John N Sutherland

 

 

 

Academic history

 

The Campus of Gifu University looking north towards the foothills of the Japan Alps.

 

 

  Academic background:

 

2003-

 

Researcher reading for the award of EdD at the University of Edinburgh.

Studying the reasons for academic innovation being limited to non-elite institutions.

Internal papers: An Analysis of the Policy Background to the Establishment of a Creative Industries Network in the Dundee Area in the late 1990’s, A Deconstruction† of “The Degree of BSc (Honours)in Computer Games Technology with Japanese Studies at the University of Abertay Dundee”

 

 

2000-

Reader in Curriculum Development at the University of Abertay Dundee.

Developing degree programmes in New Media Studies.

 

 

1996-2000

Senior Lecturer in Video Games Technology at the University of Abertay Dundee.

Developed the world’s first degree programmes in video games programming and in video games media.

 

 

1995-1996

Visiting Professor in Virtual Reality at Gifu University, Japan.

Researching in the area of virtual heritage reconstructions.

 

 

1987-1996

Lecturer in Computer Studies at the Dundee College of Technology.

 

 

1982-1987

Researcher reading for the award of Master of Science by research in Computational Science at the University of St Andrews under Professor A ‘Jack’ Cole.

Studying fourth generation database access languages.

 

 

1975-1978

Undergraduate student reading for award of Bachelor of Science at the University of Glasgow.

 

 

 Current Research

 

Degree development

 

Working with colleagues at Abertay and Edinburgh universities into the reasons for degree innovation taking place at non-elite institutions.  In particular, why the video games degree programmes began at Abertay and spread to such as Teeside, Derby, Salford and Paisley, and haven’t yet made any visible impact at such as Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The first draft relates this to other forms of innovation, where ‘outsiders and new people make the running’ (Kuhn).

 

 

Educational games

Two projects starting involving writing video games that teach new and prospective students about the hazards of university life, structures and money.  The aim is to help them learn in advance, and reduce the rate of failures from kids from vulnerable (i.e. non-wealthy and non-academic family) backgrounds.

 

 

 Refereed publications

 

Sutherland JN, On the Need for a Framework of Research for Understanding the Historical, Social, Anthropological, Developmental and Environmental Issues that Affect and are Affected by the Application of Computing Science, or, Computers as Part of Humanity, proc of Edinburgh Workshop on Grand Challenges for Computing Research, National E-science Centre, Edinburgh, 24-26 November, 2002

Sutherland JN, Some Reflections on Creating the New Academic Field of Computer Games, Proc of Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Conference, University of Glasgow, December 2002.

Sutherland JN, Computer games and interactive media: isolating a generation in a dangerous virtual world?, proc of Ethics and the Environment, University of Abertay Dundee School of Social and Health Sciences, October 2002

Sutherland JN “Towards a software engineering methodology for video games development: object orientation as an approach for specification analysis”, Proc of  VSMM 2000, Gifu, Japan

Sutherland JN, Maude A B (eds), Proc 5th Conference of the International Society on Virtual Systems and Multimedia: VSMM’99, University of Abertay Dundee, Sept 1999

Sutherland JN, Reid R, Teoh J; “Towards Mass-market Virtual Reality: the Opportunities and the Problems”; proc VSMM’98, Gifu, Japan; November 1998.

Sutherland JN, Ojika T; “Towards a Virtualisation of HMS Frigate Unicorn”; Proc of VSMM’97, Geneva, Switzerland, 1997

Sutherland JN, Shearer J, Plank C; “Some effects of Software Engineering teaching using the World Wide Web as an Internet and Intranet Delivery Medium”; ISSEU’97, Finland, 1997

Sutherland JN, Plank C, Howard S, Thomson S, Robinson D, Chung M; “Towards a Virtual Reality Reconstruction of St Andrews Castle in Fife County, Scotland”; Proc  of VSMM’96, Gifu, Japan 1996

Sutherland JN, Hill D, Milne A, Cowan JB, “Functionality Integration within and between Software Development Tools”, Proc of 5th Software Quality Conference, University of Abertay Dundee, 1996

Marshall IM, Samson WB, Dugard PI, Sutherland JN, “Multimedia courseware engineering - lessons learned from the failure of technology-based learning”, Proc of 30th Annual Conference, Association for Educational Technology, 1995

Sutherland JN, “Teaching about CASE Tools and using CASE Tools for teaching”, Proc of SIHE, 1994

Sutherland JN, “Current Developments in CASE Technology”, Proc of 7th European  Software Maintenance Workshop, Durham, 1993.

Sutherland JN, “The Variety of Software Automation Tools”, Proc of Software Quality Workshop, Napier Polytechnic, 1989

Sutherland JN, “Minimum parameters commercial systems generation”, Journal of  Information and Software Technology 29(7)(1987)

Sutherland JN, “S-Algol and the Commercial 3rd and 4th Generation Languages”, MSc Dissertation, University of St Andrews, 1986

 

 

 

 Invited Presentations

 

Sutherland, J N, “Video Games, The 'Bad Boys' of the Entertainment Media:

Why?, and, Who Influences their Content?”, presentation to The University of Paisley, Ayr Campus, June 2003.

Sutherland J N, “Sound, Music and SSFX in Video Games”, presentation at The University of Paisley, Ayr Campus, April 2003

Sutherland J N, “Hey! Who Shook my Academic Tree?”, presentation to The University of Ulster, Belfast Campus, April 2003

Panel member on “Education for Computer Games”, Computer Games Conference, Algoma University College, Canada, May 2002

Sutherland J N, “Challenges to Educating for Computer Games”, Baddeck New Media Festival, NS, Canada, October 2001

Sutherland J.N., Towards a 21st Century University Education; Baddeck New Media Festival, Nova Scotia, Canada; October 2000

Sutherland J.N., Video Games - Who’s selling Whom?, Institute of Marketing (Tayside) AGM, Dundee, 7th June 2000.

Sutherland J N, Virtual Environments - Moving into Reality, 2000 British Computer Society Annual Review and Directory, British Computer Society.  Reprinted as Reality takes over, The    Computer Bulletin, March 2000, London, pp18-19

Sutherland J.N., Games and the Academic, Association for Science Education 2000 Conference, University of Dundee, 25th March 2000

Sutherland J.N. Real Degrees for Real Jobs, OLGA Games Industry Workshop, Commission of the European Community, 20th October 1999, London

Sutherland J N, Computer Games - The Cutting Edge, ISTS ’99, University of Minho, Portugal

Sutherland J N, Multimedia, 1999 British Computer Society Annual Review and Directory, British Computer  Society, London

 

Television, radio, video and press appearances on behalf of the University of Abertay Dundee.

 

 

 

 Other Output

 

Sutherland JN, The Database of Software Development and Maintenance Tools, Process  Communications, 1991

Sutherland JN, The Database of Software Development and Maintenance Tools Ed 2, Durham Software Engineering, 1992

Sutherland JN, The Database of Software Development and Maintenance Tools Ed 3, Process Communications, 1993

 

Monthly column from November 1991 to August 1994 (36 pieces) on software tools for Software Development Monitor, Elsevier Science Publishers. 

 

Occasional column for Computing (5 pieces), Datalink (14 pieces) and .EXE (1 piece) on software tools and development strategies. 

 

Various book reviews for Prentice Hall International, Computing and Datalink since 1987. 

 

Occasional pieces for the BBC, BCS, WHO, ScotVEC and the Computing CTI.