Strathclyde iSchool Research Group Projects
Externally & internally funded projects
The STRIDE project helps Scots step towards wellbeing via greater involvement in community libraries and government initiatives promoting Scotland’s health. Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, STRIDE develops an original partnership between the Dept of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde and the Mitchell Library at Glasgow Life. Using information behaviour models, wellbeing frameworks, and wearable devices, in STRIDE we:
- design, deliver, and assess scalable outdoor walks for adults, with themes linked to the Mitchell Library’s Special Collections - from local histories to pioneering women.
- organise workshops with a wide range of Scottish organisations, to discuss how to sustainably include our work in a library service delivery.
- produce evidence-based policy recommendations and a toolkit for practitioners.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti - project leader and Principal Investigator
Co-investigators:
- Dr Fiona Muirhead ( Physical Activity and Health, University of Strathclyde) and Special Collections Librarian Susan Taylor from The Mitchell Library, Glasgow Life
Funded by the international George Greenia Research Fellowships in Pilgrimage Studies, this ethnographic fieldwork continues and extends Dr Innocenti’s original ethnographic research programme on information practices in long-distance religious and secular pilgrimage routes, investigated through the lens of information behaviour, serious leisure, wellbeing, and human computer interaction.
St Olav Waterway is the latest 600km addition to the St Olav Pilgrim Paths to Trondheim, a network of 5000km of historical trails crossing Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and leading to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.
In 2018 the route was certified by Council of Europe as the Eastern part of the European Cultural Route of St Olav’s Ways. Dr Innocenti will walk the St Olav Waterway for two weeks, interviewing and observing pilgrims along the way, and using a camera and a special microphone for field recording to gather data for a walking and sonic ethnography.
This fieldwork may be complemented by a follow-up online survey to broaden the research participants' sample.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Principal Investigator
Funded by CIS dept, University of Northumbria, this ethnographic study on the Camino de Santiago routes considered human computer interaction, information behaviour, digital curation practices of pilgrims and implications for co-curated heritage collections.
The project originally extends and complements a nascent body of work on pilgrimage in Information Science, Heritage and HCI communities. Two fieldworks took places in Spain and France.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Principal Investigator
Funded by CIS dept, University of Northumbria, in this project we conducted a fieldwork experiment designed to consider human computer interaction, information behaviour, and information retrieval. This is facilitated by studying participants of The Great Outdoors Challenge (TGO) on their journeys through the Scottish Highlands; a trip which entails cross-country travel in conditions requiring overnight camps and complex navigation.
The project developed understanding of recreationalist’s human-computer interactions and their impacts via the collection of data sets generated during this event. Data was gathered via satellite trackers and communicators, screen capture of mobile devices, and various associated metrics. This original project brings together research on information behaviour and mobile interface design, search, and interaction.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Co-Investigator
This project funded by Arts Council England gained a preliminary understanding and share food heritage knowledge and practices migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Newcastle. A research methodology using Participatory Action was developed. Project results have been used to develop collections and learning/engagement activities in two English museums engaged in this project: Discovery Museum (TWAM) and Seven Stories.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Principal Investigator
Funded by the European Commission, FP7-SSH, the collaborative research project MeLa has defined innovative museum practices that reflect the challenges of globalisation, mobility and migration.
Adopting the notion of “migration” as a paradigm of the contemporary global and multi-cultural world, the MeLa Project investigated the evolution of European museums as physical places, cultural spaces and processes within the framework of the present political, social and cultural context, characterised by accelerated mobility, fluid circulation of information, ideas and cultures, and the consequent increase of cultural encounters, cross-fertilisation and hybridisation of societies and identities.
By exploring the challenges as well as the opportunities resulting from globalisation, augmented mobility and contemporary migrations, MeLa aimed to identify and envision innovative policies and practices which may enhance the role of museums in actively promoting mutual understanding and social cohesion, and thus fostering a sharper awareness of an inclusive European identity
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Principal Investigator and Workpackage 3 leader
Sophocles, Terence, Shakespeare, Calderon, Molière, Pirandello, Beckett, Brecht, Dario Fo; the richness and value of the European performing arts heritage is unquestionable.
While content is now being digitised and published online, access still remains fractured and scattered. Furthermore, there is no coordination between the digital libraries and theatre domains.
Funded by the European Commission, CIP-ICT-PSP, the collaborative project ECLAP has contributed to the production and online dissemination of multilingual European heritage in performing arts, using advanced indexing database and delivery tools. The cores of the best practice network consist of 18 partners from 13 EU countries.
A substantial body of digitised content (more than 1 million items) has been selected and made accessible via Europeana and ECLAP. Project areas included mapping of relevant metadata standards, integration of end-user contributions, semantic enrichment and the implementation of the model to define the relation between conceptual entities.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Co-Investigator
Funded by European Commission, FP7-ICT, the collaborative R&D project SHAMAN developed and tested a next generation digital preservation framework including tools for analysing, ingesting, managing, accessing and reusing information objects and data
Project areas included GRID computing, federated digital library architectures, multivalent emulation and semantic representation and annotation.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Co-Principal Investigator and Workpackage 1 and 15 Leader
Funded by European Commission, FP7-ICT, this collaborative research project DL.org has advanced digital library research and tools on interoperability, working against the joint conceptual framework of the DL.org Digital Library Reference Model.
DL.org has increased awareness and understanding of interoperability of digital libraries systems and produced an enhanced and consolidated version of the DELOS Reference Model. The main instrument of the project consisted of six thematic Working Groups composed by DL.org partners and representatives from important DL projects and organisations in order to achieve a maximum impact on the digital libraries community and beyond.
The main outcomes of DL.org are:
- a "Digital Library Technology and Methodology Cookbook" providing a portfolio of current best practices and patterns to facilitate cross-fertilization between existing systems and their enhancement in terms of critical interoperability issues;
- a consolidated and enhanced version of the DELOS Digital Library Reference Model;
- workshops, summer schools, eCourses and dissemination activities to communicate the impact of DL.org achievements to relevant communities.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Co-Principal Investigator and Workpackage Leader for Policy
Funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, this project investigated the applicability of DRAMBORA toolkit in libraries archives and data centres/repositories in Japan, audited the Digital Library of the National Diet Library, provide feedbacks for a possible transformation into a localised version.
Dr Innocenti has previously contribute to the online version of the DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based On Risk Assessment) toolkit.
Investigators
- Dr Perla Innocenti, Principal Investigator