Frank Gasking

Frank is a Senior Technical Specialist (Developer) within the HSS Technical Team, and enjoys working within a great team supporting both staff and students with the design and development of experiments, applications and games for lab and online based studies - as well as bespoke solutions to a variety of problems. 

As well as development, Frank also helps to teach and train staff and students on how to program and build experiments using the open source PsychoPy, attempting to share knowledge and empower where possible.

Additionally, he has managed, developed (and continues to maintain) a number of web applications for the Division, including the online Ethics system, Lab booking and asset management system, Kent Child Development Unit database.

Frank has been heavily involved in developing Microsoft Power Platform to create effective and efficient solutions to day to day problems and tasks for Divisional Staff and Students - creating some of the first solutions to be used within the University, specifically within the Division of HSS. This includes an FYP/MSc and RES allocation system, IRP process and an Onboarding/Offboarding system for HSS staff as a few examples.

Most recently, Frank became technical lead for setting up the central University of Kent instance of Qualtrics, working with Information Services and demonstrating the ability to work with other technical departments at the University to help provision central services. 

He has also worked heavily on helping to do final set work for the University's new SISO Asset Management system, working with both SISO and Information Services to plan out roles/permissions mapping, and then provisioning documentation for different Departments to set up their own stores - following the template which was implemented for HSS.

Frank also carries out general day to day technical support cover during busy periods in HSS and works with the Technical Team to maintain key research equipment within the laboratories to keep everything moving.

Outside of the University, Frank works within the world of digital preservation with classic computer games and software, with specific interest in the subject of unreleased games, running The Games That Weren't project. Frank created a book on the subject in late 2020 marking over 20 years of running the archive.

• Introduction to PsychoPy yearly workshops
• Online tutorials

Grants and funding

Awards

• Research and Innovation Technician of the Year Prize (2022)
• Technical Support for Research Prize (2018)

Responsibilities and expertise

• Development, maintenance of Psychology experiments and programming support for:
• PsychoPy (including online via Pavlovia)
• Inquisit
• Gorilla (online experiments)
• Qualtrics + Javascript/JQuery
• Virtual Reality experiments in Vizard
• Experiment Builder (EyeLink)
• Matlab (including Psychtoolbox)
• R and R-Studio

• Experiment integration and helping maintain key research equipment:
• Biopac MP150 and MP35  (EMG, GSR)
• Brain Products EEG Acticap (EEG)
• GVS (Brainbox)
• EyeLink 1000 and 1000+
• TMS
• Development of online questionnaires and survey distribution
  
• Qualtrics (Web + Mobile), Experience Sampler (Mobile), Pavlovia Surveys

• Developer and maintainer for key Divisional web applications: 
  
• Online Ethics (Including a University wide pilot roll-out)
  
• KCDU booking system
  
• Lab booking system
  
• Asset management system
  
• Staff onboarding system
  
• IRP management system
• FYP/MSC and RES allocation systems
• General application programming/web development expertise:
  • Technologies/languages: Python, Matlab, Java, Perl, Ruby, C++, VB6, HTML, XHTML, HTML5, CSS3, ASP, PHP5, Javascript, JQuery, JQuery UI
  • Content management systems + frameworks: Wordpress, Drupal, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, Symfony
  • Authentication and data protocols: SAML (Development of SAML auth modules for our systems), LDAP
  • Development repositories: GIT and SVN.
  • Development and deployment environments: Homestead, Vagrant, Capistrano and Deployer.
• Microsoft Certified Power Platform developer (PL-400)
• Database design and development: MySQL, SQLite and SQLserver
  
• General technical support
• IT and application support for end users
• PC rebuilds, hardware issues, connectivity issues
• Room access (Pegasys)
• Biopac hardware, BrainVision EEG, EyeLink, VR, TMS, Tobii maintenance - including electrode replacement and diagnostics for EEG.

• Help with general software including MS Office suite, Photoshop
• Managing and overseeing yearly upgrades of key software including PsychoPy and Matlab for Staff/Student PCs.

• Running and assisting training workshops: 
• PsychoPy
• Agile development and project management
• Experience of project managing large scale projects such as Ethics and KCDU database
• Regular ongoing project management of experimental projects for staff and students.
• Assistance with project bids and applications within the School.
• Working/communicating with external suppliers and development teams.

• Knowledge and experience with testing procedures: Prototyping, User testing and Unit Testing (PHPUnit)

• Basic electrical and soldering skills (building custom GVS cables and fixing work)

• Technical consultancy on new projects and bids, including costings and specifications.

Publications

• de Lillo, Martina, Brunsdon, Victoria, Bradford, Elisabeth, Gasking, Frank, Ferguson, Heather (2021) Training executive functions using an adaptive procedure over 21 days (10 training sessions) and an active control group. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, . ISSN 1747-0218. E-ISSN 1747-0226. (doi:10.1177/17470218211002509) (KAR id:86678) 
• Gasking, Frank The Games That Weren't. Bitmap Books, Bath, UK, 644 pp. ISBN 978-1-83801-912-9. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:86770)