Big Data Techniques to Improve Learning Access and Citizen Engagement for Adults in Urban Environments

This presentation explores the emerging concept of ‘Big Data in Education’ and introduces novel technologies and approaches for addressing inequalities in access to participation and success in lifelong learning, to produce better life outcomes for urban citizens. It introduces the work of the new Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) at the University of Glasgow, presenting a case study of its first data product – the integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) project. Educational engagement and predictive factors are presented for adult learners, and older adult learners, in a representative survey of 1500 households. This was followed up with mobility tracking data using GPS data and wearable camera images, as well as one year’s worth of contextual data from over one hundred web sources (social media, news, weather). The chapter introduces the complex dataset that can help stakeholders, academics, citizens and other external users examine active aging and citizen learning engagement in the modern urban city, and thus support the development of the learning city. It concludes with a call for a more three-dimensional view of citizen-learners’ daily activity and mobility, such as satellite, mobile phone and active travel application data, alongside administrative data linkage to further explore lifelong learning participation and success. Policy implications are provided for addressing inequalities, and interventions proposed for how cities might promote equal and inclusive adult learning engagement in the face of continued austerity cuts and falling adult learner numbers

Will e-Science Be Open Science?

This contribution examines various aspects of “openness” in research, and seeks to gauge the degree to which contemporary “e-science” practices are congruent with “open science.” Norms and practices of openness are vital for the work of modern scientific communities, but concerns about the growth of stronger technical and institutional restraints on access to research tools, data, and information recently have attracted notice—in part because of their implications for the effective utilization of advanced digital infrastructures and information technologies in research collaborations. Our discussion clarifies the conceptual differences between e-science and open science, and reports findings from a preliminary look at practices in U.K. e-science projects. Both parts serve to emphasize that it is unwarranted to presume that the development of e-science necessarily promotes global open science collaboration. Since there is evident need for further empirical research to establish where, when, and to the extent “openness” and "e-ness" in scientific and engineering research may be expected to advance hand-in-hand, we outline a framework within which such a program of studies might be undertaken.e-Science, Open Science, Engineering Reserach

An International Prospectus for Library & Information Professionals: Development, Leadership and Resources for Evolving Patron Needs

The roles of library and information professionals must change and evolve to: 1. accommodate needs of tech-savvy patrons; 2. thrive in the Commons & Library 2.0; 3. provide integrated, just-in-time services; 4. constantly update and enhance technology; 5. design appropriate library spaces for research and productivity; 6.adapt to new models of scholarly communication and publication, especially: the Open Archives Initiative and digital repositories; 7. remain abreast of national and interanational academic and legislative initiatives affecting the provision of information services and resources. Professionals will need to collaborate in: 1. Formal & informal networks – regional, national, and international; and; 2. Library staff development initiatives – regional, national, international Professionals will need to use libraries as laboratories for ongoing, lifelong training and education of patrons and of all library staff ( internal patrons ): the library is the framework in which Information Research Literacy is the curriculum . Professionals will need to remain aware of trends and challenges in their regions, the EU, the US and North America, of models which might provide inspiration and support: 1. Top Technology Trends; 2. New paradigms of professionalism; 3. Knowledge-creation and knowledge consumption; 4. The shifting balance of the physical library with the virtual-digital librar

Sustaining Autonomous Communities in the Modern United States (The United Communities of America)

America has become industrialized and characterized by social anxiety and overconsumption. The inability to be sustainable has led the once plentiful and flourishing nation into an ongoing sustainability crisis. Even if there is a deep connection between them, this essay focuses on social sustainability rather than ecological. It argues for an intentional community-based framework to keep American life sustainable. Pollution, civil unrest, and intense social anxiety create unfulfilling life conditions for many American citizens. Using examples from modern American intentional communities, I will explain the need for self-directing, close-knit communities. Flourishing community members, as it will be considered from sociological and pragmatist theory, are notably more autonomous and environmentally conservative than mainstream American society. Communal societies immensely aid in successfully establishing contextually-based governments that help fulfill their citizens. They are more conscious of their environment (in the broader sense than the ecological one) and thus seek a healthy sustainable consumption rate and social climate. The values and traditions that cultivate environmental care are integral in communities and often combat the instability of American society. Though grassroots communal living can be hard and often forsakes the amenities of capitalist America, it offers alternative values that would still sustain and help to achieve fulfillment by the population

