Presentation given at the HEA Social Sciences learning and teaching summit 'Exploring the implications of ‘the era of big data’ for learning and teaching'. A blog post outlining the issues discussed at the summit is available via: http://bit.ly/1lCBUIB

1. Community Engagement Through Data
@catalystproj www.catalystproject.org.uk
Prof. Jon Whittle, Lancaster University, UK
#catalystas

2. Data = money

4. The “TV Genome”

5. Smart streets

6. Biometric data

7. Data = money

8. Data = Social Change?

12. Catalyst
• Research on data for social change
– Framework of projects
• Sprints (big)
• Launchpads (modest)
– Community-University partnerships
– University-wide

14. Access ASD

16. heartlink

18. Methods/approaches
• Across Catalyst
• Within sprints
• Sustainability
• PROTEE

19. Across Catalyst
• Ideas Labs
• Serendipity Cafes
• Pop-up events

20. Within sprints: speedplay

21. Sustainability at its core
• #patchworks
– £350K successful Lottery Fund grant
• Barter
– £250K EPSRC follow-on project
• Access ASD
– £300K EPSRC follow-on project

22. PROTEE: Insights & Innovation
• Project dialogues
• Learn from failure and
success
• Insights:
– innovation
– management
– interdisciplinarity

23. Lots of Catalyst successes
• 12 community-university projects
• Network of 90 third sector organisations
• 23 public events
• 15 publications
• 13 videos on YouTube
• 13 invited presentations
• £900K follow-on funding
• 1000s of conversations

24. Engaging Students
• SCC322 Software Innovation
– 14 Computer Science students
– 14 Design students
• Aims:
– To teach students the realities of ‘data for
social change’
– Through group projects with real stakeholders
– Alongside necessary theory

25. Topics covered
• Action research
• Participatory Design
• Agile, Iterative Prototyping
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Stakeholder engagement

26. Reflections
• ‘Just do it’ mentality
– Hard to overcome
– But they ‘got it’ in the end
• Naivety about what data can do
– Benefits of visualization
– Intrinsic vs extrinsic benefits & gamification
• Cross-disciplinary methods
– Took students far out of their comfort zone

27. Contact: j.n.whittle@lancaster.ac.uk