In December, another edition of ZPI-Day took place – the annual team project conference for students of the Applied Computer Science programme. During the event, 34 team projects were presented, from which the jury selected three best ones. ZPI-Day also became an impetus for launching a new scientific journal – the Journal of Information Systems Development.

ZPI-Day, organised by the Department of Applied Computer Science, is the culmination of the work carried out by Applied Computer Science students within their Team Engineering Projects. The conference combines elements of scientific presentations, a poster exhibition, and networking. Its main goal is to promote student achievements, while also providing an opportunity to obtain opinions and feedback from experts.

In the latest edition of the conference, 34 projects were presented in the form of talks and a poster session. Each team also prepared an extensive project report that was reviewed by domain experts. This assessment model allows students not only to verify the technical correctness of their solutions, but also to develop competencies in the following areas:

• documentation of engineering work,
• presentation of results,
• responding to reviewers’ comments,
• working in accordance with best software engineering practices.

From among all the presented projects, the jury selected the three best ones:

• HotSpotter – a tool supporting behavioural code analysis and detecting technical debt based on data from version control systems; a project also awarded by the audience in the ZPI Contributors category,
• VocalizeR – an innovative web application enabling the creation of music using the human voice, through humming, singing, or other vocal forms,
• ORPHEUS – an optical parser for recognising musical notation with harmonisation and editing features.

Additionally, the Audience Award was granted to the project AIPF (Open category) and HotSpotter (Selected category).

All projects can be explored on the event website.

This year’s edition of ZPI-Day also had a strategic dimension. In January 2026, a new scientific journal – the Journal of Information Systems Development – was launched. Its aim is to publish peer-reviewed project reports and other forms of work by students and early-career researchers.

The journal constitutes a natural extension of the educational pathway from a team project → through expert review → to a formal academic publication. In particular, it will promote solutions at the intersection of science and practice, presenting the application of modern information technologies to real-world problems. The Journal of Information Systems Development is intended to provide a coherent pathway from a student project to an academic publication.

Photos: Jan Ludwina