Development and use of software, Virtual Reality (VR) environments and apps
The BMS lab is staffed by two full-time programming experts. They work together with the staff at the faculty, students and researchers to support studies and create software that facilitates the creation and execution of new and innovative research designs and applications. This is in addition to the large collection of software licenses available to research at the BMS faculty. The specialties of the lab’s experts include:
- Creation of Virtual Reality (VR) environments and assets,
- Scripting and task automation
- Programs and apps
- Machine learning
- Visualization and data analysis
Use of development time and licenses
Every registered and approved project with the BMS lab can use of up to 80 hours of development time free of charge and make use of all available licenses. If you want to make use of our development services, then you can read more about it in our Info hub. Please ensure that you inventory and schedule the work at least 5 weeks in advance, as our developers are some of the busiest people in the faculty. Using available software licenses is simpler. Simply sign-up your project as your normally would and find the software you need in our equipment reserve system or on the software page.
The apps of the BMS lab
Smartphones are ever present in our daily lives. Mobile phones are taking an ever-growing role in scientific research as well. With smartphone apps we can create well-controlled and user friendly environments with a low barrier of entry. At the BMS lab we help create these apps and published two ourselves, namely TIIM and Sociometry. TIIM is used to provide timely (psychological) interventions to and receive feedback from participants for prolonged studies. Sociometry can be used to analyze meetings on all kinds of factors ranging from speaking time, to the tone of the conversation. Software that is maintained by the lab is research software (as opposed to consumer software) and continuously evolving. We therefore strongly recommend that you closely study the available instructional materials for each software and test your setup thoroughly before starting your study.
Twente Intervention and Interaction Machine (TIIM)
TIIM is a software for the prolonged studying and/or coaching of participants. Researchers can easily setup a study containing multiple measurements or sets of questionnaires and participants receive these on their phone. Make questionnaires available to participants based upon certain timing rules, conditions or answers given by participants and download your data afterwards in a CSV file. Possible use cases include the observation of participants when following a diet or psychological treatment and allows for access to participants any time of the day. TIIM Offers: high levels of adaptability to suit your studies, measurements at any time of the day based upon actions or timing, flexible use and deployment of interventions, safe data transfer and storage, data collection through the Apple Health app.
Interested in using TIIM? Read more on TIIM’s page or contact the BMS Lab office.
