Digital Horizons, Evidence & Impact

Transcription

1 Digital Horizons, Evidence & Impact Pete Edwards PolicyGrid Digital Social Research Node, dot.rural Digital Economy Hub University of Aberdeen

2 Overview Part 1 Everyone wants evidence einfrastructure 101 Why provenance matters ourspaces Part 2 Impact experiences

3 Everyone wants evidence

4 Evidence-based policy - Really? Evidence-Based Policy Rigorous, reputable and, crucially, publicly available evidence plays more than merely a fig leaf role in public policy. We are looking at publishing the evidence, replied the Minister, but in the end, you pick the evidence which backs your argument. Policy-Based Evidence-Making

5 RCUK Digital Economy Impact Framework

6 RCUK Digital Economy Impact Framework

7 Managing Evidence evidence Policy Research outputs Impact evidence

8 einfrastructure 101 escience becomes eresearch The Grid, Web 2.0 and beyond Virtual research environments Scope for technology to support management of research outputs and document evidence/impacts?

9 Provenance

10 Who did we talk to? 3 case study groups Systems Social simulation modellers Project Reducing E. coli O157 risk in rural communities (RELU) Community Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES)

11 Supporting Research Communities What do researchers want? Answer : A LOT Support for management of digital artefacts (datasets, documents ); Digital artefacts need to be situated in context; Membership of multiple communities (project teams, wider networks ); Respect for diversity of researchers, methods and working practices; Importance of collaboration and communication activities being integrated into the wider research record; Web-based, and easy to use.

12 Provenance "Provenance is the number one issue we face when publishing government data as linked data for data.gov.uk John Sheridan, UK National Archives, February 2010 Provenance of a resource is a record that describes entities and processes involved in producing and delivering or otherwise influencing that resource. Provenance provides a critical foundation for assessing authenticity, enabling trust, and allowing reproducibility. W3C Provenance Incubator Group

13 A collaboration environment for researchers. A means to share research resources across a diverse community. Capture and expose provenance of research outputs. ourspaces

14 ourspaces

15 Part 2

16 Impact Timeline Pilot Semantic Grid Service for Environmental Modelling, ESRC, PolicyGrid: Semantic Grid Tools for Rural Policy Development & Appraisal, ESRC esocial Science Research Node, SwarmCloud, JISC- ENGAGE, dot.rural Digital Economy Hub, NOW Access Grid Node Competition - Equipment Award, ESRC, 2006 e-infrastructure for the Social Sciences, ESRC, PolicyGrid II: Supporting Interdisciplinary Evidence Bases for Scientific Collaboration and Policy Making, ESRC Research Node, A Trusted Mobile Platform for the Self-Management of Chronic Illness in Rural Areas, RCUK India DST,

17 Reflections on Impact As a researcher: Interdisciplinarity has been a good thing in helping deliver on the impact agenda. Socio-technical perspectives play well. More research in the wild. Engagement with stakeholders takes a lot of time. Many impacts are serendipitous/unplanned.

18 Reflections 2 As a researcher: Lots of doors have opened. As well as Computer Science publications, I now have papers in social science, transport and medical journals. But guess which outputs I will select for the REF?

19 Reflections 3 As a Centre/Hub Director: Make friends with the university Communications office. Importance of social media strategy. Regular engagement with funding bodies. Advisory/Steering groups. Balancing act between research and knowledge exchange. Training and supporting team members about impact agenda. Get your impact data collection house in order.

20 Thanks to