Student Services
A single on-campus server. No subscriptions. No data leaving campus. Seven tools that every student can use.
What Students Get
Section titled “What Students Get”| Service | What It Does |
|---|---|
| AI Chat Interface | A chat experience comparable to commercial tools, designed to encourage critical thinking rather than passive use |
| Voice Interaction | Speak to the system, hear responses. Fully local speech-to-text and text-to-speech |
| Research and Notes | An AI-powered environment for reading, annotating, and synthesising sources. Transforms research into podcasts |
| Image Generation | Generate images for presentations, projects, and creative work. Multiple model tiers from fast drafts to high quality |
| API Access | For students building their own tools as part of assessed work or personal projects. OpenAI-compatible endpoints |
| Embedded Unit Assistants | AI support embedded directly within course platforms, tailored to specific unit content and readings |
| Rehearsal Environments | Simulated professional organisations where students practise audits, interviews, negotiations, and client interactions before the stakes are real |
AI Chat
Section titled “AI Chat”The primary interface. Students interact with local LLMs through Open WebUI — a full-featured chat interface with conversation history, multi-model switching, voice input/output, image generation, and web search. Comparable to commercial tools, running entirely on campus hardware.
For research-focused work, Perplexica provides Perplexity-style answers with inline source citations and an academic search mode that prioritises scholarly sources.
Fully local speech-to-text (Whisper) and text-to-speech (Kokoro) via Speaches. Integrated natively into Open WebUI — students speak, the system listens, processes, and responds audibly. No audio data leaves the machine.
Research and Notes
Section titled “Research and Notes”Open Notebook AI is a research assistant that ingests PDFs, links, YouTube videos, and text documents. Students can annotate, synthesise, and generate structured summaries. The platform can transform research notes into podcasts — useful for revision and accessibility.
Image Generation
Section titled “Image Generation”ComfyUI provides local image generation. Simple requests go through Open WebUI’s in-chat image generation (students never need to open ComfyUI directly). Students who want node-based workflow control, ControlNet, LoRAs, or advanced pipelines access ComfyUI directly in the browser.
Unit Assistants
Section titled “Unit Assistants”AnythingLLM powers unit-specific RAG chatbots embedded in Blackboard. Each unit gets its own document workspace — the ISYS6020 assistant only knows ISYS6020 content. Students ask questions about readings, assessments, and course material and get answers grounded in the unit’s actual documents.
Rehearsal Environments
Section titled “Rehearsal Environments”Powered by LocoEnsayo, these are AI-populated organisations that students can interrogate, interview, audit, and negotiate with. Each persona has a backstory, a role, and information constraints. The scenario is not a quiz. It is a rehearsal.
Currently deployed: CloudCore Networks (IT services firm for security audits and systems analysis), Pinnacle Tours (hospitality and tourism), and TalkBuddy (high-stakes conversation practice).
Productivity Tools
Section titled “Productivity Tools”Beyond AI services, LocoPuente includes tools students use daily:
- Stirling PDF — merge, split, compress, OCR, annotate, and convert PDFs. Every student needs PDF tools; no data leaves the machine.
- Excalidraw — collaborative whiteboard and diagramming. Group projects, case study mapping, business process diagrams.
- CiteSight — citation verification and writing quality checker. Pre-submission check that catches citation errors and AI-generated writing patterns before they cost marks.