Pharmaceutical companies spend millions developing new drugs but around half of all candidates never make it to market because they are discovered to have an adverse effect on the human heart. The most common problem is arrhythmia – abnormal beating – which can occasionally prove fatal, so pharmaceutical regulators demand strict testing standards and clinical trials before new medicines are released. Even then, a significant number of drugs are subsequently withdrawn because of previously undetected side effects. Researchers at the[...]

In 2003, a software engineer named Eric Evans, who had spent many years guiding large businesses through the process of building software, published a groundbreaking software design book in which he introduced an approach he called domain-driven design. The idea was the result of thinking about what actually led to success in his business projects: fruitful interactions with the client, analysis of the business problems being solved, building teams which thoroughly understood both the business and the software, and the[...]

Much of today’s most innovative software is created by academics, pushing the boundaries of computer simulation to explore, for example, ever more detailed models of scientific and medical phenomena. Often during this academic journey, potential commercial applications become apparent. Helping a client meet the many and varied challenges of commercialisation is a key role for OCC’s Innovation Delivery Team. ‘The process of commercialising research software is very broad,’ says Dr Reynold Greenlaw, Director of the Innovation Delivery Team. ‘Some research[...]

Last month Molly Watt gave a talk at UX Oxford ( ‘Is your window open to all?’ ) on accessibility and inclusive, mostly in digital environments on the web. .@MollyWattTalks starting her talk on accessibility at #uxoxford pic.twitter.com/ptHcumdFHl — UX Oxford (@UXOxford) January 12, 2017 Molly Watt is an inclusive technology evangelist and accessibility and usability consultant. She is also the co-founder of the Molly Watt trust, a charity raising awareness of Usher Syndrome. Molly has spoken at a number[...]

We use a number of tools to help us design products that meet accessibility standards. These are some of the tools we use to quickly test our software for conformance against common accessibility problems. Colour Contrast Analyser The colour contrast analyser from The Paciello Group helps designers determine the contrast of text and other visual elements. This allows us to determine the legibility of these elements, provides a pass/fail assessment against WCAG 2.0 colour contrast criteria and also simulates several[...]

OCC’s product development team is currently working on new web-based components to extend our existing ContrOCC product to provide specialist corporate finance functionality tailored to local authority requirements. Each new component is being written from the ground up, and we are taking the opportunity to review our technology choices even where we have some prior experience. A particular area of interest is document generation. Although our products are based on core financial, contract management, and case management features, each of[...]

We exhibited at the Low Carbon Network Innovation conference (LCNI) again this year. LCNI brings together distribution network operators, National Grid and energy industry suppliers to network and present the innovative ways they are responding to current challenges in the energy industry. As the industry reduces its reliance on carbon-based energy sources – which are concentrated, predictable and controllable – in favour of more distributed and variable green alternatives, the challenge is to maintain electricity and gas supplies and respond[...]

When we plug in an appliance or flick a light switch, we take it for granted that electricity will flow safely and reliably. Industry and businesses, too, expect power to be available on demand. Yet the high-voltage electric power transmission network across Great Britain, owned and operated by National Grid plc, is today an ageing system. Computational models to optimise its efficiency are becoming increasingly important. OCC is working with National Grid to provide the innovative software solutions its operators[...]

Last month we had our Innovation Delivery hack day where the whole team had fun developing small projects outside of their usual everyday work. For our project we wanted to explore React JS, in particular creating a React JS table component and open-sourcing it. You can see the results here. We have recently started using React JS at Oxford Computer Consultants (OCC) for a major redevelopment of our core social care finance product – called ContrOCC – that allows local[...]

Last Wednesday, Reynold, our projects director, and I gave a talk at ACCU Oxford. We shared practical UX techniques to embed UX in development cycles and talked about the importance of a good user experience in tech. Abstract Good user experience is essential to the success of your product, it creates a competitive advantage and saves you money by reducing wasted development time. But how do you know that what you develop are the features that users will care about?[...]

In sports like running, athletes strive to complete the fastest lap in the hope that they can win Olympic gold. At Oxford Computer Consultants, high performance is just as important. In computing, as in running, high performance is about using the available resources to achieve a specific goal. Computing performance is often measured by the time it takes to make complex calculations or process large amounts of data. Software performance can be improved by scaling up and scaling out. Scaling[...]

How quickly do you need to find out what the legacy of the London Olympics is? Answer: very quickly. Sport England is a non-departmental public body answerable to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and funded by central government and the National Lottery. Each year, it surveys the population to collect data on attitudes to sport, including what sports are played, who plays them, where and how often. In 2010, Sport England refreshed its questionnaire and ended up with[...]

Warwickshire Counter Fraud Partnership select Oxford Computer Consultants (OCC) and Infoshare Limited to provide Data Matching Software for Fraud Prevention Warwick January 2016:  Following a competitive tender, Warwickshire Counter Fraud Partnership WCFP are delighted to announce the award of the contract for Data Matching Software for Fraud Prevention jointly to Oxford Computer Consultants (OCC) and Infoshare as part of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) counter fraud initiative. By bringing together and matching a number of key datasets[...]

At OCC we have been building and hosting software that deals with sensitive public sector data for over a decade. But where do you start if you are embarking on a project/business that has sensitive data at its heart? ISO 27001 The basic standard you need to look at for a company in this sector is ISO 27001:2013. You can purchase a copy of this standard online. If you go along this path the one thing I will say is[...]