My research interests lie in the application of new technologies within business, education and society and the associated disruptive innovation and culture change that is required for effective implementation. There are many opportunities for HE institutions that are prepared to embrace the new possibilities for research and teaching offered by technological developments, rather than be left behind by over-reliance on business models from the last century. This change is evidenced in recent initiatives by the Wellcome Trust and the UK government towards enforcing open access to research findings. The objective of my research is to investigate such opportunities and then help to put them into practice.

I have increasing concerns about the ethics of publishing in closed journals that may not even be freely accessible to our students paying large course fees, let alone to any interested external parties where other forms of impact might be made. The Cost of Knowledge protest, in seeking to bring about significant change in academic publishing, is an interesting case study (as reported by the Guardian’s Academic Spring article last week). There are also obvious practical considerations because the lead times associated with publishing in closed journals make a nonsense of researching a rapidly developing area.

I have been very much *inspired* by my current research into open and social scholarship. From now on I will not be carrying out any new work (writing, editing or reviewing) for closed journals, although I will of course meet my obligations on work in progress. I have joined (currently 16) other Southampton researchers and 9,665 people globally who have signed up to Cost of Knowledge, and I will post a link to this explanatory post from that website. Over the summer I will be focusing my efforts on the SMiLE project which is developing into a major inter-disciplinary initiative and is committed to open access for its outputs.

Comments are most welcome

Cross posted from the Digital Economy Blog.

Last week I posted about our plans for the action research project SMiLE at the CAA2012 conference at Southampton. We tracked the use of a number of social media tools by both ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ attendees and interviewed people about the value they got from this activity, in order to explore the dynamics of the relationship between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ communities. Now that the event is over it is time for the team to gather thoughts about next steps.

This post is a initial attempt to summarise what went on during the week in terms of social media and how we might best take the work forward. Feedback and offers of help are most welcome!

1. The sun shone *all week*. We had arranged this

2. Full statistics are still being collated but as a taster there are so far over 13,000 tweets quoting #caasoton, with more discussions continuing, 435 photos on Flickr and video views from nearly 40 countries:

RT @SUSUtv: Here’s what you thought about Social Media at the CAA vimeo.com/39421556 #caasoton see more videos here: vimeo.com/caaconference/…

— Lisa Harris (@lisaharris) March 29, 2012

3. Nearly half of the 450 conference delegates were active on twitter, and there were many new converts, and also old hands describing the significance of this:

RT @electricarchaeo bfore twitter I could dwell in blissful ignorance of all the cool pertinent stuff I was missing #caasoton #quoteoftheday

— Lisa Harris (@lisaharris) March 29, 2012

4. tweeting during sessions allowed people to make connections and curate the discussions going on in different rooms, in real time:

RT @girlwithtrowel: Almost everyone in this session has tweetdeck open or is tapping away on a phone. And it’s totally appropriate #caasoton

— Lisa Harris (@lisaharris) March 28, 2012

Some of these discussions could even be considered as defining new online ‘sessions’ or themes:

I can finally follow my first session #caasoton.use of transparency in 3d reconstruction why not in uncertainty session?

— Eleonora Gandolfi (@eleonorag1) March 27, 2012

5. there was an active group of ‘virtual’ contributors (over 70 registered as ‘virtual attendees’, with some 20 more beaming in randomly on the Wednesday morning alone)

RT @varixto: Thank you very much for being able to participate virtually. I love twitter bit.ly/H297ZW #caasoton@caasoton

— Lisa Harris (@lisaharris) March 30, 2012

Overall it was a bit of a result, really:

@caasoton Amazing use of social media, accessability, connectivity. Set the bar VERY high for all future conferences #caasoton

— J. Andrew Dufton (@jadufton) March 29, 2012

So what next?

We have *much more* data than we expected, but this is a nice problem to have! Already people are tweeting ideas about how best to archive and reuse it, as well as curating data from various sources such as Foursquare to provide an extra layer of value. We want to try different ways to integrate and visualise the data, and also the possibilities of network analyses and data mining.

We will be checking out our interview and survey data and writing up the early findings over the next few weeks to present at the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) Conference in July. Using the principles of crowdsourcing we have requested Session Chairs to gather relevant materials, add their own narrative and Storify each session which can be archived as a permanent record of specific discussions and decisions taken.

