I am a researcher from the Faculty of Social & Political Sciences, University of
Cambridge and Project Officer for the Community Education and Outreach Division of
the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge.
I am a mainstream social scientist (social anthropology) currently managing a large scale
applied social science e-Research project in partnership with stakeholders from several
UK universities and government agencies involved in sustainable communities activities
such as UnLtd, the UK national Centres of Excellence, and the Academy for Sustainable
Communities. The project focuses on the introduction, testing and development of a
range of multimedia digital ‘templates’ which when employed at local level, can make
visible, forms of social research data through a comprehensive ‘mapping’ of both people
and location as well as the complex relationships which exist between the two.
These templates are being tested methodologically and as a toolkit, capturing
photographs, video & sound files, GPS & GIS spatial data, mobile phone m-blogging,
visual art, scanned documents and other textual data and submitted / analysed as both
Grid enabled assembly of qualitative records and the formalisation of social research
procedures as Grid workflows. The project engages with the Grid assembly of new
forms of qualitative data inputted actually during and as a part of ethnographic fieldwork,
in a setting which would typically involve cross discipline and cross sector
collaborations.
Thus by undertaking Grid-based tracking of the tasks and information flows of the
fieldwork process itself as (operational) workflow - including the interactions between
both human and non human components, it should be possible to make more likely the
replicability of future studies and add to the validity and reliability of qualitative analysis
through the direct application of distinct and new e-social science tools. This approach
could also facilitate a new level of transparency within ethnographic fieldwork to cut
across current 'post - production' practices in writing ethnography and at the same time
enable new forms of collaboration in the execution of social research. The aims of the
project also focuses on annotating contextual information and providing indexable
metadata so as to offer both a temporal dimension and underpin core social research
activities conducted through more traditional methods - such as participant observation
and unstructured interviews.
In addition, all stakeholders will be participating in a programme of e-learning and other
collaborative training activities during the autumn 2007 via Access Grid.
The techniques used in developing the project have already been tested and evaluated as
part of the 2004 Presidency Programme for the Nordic Council of Ministers - ‘Interactive
and Digital Media’: http://formennska.forsaetisraduneyti.is/Fundir/nr/1267 A series of
successful tests using early templates were carried out around the bus station and district
of Hlemmur in Reykjavik, Iceland and engaged with over 470 local people, several
Nordic government organisations and researchers from 14 universities – including those
from the social and computer sciences, the arts and biotechnology. These early tests were
funded as a collaboration between the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Nordic Institute
for Contemporary Art, the Icelandic Government, the European Union and the University
of Cambridge. As project manager I was commissioned by Rannis – the Icelandic
Research Council and the EU IST board to explore both new methodologies for ‘coalface’ data collection and social shaping issues which might bear directly on outlines for
what will be the future Framework 8 call which it had been proposed by the IST board
should focus more heavily on Grid enabled e-infrastructures. I had been approached by
the DTI and the IST board through a long standing personal contact with a director of
Central Research Laboratories (who ‘market’ the IST programme in the UK) and had
already become aware of Grid computing through a personal contact with one of the
contributors to the original 1995 Kessleman book.
My interest in contributing to this workshop is twofold. Both specifically relate to eResearch within the social sciences:
My first is directly related to what I see as the pressing need to significantly increase
involvement by the wider social science community as active partners and stakeholders in
the management of e-Research projects. The vision of Grid computing as being
analogous to the supply of electricity is not lost on me. Early scientific experiments in
the late 18th century following the discovery of electricity, often tried to reanimate dead
flesh . . Let us not make the same mistake! I would argue that without active
involvement and indeed take up by the wider social science community in partnership
with the expertise currently working within NCeSS, it will not be possible to achieve the
full aims of the project.
Part of my Cambridge research to date has also focussed on the replication of
metacommunities (a community ‘talking about’ a community) through an increasingly
common dynamic brought about by the combination of EU/government funding and
specialist agenda. This research would I believe provide useful insights for debate in the
workshop around computer scientists ‘doing’ social science. For the wider e-science
project to achieve a sustainable legacy, I believe it must engage now with the wider
academic community. I also participate at government level in debates around “why we
do what we do” and in this respect I feel it would also be useful to look at the issue of
‘measurement’ as linked to governance as underpinning the drive by the EU to digitise
and archive Europe’s cultural heritage of which e-science forms a part. It is always easy
to avoid the bigger picture when funding is in place and immediate, practical concerns
take priority.
I would also be interested in debating with other delegates the core issue of what we
believe social science actually is? Is the role of e-science and more specifically e-social
science to redefine practices in the light of the affordances of Grid computing - using
ideas and language migrating from computer science? Or is it to establish a new
discipline altogether? Will the current pioneers of e-social science simply abandon the
project when the funding dies out? Or will the legacy of the current round of e-Research
be in the successful dovetailing of expertise with areas of mainstream disciplines.