Desire Lines: Open Educational Collections, Memory and the Social Machine

This paper delineates the initial ideas around the development of the Co-Curate North East project. The idea of computerised machines which have a social use and impact was central to the development of the project. The project was designed with and for schools and communities as a digital platform which would collect and aggregate ‘memory’ resources and collections around local area studies and social identity. It was a co-curation process supported by museums and curators which was about the ‘meshwork’ between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ archives and collections and the ways in which materials generated from within the schools and community groups could themselves be re-narrated and exhibited online as part of self-organised learning experiences. This paper looks at initial ideas of social machines and the ways in machines can be used in identity and memory studies. It examines ideas of navigation and visualisation of data and concludes with some initial findings from the early stages of the project about the potential for machines and educational work

Machinima interventions: innovative approaches to immersive virtual world curriculum integration

The educational value of Immersive Virtual Worlds (IVWs) seems to be in their social immersive qualities and as an accessible simulation technology. In contrast to these synchronous applications this paper discusses the use of educational machinima developed in IVW virtual film sets. It also introduces the concept of media intervention, proposing that digital media works best when simply developed for deployment within a blended curriculum to inform learning activity, and where the media are specifically designed to set challenges, seed ideas, or illustrate problems. Machinima, digital films created in IVWs, or digital games offer a rich mechanism for delivering such interventions. Scenes are storyboarded, constructed, shot and edited using techniques similar to professional film production, drawing upon a cast of virtual world avatars controlled through a human–computer interface, rather than showing real‐life actors. The approach enables academics or students to make films using screen capture software and desktop editing tools. In student‐generated production models the learning value may be found in the production process itself. This paper discusses six case studies and several themes from research on ideas for educational machinima including: access to production; creativity in teaching and learning; media intervention methodology; production models; reusability; visualisation and simulation

PyPlutchik: Visualising and comparing emotion-annotated corpora

The increasing availability of textual corpora and data fetched from social networks is fuelling a huge production of works based on the model proposed by psychologist Robert Plutchik, often referred simply as the “Plutchik Wheel”. Related researches range from annotation tasks description to emotions detection tools. Visualisation of such emotions is traditionally carried out using the most popular layouts, as bar plots or tables, which are however sub-optimal. The classic representation of the Plutchik’s wheel follows the principles of proximity and opposition between pairs of emotions: spatial proximity in this model is also a semantic proximity, as adjacent emotions elicit a complex emotion (a primary dyad) when triggered together; spatial opposition is a semantic opposition as well, as positive emotions are opposite to negative emotions. The most common layouts fail to preserve both features, not to mention the need of visually allowing comparisons between different corpora in a blink of an eye, that is hard with basic design solutions. We introduce PyPlutchik the Pyplutchik package is available as a Github repository (http://github.com/alfonsosemeraro/pyplutchik) or through the installation commands pip or conda. For any enquiry about usage or installation feel free to contact the corresponding author, a Python module specifically designed for the visualisation of Plutchik’s emotions in texts or in corpora. PyPlutchik draws the Plutchik’s flower with each emotion petal sized after how much that emotion is detected or annotated in the corpus, also representing three degrees of intensity for each of them. Notably, PyPlutchik allows users to display also primary, secondary, tertiary and opposite dyads in a compact, intuitive way. We substantiate our claim that PyPlutchik outperforms other classic visualisations when displaying Plutchik emotions and we showcase a few examples that display our module’s most compelling features

