Supervisor recommendation tool for Computer Science projects

Abstract

In most Computer Science programmes, students are required to undertake an individual project under the guidance of a supervisor during their studies. With increasing student numbers, matching students to suitable supervisors is becoming an increasing challenge. This paper presents a software tool which assists Computer Science students in identifying the most suitable supervisor for their final year project. It does this by matching a list of keywords or a project proposal provided by the students to a list of keywords which were automatically extracted from freely available data for each potential supervisor. The tool was evaluated using both manual and user testing, with generally positive results and user feedback. 83% of respondents agree that the current implementation of the tool is accurate, with 67% saying it would be a useful tool to have when looking for a supervisor. The tool is currently being adapted for wider use in the School.