second time, CTI Music was involved in the jury process for the awards (for a report of EASA 94, see CTImusic News, 2 (Spring 1995)).

Although many aspects of the 1996 competition were the same as in 1994, there were new approaches to software classification and to the submission, distribution and evaluation of the software. As in previous years, the competition was for academic software suitable for use in HE in Europe. Software was categorised in three ways - by discipline, by function and by the status of the author(s) at the time the software was written. The discipline area was used only in the allocation of software to jurors - there were no discipline-specific awards. Software fell therefore into two of six categories - teaching software or software tools; and student project, departmental project or commercial software.

The Preliminary Round

The major innovation was that the distribution of the software and its documentation, all information for jurors and competitors, and the jurors' reporting were all carried out electronically. Whilst this certainly moved the whole concept of the awards firmly into the electronic age, it brought with it many problems - and what it saved in paper and postage it most certainly lost in time and frustration for many participants. Information about EASA 96 was made available from a World Wide Web server at the University of Klagenfurt and software submitted to the competition was loaded into a restricted area of the same server. Jurors downloaded their allocated software from the server for examination and trial and then submitted their evaluations electronically to a set of closed Web pages which could only be accessed by the organisers and other jurors. In principle this was an ideal way to operate but there were, in the event, serious problems at many stages. Software was frequently corrupted during upload, multiple compression produced files which would not then download intact, or decompress on arrival, or fit on a floppy disk for transfer on to test machines. Slow links between some European countries resulted in repeated time-outs during transfer and I, for one, had to resort to the expertise and bigger computers of colleagues in science departments - and to working after midnight when the net traffic was lighter.

At the first stage, jurors were allocated software by discipline so I reviewed software for Humanities teaching and software relevant to musicians even though all of it was submitted under Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering. Software was reviewed by two or more jurors at this stage. What struck me about this year's competition was the overall high quality of the submissions. Selecting the software that would be invited to Austria for demonstration in the final round was very much a case of choosing the best rather than eliminating the inadequate. It gave me great pleasure to discover that the three submissions that might be of interest to Music Departments all reached the Finals. This in itself is a significant achievement as only 35 programs were selected from the 157 submitted.

Some Statistics

I offer here some simplistic statistics. It would require significant research to detail the subtle criteria used by jurors in different disciplines and from different countries when evaluating software. It is also virtually impossible to tell whether submitted software in any particular discipline is of a generally lower standard than that submitted in another discipline. It does seem clear, however, that further research, encouragement and funding would benefit the development and raise the profile of software in areas outside science and technology.

One encouraging statistic, with which the UK Funding Councils should be pleased, is that the largest number of submissions from a single country came from the UK, that the largest number of finalists from one country were also from the UK and that, significantly, a greater proportion of UK programs submitted went on to the final round (this last figure excludes countries who submitted fewer than 3 programs).

The Final Round

At Klagenfurt, the final judging stage was preceded by a day of seminars on aspects of computer-assisted research and learning. The finalist software was set up for demonstration in an exhibition space at the University and the event was open to the public. It was disappointing to find that public interest was, in fact, very low and most authors were able to show their software only to the jurors. The juror body at this stage was slightly smaller than in the preliminary round - jurors were chosen in an attempt to give an even spread of discipline expertise and nationality. Again, not all jurors saw all the software - each finalist program was reviewed by five jurors; each juror saw seven programs.

The teams of jurors produced composite reviews which were then collated before a full session of all the jurors faced the daunting task of allocating the 10 EASA awards. Of the awards, three were earmarked for the best commercial project, the best student project and the best software tool. In addition, there was a Compaq computer and a monetary prize which were awarded to two student projects - one tutorial and one software tool.
picture of boat

The historic steamer 'Thalia' on the Wörthersee, where the EASA 96 awards were presented.

The awards ceremony itself took place on a restored paddle-steamer on the Wörthersee. After introductory speeches, the awards were presented and the other participants each received a certificate marking their achievement in reaching the final stage.

The Future

The next European Academic Software Award will be in 1998, when the focus will extend beyond simply the production of good academic software. It is planned that future awards will, in addition, honour outstanding educational achievements in the use of computers and interactive media in higher education. I hope that this broadening of the scope of the competition will encourage more Humanities departments, particularly Music, to consider participating. Producing good software is really only the beginning of the process - it is the imaginative use of new resources which is of most benefit to the academic community. The quality of UK educational Music software has been acknowledged now in two successive EASA competitions - Michael Clarke's SYnthia won an award in 1994. The innovative ways in which new learning technologies can be used should now be given similar recognition, both within institutions and by funding bodies and the wider public. International awards may be one way of achieving this.

More information about EASA 96 from ASI.