We have also spoken with Faculty event managers, the digital media team in comms, and the University’s CITE team about sharing the lessons learned for the benefit of people organising future events. A series of posts charting our progress will follow shortly! We will carry on listening and talking via #caasoton

Offer: A fully funded 4-year MSc/PhD studentship – annual stipend £13,590.00 (tax free) and all fees paid (Equals a monthly pay of £1,130)

Topic: Anything relevant to the Web, Social Networking, Semantic Web, e-commerce, e-learning etc.

We have 10 studentship opportunities to start this October. No need for computer science or programming experience.

The 4-year programme consists of a one year taught MSc course and then a 3-year PhD programme. Currently, we have students from the following disciplines:

* Law * Sociology * Economics * Geography * Electronics * Global Politics

* Psychology * Software Engineering * ITO * Archaeological Science

* History of Art * Criminal Justice * Museum Studies * Management

* International Relations * Philosophy * Multimedia applications

* National Sciences * Archaeology * Physics * Internet Engineering

* Computer Security * Computer Science

“The Web is one of the most disruptive and transformative innovations we have ever witnessed. We must understand the forces that have shaped it, anticipate its evolution and determine its future social and economic impact. But we must also research a next generation of the Web.” Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Research Director, Doctoral Training Centre.

We offer you the chance to be part of this new, exciting and pioneering research area.

Check out the PhD opportunities at the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre:

Application deadline: 31st May 2012

The Social Media in Supporting Live Events (SMiLE) research project is now in full swing for next week’s Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Conference (#caasoton). We will be monitoring the use of a range of established and experimental social media tools. The purpose is to track how they are utilised by delegates before/during and after the event, for example for information recording/sharing, network building, profile raising and the development of an ongoing community of practice. In addition, we will be carrying out interviews and surveys with conference participants about their individual experiences.

We are also interested in exploring the dynamics of the relationship between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ communities, such as whether people meet at the event as a result of an online introduction, or if they skip sessions on the basis that they can follow what goes on via the live streaming and Twitter backchannel. Assessing the impact of social networking activity on an intended ‘real world’ outcome has historically been difficult to measure, but we suggest that recent developments in social network visualisation and analysis now enable valuable insights to be generated for the benefit of event organisers and community developers.

Things are pretty busy here at #caasoton – But we found time to work out some #FunFacts of #caasoton today: caaconference.org/caa2012/about/ #ArchCRG

— Nicole Beale (Smith) (@nicoleebeale) March 23, 2012

Here are some of the services that we will be using and monitoring:

Twitter (Q&As, question of the day, ‘tweet your phd topic’, event logistics, collection of shared urls saved into Delicious, etc

Facebook Page

LinkedIn Group

Storify for producing summaries of each day’s events, linked to event website

Pinterest and Flickr for photo display, linked to event website

Video of keynote sessions, ‘best of the day’ collection and interviews with presenters/attendees (produced and uploaded to event website on the same day by SUSUtv)

Lanyards with relevant urls and QR codes which link to each delegate’s contact information that was collected at registration

Interactive map generated from delegates input of their journey details to the conference from all over the world

Blogging competition to post on topics related to ‘Day of Digital Humanities’, linked to event website

Crowdsourcing of delegates’ personal memories looking back over 40 years of this annual conference – video footage, corkboard.me, photos and drawings (www.drawnalism.com )to be captured and uploaded onto a SIMILE timeline, linked to event website

Student posters to be uploaded to event website to allow comments and feedback. Printed posters to have QR codes which link to the presenter’s details that were provided at registration

Wikiathon competition running until May, asking delegates to contribute to two Wikipedia topics: ‘Archaeological Computing’ and ‘The CAA’ . Winners will be decided based on page submission ratings from Wikipedia users over a period of two months, and a judging panel

Plasma screens across the venue will dynamically display the tweets using the conference hashtag (#saasoton) through VisibleTweets

Virtual attendees (registered through the conference website) will be sent welcome packs by email outlining the various ways they can contribute via social media

Please feel free to join in with your contributions or feedback, particularly if you are planning to run an event this summer

We already have lots of #caasoton ‘virtual attendees’. If you can’t attend, you can follow online. Just register here: caaconference.org/caa2012/attend…

— CAA2012 Southampton (@caasoton) March 22, 2012

ICS symposium at the University of York, 18-20 July 2012

Jane Vincent from the University of Surrey’s Digital World Research Centre and I will be presenting our paper “Social shaping, social customers and the social web: the blurring of online and offline worlds” at this event.