Journalism Education 2016 Vol 5(2): Guest Editor

“It’s the story that matters! Teaching journalism’s storytellers” Special Edition of Journalism Education Guest Editor: Karen Fowler-Watt, Bournemouth University, UK. Storytelling is the journalist’s craft skill. Shaped by the tenets of objectivity and accuracy, the news narrative informs the debate and brings us the human stories. If journalism is a craft, then the story is the journalist’s work of art. In a rapidly changing landscape of technological revolution, shifting business models and ethical challenges, one thing remains certain – the story still matters. As award winning BBC foreign correspondent, Fergal Keane reminds us, the journalist is first and foremost a storyteller who is ‘trying to tell them what it is like to stand where I do and see the things I see.’ But this core skill is being challenged on all sides. The demands of the 24/7 news cycle emphasise story – processing, rather than storytelling. Originality – the storyteller’s stock-in-trade - is often sacrificed as newsrooms shrink in size and journalists fail to get out of the office. The online environment moves us away from linear storytelling and focuses on the imperative of interactivity. Stories require simplicity and multi media features to engage an audience consuming in byte-size, whilst on the move. If storytelling lies at the heart of journalism practice, how do journalism educators face these challenges? How do we teach the next generation of journalists to find original stories and to tell them in innovative ways? How do we encourage young journalists to engage audiences through their storytelling techniques? How does investigative, in-depth research and long-form storytelling fit in to this digital context? This special edition of Journalism Education aims to invite discussion and debate about a range of factors currently informing the role of storytelling in journalism education. It will devote particular attention to the ways in which journalism educators are embracing multimedia and new media approaches to storytelling. Possible topics to be examined may include: - Definitions of storytelling in a digital age - Teaching storytelling to journalists: - the role of accuracy, redefining objectivity - reporting human interest, reporting conflict - Original storytelling - Influences of social media on journalistic narrative - Understanding the role of audience in storytelling - Ethical issues in storytelling - Technological innovation, experimentation and teaching multimedia storytelling techniques - Experiential approaches to teaching storytelling - Teaching storytelling using data - Selling stories - teaching entrepreneurship: pitching story ideas, getting stories commissioned Articles will be peer-reviewed in accordance with the JE guidelines for peer review Guest Editor Dr Karen Fowler-Watt is Head of the School of Journalism, English and Communication in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. She is a former BBC journalist and co-editor (with Stuart Allan) of Journalism: New Challenges (2013, CJCR) Contact Dr Karen Fowler-Watt Head of School, Journalism, English and CommunicationW338, Faculty of Media and Communication Bournemouth University Talbot Campus Fern Barrow Poole. Dorset. BH12 5BB Email: [email protected] Tel: + 44(0) 1202965129 Web: www.media.bournemouth.ac.uk “It’s the story that matters! Teaching journalism’s storytellers” Special Edition of Journalism Education Guest Editor: Karen Fowler-Watt, Bournemouth University, UK. Storytelling is the journalist’s craft skill. Shaped by the tenets of objectivity and accuracy, the news narrative informs the debate and brings us the human stories. If journalism is a craft, then the story is the journalist’s work of art. In a rapidly changing landscape of technological revolution, shifting business models and ethical challenges, one thing remains certain – the story still matters. As award winning BBC foreign correspondent, Fergal Keane reminds us, the journalist is first and foremost a storyteller who is ‘trying to tell them what it is like to stand where I do and see the things I see.’ But this core skill is being challenged on all sides. The demands of the 24/7 news cycle emphasise story – processing, rather than storytelling. Originality – the storyteller’s stock-in-trade - is often sacrificed as newsrooms shrink in size and journalists fail to get out of the office. The online environment moves us away from linear storytelling and focuses on the imperative of interactivity. Stories require simplicity and multi media features to engage an audience consuming in byte-size, whilst on the move. If storytelling lies at the heart of journalism practice, how do journalism educators face these challenges? How do we teach the next generation of journalists to find original stories and to tell them in innovative ways? How do we encourage young journalists to engage audiences through their storytelling techniques? How does investigative, in-depth research and long-form storytelling fit in to this digital context? This special edition of Journalism Education aims to invite discussion and debate about a range of factors currently informing the role of storytelling in journalism education. It will devote particular attention to the ways in which journalism educators are embracing multimedia and new media approaches to storytelling. Possible topics to be examined may include: - Definitions of storytelling in a digital age - Teaching storytelling to journalists: - the role of accuracy, redefining objectivity - reporting human interest, reporting conflict - Original storytelling - Influences of social media on journalistic narrative - Understanding the role of audience in storytelling - Ethical issues in storytelling - Technological innovation, experimentation and teaching multimedia storytelling techniques - Experiential approaches to teaching storytelling - Teaching storytelling using data - Selling stories - teaching entrepreneurship: pitching story ideas, getting stories commissioned Articles will be peer-reviewed in accordance with the JE guidelines for peer review Guest Editor Dr Karen Fowler-Watt is Head of the School of Journalism, English and Communication in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. She is a former BBC journalist and co-editor (with Stuart Allan) of Journalism: New Challenges (2013, CJCR) Contact Dr Karen Fowler-Watt Head of School, Journalism, English and CommunicationW338, Faculty of Media and Communication Bournemouth University Talbot Campus Fern Barrow Poole. Dorset. BH12 5BB Email: [email protected] Tel: + 44(0) 1202965129 Web: www.media.bournemouth.ac.u

