e-Research Community Engagement: evidence-based interventions to widen uptake

Presentations now available for download

Background

Existing investments in e-Research and Grid computing technologies have helped to develop the capacity to build e-Infrastructures for research: distributed, networked, interoperable, service-oriented computing and data resources that are available to underpin a wide range of research activities in all research disciplines. As the technical components and architectural styles are maturing, questions about uptake and embedding of e-Infrastructures in day-to-day working practices of researchers come to the fore. Exploring these questions will contribute to the e-Research community realizing its full potential and achieve sustainability.

This workshop aims to bring together members of the e-Research community who are working on and researching community engagement to widen the uptake of e-Infrastructures for research. We will focus on the practical issues involved in developing research methodologies and evidence-based interventions and operationalising findings from social scientific research to leverage and enable the wider uptake of e-Infrastructures for research. In particular, we would like to invite contributions to address the following topics:

• Methodologies for collecting evidence of e-Infrastructure uptake and service usage; 
• Research on the existing practices and strategies for community engagement; requirements gathering and service delivery.
• Operationalising findings from social scientific studies of e-Research;
• Improving the existing and developing new approaches for evidence-based interventions to widen uptake;
• Implications for training, outreach and education.

The aim of the workshop is to provide a forum for the exchange of experiences and to link research and practice. The workshop will help to strengthen the links in particular between the JISC-funded community engagement projects and the projects funded under the EPSRC Usability in e-Science call. We will disseminate the results on the websites of the participating projects and will discuss possibilities to continue the discussion in future workshops and other community activities. 

Agenda: 20th May

11.00-11.15:    Introduction -  Alex Voss, Dimitrina Spencer. 

11.15-12.00:    Community Engagement: e Uptake, ENGAGE and eIUS -  Alex Voss, Mike Fraser, Neil Chue Hong.  

12.00-13.00:    Discussion; Facilitator - Marina Jirotka

13.00-14.00:    Lunch   

14.00-15.15:   Embedding e-Science- Dimitrina Spencer, Ralph Schroeder and Grace de la Flor

Engaging NGS Users- Gillian Sinclair

The role of Web.2.0 in research and scholarly communications -  Rob Procter, Meik Poschen, Alex Voss, James Stewart.

15.15-15.30:    Coffee   

15.30-16.15:    Discussion Groups -  Facilitators: Alex Voss, Dimitrina Spencer, Neil Chue Hong

16.15-17.00:    General Discussion and Closing - Marina Jirotka, Rob Proctor

To register for this event, please email Julia Bremble at events@oerc.ox.ac.uk

Presentations

Niel Chue Hong (.ppt)

Alex Voss and Meik Poschen (.ppt)

Gillian Sinclaire (.ppt)