Students
for Research
Current Situation
Researchers
Manual Evaluation Tasks
- Data Entry
- Translations
- Relevance Evaluation
outsource
Portal for Research Tasks
Researchers
Students
DCU Research Centers
Adapt
Centre
Insight
Centre
many more...
IC4
Centre
Research Centers in DCU
- 28 research centers spread across 4 main themes
Text
European Funding on Research
-
EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
which ran from 2007 to 2013: Ireland received €620 million in grants for research and development.
-
Next EU funding "Horizon 2020" for research and development has budget for €80 billion.
Reference -
http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/key-eu-policy-areas/research/index_en.htm
Portal for Research Tasks
Researchers
Students
DCU Research Centers
Adapt
Centre
Insight
Centre
many more...
IC4
Centre
- Money
- CV- Credits
- Internships
- Real Research Experience
- Face-to-face interaction vs Online
- "Light weight" contract
- All in One solution
- Identify future researchers - Empower DCU Research Community - Engage Researchers and Students
Business Plan
- In 3 months - Beta version for DCU Computing Centres
- In 6 months - All Centres in DCU
- In 1 year - Expansion to other universities
- In 1.5 - 2 year get companies/industries on the board
Finances
- For first 1.5 years we plan to expand to other universities, get user base and get in the market.
-
100+ Research Tasks outsourced on average per month.
150 Euros per Research Task on average.
10 % Fee
1,500 Euros / month for one University
7,500 Euros / month for five Universities
Revenue Bigger Picture
- Get industries/companies on the board (have membership options)
- Platform for seeking students , based on skills and required abilities.
- Outsource the required research specific tasks to students.
- Collaboration with research centers.
- Cater to EU universities -- "all in one solution"
- Advertising
- For industry specific jobs/openings
- For research centers specific openings/jobs
Action Plan
- Consultation with DCU Committees.
- Get the Beta version ready.
- Perform incremental expansion of the platform.
- Seek finance and marketing expertise.
"Nice Idea, I want this in DCU"
Prof Brian MacCraith,
Dublin City University president.
Feedback
"Excellent idea for university crowdsourcing platform for research tasks" Prof Noel O'Connor, Principle Investigator (PI) in INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics
The Team
Portal for Research Tasks
Portal for collaboration between Students and Researchers that will allow students to gain real research experience and give Research Centres
on-campus human resources for research tasks
currently outsourced
Algorithm
Specs from modules + Moodle = Set of Students' Skills
e.g. CA674 - Cloud Architectures
https://www101.dcu.ie/registry/module_contents.php?subcode=CA674
Algorithm Contd.
Matching of students and research tasks
- Most suitable candidates available to Researchers
- Most suitable tasks available to Students
Gamification / Scoring System
Money we need now
- Servers
- UI / Front-end developer
- Own source code and open source tools
- Estimate 10k euros for beta version
Why Ustart?
-
Best Student Accelerator - Business / Finance expertise.
-
No equity for DCU.
- DCU our alma mater, our first user base.
Quality Control
- Delivering "quality" our main motto
- Building better profile (gamification approach)
- User rating and points system based on their interactions with the system.
- Feedback mechanism
- Work needs be done, it won't stop so if we don't provide a better service we will have churning problem.
Payment Mechanism
Our System/Portal
Students
- Money / Fees Reduction
- CV
- Credits
- Internships
- Real Research Experience
Researchers
- Face-to-face interaction vs Online
- "Light weight" contract
- All in One solution
DCU/University
- Identify future researchers for University's Research Centers
- Empower University's Research Community
- Engage Researchers and Students
- Quality Control for both Students and Researchers
- Promote Multi-Disciplinary Research
Intellectual Property (IP)
Students: DCU shall have no vested interest in inventions developed by students who are not employees unless commitments to sponsoring agencies are involved. In addition, where a student receives financial aid or remuneration under a sponsored research, training or fellowship programme, his/her rights in any invention are limited by the terms of the DCU agreement with the sponsoring agency.
Other Points
- Cold start problem: Ensuring quality service
- Research tasks examples of other centers
- Change Image of team members
-
- Add Naheed
- School "of" Computing not "in"