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National prize for º£½ÇÖ±²¥ team

Psychology specialists from º£½ÇÖ±²¥ have received national acclaim for their innovative tool that is designed to help students with academic writing.

Final year psychology student Holly Shahverdi, 20, second year psychology student Nadine Spence, 21, psychology graduate Luke Kennedy, 22 and Senior Lecturer in psychology Dr Sue Becker, were winners in the Jisc Summer of Student Innovation competition. They designed SALT, a writing tool which addresses and aids different aspects of academic writing – grammar, language, structure and use of relevant source material.

The four-strong team reached the national finals and travelled down to London to pitch their idea to a team of experts. They will now work alongside Jisc to develop their website and will be given access to a specialist team of web designers.

Once ready, the website will be piloted for º£½ÇÖ±²¥ before Jisc promote it nationally to academics in education.

Dr Becker said: 'When the project started I wanted to involve a student from every year group. It is fantastic to see how well the idea has been received.'

Holly, from Middlesbrough, said: 'The competition has definitely improved our confidence and given us real world experience of working on a project that can genuinely help university students. Winning a national award is amazing.'

Dr Becker believes that winning the national award provides a great opportunity for the team to develop SALT further and has also given the students more confidence.

'The students have got national success before they even graduate and have done what the football team couldn’t – gone to London and won a final,' laughed Dr Becker.

'I am incredibly proud of the team and the hard work and long hours they have devoted to the project.'

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