The ubiquitous social and cultural adoption of social media, such as Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook can be seen to present a significant example of scientific and technological innovation in many contemporary societies. While some studies of social media and, more specifically, Web 2.0 platforms built around user-generated content, have made reference to the importance of the field of science and technology studies (STS) for understanding their development and diffusion, scholars working within this academic framework have yet to fully turn their focus on this area. This three-day symposium is intended to explore the intersection between STS and social media inquiry, with a specific focus on how Web 2.0 is both generative and challenging of different forms of knowledge (co-)production and the authority it commands.

Speakers Include:

• Geof Bowker, University of California, Irvine
• Leah Lievrouw, UCLA
• Adrian MacKenzie, Cesagen, University of Lancaster
• Rob Procter, e-Research Centre, University of Manchester
• Robin Williams, ISSTI, Edinburgh
• Sally Wyatt, e-Humanities Programme, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

This three-day symposium is intended to explore the intersection between these two areas of inquiry, with a specific focus on how Web 2.0 is both generative and challenging of different forms of knowledge production and the authority it commands. Questions related to co-production, citizen science, the power of data algorithms and metrics to shape or bypass human agency, and the possibility of participatory forms of surveillance are just some of the issues that are raised.

This conference is intended to bring together leading scholars in the fields of STS, communication and social media analysis, and the history and philosophy of science to critically explore these issues.

Further details or email sarah.shrive-morrison@york.ac.uk

Graduate Business Analyst / Marketing Analyst
Havant, Portsmouth

£20k 1 year fixed term contract for a graduate in Business Studies, Marketing, or similar, to take on a newly created role as Business / Marketing Analyst for a hi-tech manufacturer in Havant, Hampshire.

The role will involve a week a month travelling, primarily to US, China or Germany.

Analysing commercial data on customers, competitors, markets, products and territories, you’ll help the MD to make informed decisions on business development strategies. You’ll be supporting global business projects by investigating, analysing and presenting commercial data on high technology products.You’ll ideally be able to demonstrate experience with a variety of research methods (possibly through your degree / dissertation), including interviewing techniques as well as the analysis of subsequent data.

The role is based in Havant, Hampshire, commutable from locations such as Portsmouth, Waterlooville, Fareham, Chichester, Petersfield and it is an initial 1 year fixed term contract. Please forward your CV to darren@astutejobs.co.uk

Key takeaways for me from a great day at Future of Technology in Education (#FOTE11) at the University of London yesterday:

There was angst from the IT department as the ever increasing consumerisation of technology challenges creaking university systems and a too prevalent culture of ‘computer says no’. It is more productive for staff and students to collaborate and operate outside the system using free online tools (Google docs, Dropbox and Skype do the job perfectly well for me).

Vendors who try too hard to plug their stuff to an ed tech audience risk the ire of the backchannel (you know who you are!)

While a sense of place is still important, (we had a great tourist’s guide to Bristol from @nick_skelton ) mobile phones have allowed people to make their meeting plans on the fly (for example, student bars are struggling) and economics keep many students away from campus (eg living with parents). And this is before the increase in fees…

Time and time again we heard examples of poor communication (between university and students, teaching staff and students, IT and staff/students…etc)

We don’t know enough about what students want and how students live – it was agreed we should try *asking them*more often.

The importance of digital literacy – plenty of staff and students just don’t have it. Thankfully, there seemed to be general agreement that the ‘digital native’ is simply a myth. @suebecks gave a great presentation with many fascinating examples of the importance of digital skills to employability.

There was more emphasis on challenges than solutions. How do we take change forward…we have identified the need for it, but how to make change actually happen? Andrew Bollington provided a reality check, suggesting that appreciating and incorporating the contrasting perspectives of finance, strategy and marketing would be a good start.

@andypowe11 provided a great summary of who and what was shared on Twitter – as you can see, quite a lot!

It was good to catch up with mobile supremo Jane Vincent from the University of Surrey at Digital Surrey last night. The topic was recent developments in mobile, presented by Jon Bishop, Head of Social Media at PayPal UK (@jonin60seconds). Jon’s slides are available on Slideshare and a detailed review of his talk was very quickly posted by Mark Wilson (@markwilsonit)

The purpose of this post is to flag up some points arising from listening to Jon, that could be pursued in a research project by Jane and myself as a sequel to our investigation from a few years back of the role of mobile communication in e-government. We suggested in this paper that mobile phones may offer the most viable electronic channel through which to encourage large-scale take-up of online public services, but ‘m-government’ would take a significant amount of time to become a reality unless there was a substantial change in social practices.