Digital technologies, social media and emerging, alternative documentary production methodologies

My research is a practice-based project involving documentary production and theoretical analysis of emerging forms of documentary and online co-collaboration, exploring paradigm shifts in digital technology particularly in the web-based feminist activism and feminist social praxis. The practice-led research explores new forms of production practices outside traditional methodologies and dissemination. Specifically, by utilizing cheap digital technology tools and working within online social networking platforms the research theoretically analyses what means were available towards online participatory media practices to create new documentary forms. My research aims are therefore to investigate how the new paradigm shifts in digital technology and the democratization of the filmmaking process, through online, collaborative practice, can allow women documentary filmmakers to connect to a global marketplace outside the traditional filmmaking channels. Further, looking at the history of the documentary form, as well as the feminist movement, I am interested in which of the key themes and debates that have characterized their intersection are still important at this moment of changing and emerging technologies. Can new technologies, access to cheap digital tools and collaborative modes of practice help or hinder the creative process of making a digital documentary? In examining the history of feminist filmmaking and the emerging documentary shifts in production offered the opportunity to position my own practice within these traditions and experiment further with online forms of modality. This experiment allowed me to gather empirical data using new media practices (i.e. creation and curation of online and repurposed content, use of new production tools within online spaces) to create a first person, auto-ethnographic narrative on the subject of feminism and online activism. Additionally, my research looks at the theoretical and historical underpinnings surrounding feminist filmmaking, new documentary practices and its implications within new technologies, and the emerging forms of collaborative online modes of practice. Each of these areas will intersect within the three key areas of debate surrounding documentary filmmaking; those of 1) narrativity, 2) witness and 3) ethics. My practice investigates these interactive, participatory modes created with emerging technologies and online audiences and how this is shifting narratives, audience reception and producing new ethical debates around ‘truth’ and ‘authenticity’ as these lines are continually blurred. Rethinking documentary in the virtual space brings about new challenges to the old debates around evidence, witness and ethics, as it is the product of a more democratic attitude towards practice, distribution and dissemination of its stories. New participatory audiences are now also helping to create the very product they are witnessing. Therefore, creating media within the public sphere can bring about a wealth of new tools, wider contributions to media making and a more global awareness of its dissemination. But it is not without its controversy and challenges. Further, my research looks at how working within this co-collaborative mode, the position of filmmaker as the ‘sole’ creator or ‘auteur’ comes into question. It discuses the advantages and/or the disadvantages to this approach and in doing so looks at what contributions and challenges an online audience can provide to support the filmmaker that cannot be gained through historical and traditional production and exhibition forms. What once was a higher barrier to entry into the film business is now a more open and online accessibility where anyone can wield a cheap camera or mobile phone device, make a movie and share it on the internet. These newfound democratic practices could potentially disrupt an already complex system of communication practices. However, it could also supply it with a much-needed collective idea bank for tackling global issues and finding sustainable solutions. Within the scope of participatory practices, a first person filmmaker can experience the greatest of democratic freedom within the confines of this process and delivery. The research is supported and conducted through a practice-led film project, web support platform (including blog and social media sites) and published case study. The final output film project around which these questions are posed is entitled: “Single Girl in a Virtual World: What does a 21st Century Feminist Look Like?”1. The film’s purpose is therefore to engage an online global audience of participants and contributors to the film’s narrative thread by asking for contributions within the production, creation and financing of the documentary film. The practice utilizes social networks, crowd funding initiatives, web blogs, viral video, virtual chat interaction and traditional modes of documentary practice in its methodology in an effort to collect data surrounding activity and attempt to answer my research questions at large. The overall objective is to create an online documentary film that exemplifies feminist activism in a new frame through application of documentary modes and new emerging digital media practices. 1 Single Girl in a Virtual World: What Does a 21st Century Feminist Look Like? (Nelson 2013