Visualising Plastic Ocean Pollution: Designing Waste Ontologies

It is challenging to comprehend the extent of oceanic plastic pollution because of the sea depth and currents. This PhD by practice in design uses marine scientific findings and data on plastic waste recycling extrapolation to support an argument that the oceans are the world's largest mismanaged landfill. As the sea's landfill is not visible, the research applied various approaches to making invisible plastic waste present. Through Higher Education (HE) action-based workshops, research participants were invited to experience ocean plastics in ways designed to challenge perceptions. The HE action-based research co-created an aesthetically positive waste response and new experiential values that re-shaped the thinking of participants. Through a co-design approach with design students, research created meaningful connections with long-lasting plastic resources and re-imagined plastic pollution as oceanic species. This PhD thesis research comprises a series of three practice-based projects. First, HE-based waste symposium engagements facilitate landfill dialogue and promote plastic reuse. Second, HE participatory workshops enabled the visualisation of oceanic plastic pollution through making installations. Third, the research explored plastic pollution using craft expositions and participated in a sailing expedition. The PhD interventions promoted positive change through hands-on reuse tactics with plastic packaging, raising environmental and oceanic landfill awareness, and acknowledging that this may not lead to changes in stakeholders' behaviour. Through the design agency-praxis, the research draws on recent works in speculative design formulating experiential design futures and design fictions. These PhD thesis contributions funnelled visual strategy insights from three practice-based interventions into two experiential scenarios - future-based climate fiction narratives. The first future scenario unpacked the responses of HE design workshop stakeholders and proposed informal global services and design-led packaging solutions. The second fiction scenario is a visionary post-anthropocentric future that visually re-imagined the planetary plastic pollution changes through intersections of research and praxis. This participatory research re-imagining with plastic waste and visualising the complexity of plastic pollution contributes further to knowledge relating to design research in three clustered domains. First, various HE learning tools for oceanic environmental awareness and waste reuse were developed. Second, the research designed an innovative methodology that expands praxis vocabulary and forms a new eco-centric compendium through workshop interventions and waste aesthetic approaches. Lastly, through practice-based participatory action and speculative agency, the research uniquely constructs a socio-material narrative with plastic things making new interdisciplinary connections and design relations to nature. The PhD promoted hands-on plastic reuse and new perceptions of plastic waste in HE design education, connecting to discard study, marine science and feminist thinking. A co-creation design approach raised transformative environmental awareness and promoted novel waste aesthetic and design language towards engaged relationships with plastic pollution

"Medicine is still against Black people": Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US

Funded by the British Academy, this report is part of a research project entitled “Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US”. The report investigates social, cultural, and political factors underlying vaccine hesitant beliefs and ideas among minoritised communities in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (US). The data is collected through interviews and focus groups with vaccine-hesitant individuals within various religiously, ethnically, and racially minoritised communities, interviews with medical practitioners, and through thematic analysis of vaccine communication in Twitter and Telegram during the COVID-19 pandemic

Urban construct: visualising space in Townsville's built environment

Neil Binnie investigated space as lived experience in the urban landscape of Townsville. He discovered and visualised the evolving nature of space in a regional city through practice-based research. The results contributed to local arts and culture with an exhibition of contemporary art and supporting exegesis

Adoption of innovative e-learning support for teaching: A multiple case study at the University of Waikato

In response to recent social, economic, and pedagogical challenges to tertiary-level teaching and learning, universities are increasingly investigating and adopting elearning as a way to engage and motivate students. This paper reports on the first year of a two-year (2009-2010) qualitative multiple case study research project in New Zealand. Using perspectives from activity theory and the scholarship of teaching, the research has the overall goal of documenting, developing, and disseminating effective and innovative practice in which e-learning plays an important role in tertiary teaching. A “snapshot” of each of the four 2009 cases and focused findings within and across cases are provided. This is followed by an overall discussion of the context, “within” and “across” case themes, and implications of the research