It was clear from Jon’s fascinating discussion of mobile payments in Africa that the developed world has a lot to learn from successful services developed in Kenya.

In the UK, mobiles have become even more central to people’s lives and business is clearly waking up to the marketing potential of location based services. But effective interaction with government services via mobile looks no closer than it did back in 2007.

The Digital Surrey community are by definition enthusiastic adopters of new developments in technology, but I’m not sure that the general population is quite ready for NFC and QR codes…and as Jon noted, 76% of websites are still not optimised for mobile devices.

Infrastructure issues still remain…just try staying connected while travelling by train.

And are smartphones really that smart? My BlackBerry (a recent model) takes forever to simply load a website, and if password access is required, forget it. I certainly won’t be using it to buy anything with. Perhaps a ‘hype v reality’ project might be a useful exercise…

Many thanks to Jon, Abigail and the rest of the Digital Surrey team for laying on great weather and free beer, as well as an informative and entertaining evening! For information about upcoming events, check out the website

I’m sure that regular readers and contributors to Martin’s blog will be delighted with this book. Although he takes care to be objective throughout the text, its subtitle should read something like ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. The real challenge will be getting the book onto the radar (and from there into the practice) of university staff who are still operating along more traditional lines despite massive environmental change.

Martin begins by reflecting on how his research process has changed since writing his last book just 6 years ago, which very much concurs with my own experience:

· Increased quantity of digital content available

· Advice and input from members of his social network

· Wider range of information sources drawn upon (blogs, video, tweets etc)

· Digital files of whatever type are easily sharable and accessible to any interested party, opening up research to new audiences and contributors.

Some key points for me from the book are:

The growth of ‘good enough’ technology such as skype or netbooks (as examples of the classic Christensen model of disruptive innovation) which despite lacking in refinement meet a mass market need for next to no cost – and consequently can displace more ‘professional’ products and services almost by stealth.

How to navigate the ongoing tensions between the established order and the new possibilities offered by developments in technology? For example, while learning from online resources and a global network of peers and experts offers a compelling alternative to a traditional lecture, the role of universities in providing well recognised social and accreditation functions is more difficult to replicate.

Interesting lessons from the experiences of other industries such as music and newspapers which have struggled to deal with developments in technology. Martin considers how traditional notions of scholarship (Boyer’s categories of discovery, integration, application and teaching) are challenged by the digital age and these aspects provide a framework for the chapter structure.

Worryingly, new researchers are not maximising the potential of new technologies in research. This can be explained by university reward systems which are driven by a conservative and narrow viewpoint of what constitutes ‘quality’. The consequence is that “new entrants are encouraged to be conservative while the reinterpretation of practice and exploration is left to established practitioners” – 180 degrees away from most industries where ‘fresh sets of eyes’ are encouraged to re-energise an organisation by challenging established practices.

In today’s world where information is abundant and shareable and global networks of expertise and support are accessible, the limiting factors for the individual learner are time and attention. Developing effective strategies for dealing with managing this are critical. (For example, I have switched off Tweetdeck in order to finish writing this post!)

Trying to protect traditional models of academic practice are unlikely to succeed (see newspapers and music) – Martin notes how students or conference participants will circumvent attempts at control, for example by googling for free alternatives to a set textbook, or watching more dynamic video presentations of a particular lecture topic online, or criticising a module on Facebook in a far more direct way than they would do on an official course feedback form.

I very much enjoyed the book, and as a ‘call to action’ I hope its messages get the attention that they deserve J

…is a question I was recently asked. E-business was very broadly defined beyond the commercial world to include related fields such as e-learning, e-government etc. It got me thinking beyond the latest crop of rock star offerings (great though many of them are) to try and come up with classics that have not only shaped the digital agenda, but also have truly stood the test of time. Not so easy is it? Anyway, after some pondering while walking the dog I came up with these:

Anything by Clayton Christensen on Disruptive Innovation (I’m looking forward to his new book on the Innovative University which is out soon, and apparently not an oxymoron)
Information Rules: a strategic guide to the network economy by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger
Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernhoff

I’m sure there are many others…I’d be interested to get some feedback on these choices, or any alternative suggestions…?