Community Engagement Through Data

@catalystproj www.catalystproject.org.uk

Prof. Jon Whittle, Lancaster University, UK

#catalystas

Data = money

The “TV Genome”

Smart streets

Biometric data

Data = money

Data = Social Change?

Catalyst

• Research on data for social change

– Framework of projects

• Sprints (big)

• Launchpads (modest)

– Community-University partnerships

– University-wide

Access ASD

heartlink

Methods/approaches

• Across Catalyst

• Within sprints

• Sustainability

• PROTEE

Across Catalyst

• Ideas Labs

• Serendipity Cafes

• Pop-up events

Within sprints: speedplay

Sustainability at its core

• #patchworks

– £350K successful Lottery Fund grant

• Barter

– £250K EPSRC follow-on project

• Access ASD

– £300K EPSRC follow-on project

PROTEE: Insights & Innovation

• Project dialogues

• Learn from failure and

success

• Insights:

– innovation

– management

– interdisciplinarity

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

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

Topics covered

• Action research

• Participatory Design

• Agile, Iterative Prototyping

• Human-Computer Interaction

• Stakeholder engagement

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

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