Individual 1, who at that point had become the President of the United States
May 17, 2019
Anonymisation and research Human data are among the richest and most complex available to researchers. With such data comes great responsibility, however, not least that of protecting the safety and privacy of subjects. Recent changes in the legal landscape, most prominently the General Data Protection Regulation, have enshrined in law the obligation to safeguard …
Mapping Ethical Challenges in the Internet of Things for Research
January 31, 2019
Dr Lachlan Urquhart (Lecturer in Technology Law, University of Edinburgh) and Dr Martin Flintham (Assistant Professor in Computer Science, University of Nottingham). Lachlan.urquhart@ed.ac.uk and martin.flintham@nottingham.ac.uk Jan 2019. Towards the Internet of Things The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told …
Digital Research Vision at Nottingham
January 11, 2019
Research excellence at Nottingham is underpinned by a broad range of digital facilities and services and the Digital Research Strategy underpins the overall Research Vision. Over the past two years we have been focused on delivering new capability while also exploiting new opportunities through digital initiatives. New services have been developed to enable effective management …
Introducing Ben, a familiar face in a new role
September 7, 2018
After over a month on the job as Digital Research Specialist for the Faculty of Science, I have just enough time to introduce myself. I am not a new face at the University: you may recognise me from such roles as student, teaching assistant, guest lecturer, student supervisor and co-lead of the Heritage & Digital …
Research Tool Review: Learning to Loathe the Livescribe Echo – and Why You Might Love It
August 13, 2018
My difficulties with the Livescribe Echo begin before I’ve even started writing: what, I find myself wondering, am I supposed to do with the cap? Full disclosure: I have repeatedly demonstrated the Echo to staff across the University of Nottingham, and urged them to give it a try. And yet somehow, the problem of the …
Digital Research Team Receive Best Paper Award at ICISO 2018
July 20, 2018
This week I attended the 18th International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organisations, held at the University of Reading. The theme for this year’s conference was Digitalisation, Innovation and Transformation, and over three days we got to hear a wide-range of talks on Business Intelligence, Data Visualisation, Technology Acceptance, Strategy Lifecycles, Digital Games and …
Fear and Loathing on the Pokémon Go Trail. Also, Some Cautious Optimism: An Afternoon at the ODI
July 16, 2018
It’s 2 o’clock on a sultry summer afternoon; outside, London is still dreaming of a win against Croatia in the match that night. But here at the Open Data Institute Data Ethics seminar in EC2, things are going deep, fast. I’m thinking out loud about medical records: patient data, researcher data. On my right, a …
Heads I Win, Tails Don’t Count: Negative Results, Open Data, and the Curious World of Research Publication
May 14, 2018
In Tom Stoppard’s famous absurdist drama Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (well, famous, at any rate, to people who like absurdist drama) the first act opens with the title characters betting on a coin toss. Rosencrantz is quite happy with how this has been going: he is betting on heads, and the toss has indeed …
DRHack: The results of our Digital Research Hackathon
May 8, 2018
On the afternoon of Friday 27 April, at the same time as the Digital Research Week’s closing ceremony, DRHack kicked off. We co-hosted this event with HackSoc, a student society dedicated to hacking. We invited students to come and try their hand at designing and creating new ways of engaging with research data. Hackathon participants …
First Month on the Job: Small Problems. Big Questions. Tiny Salamanders
May 4, 2018
Four weeks on the job already, and this is only my first blog post as a member of the Digital Research team. I haven’t even got my staff profile set up yet: LinkedIn will have to do for the moment. Apologies for that: there just hasn’t been the time. I joined the team on April …
