2009
Steve is involved in
research communities such as the University of Teesside’s WISER
group (Web Integrated Social Environmental Research) and with
several other Universities in the PRADSA group (Practical Design for
Social Action). He is a founder member of the international
Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN). He has managed the
ICT projects Tees Valley Communities Online and E-Create. Both of
these projects have been recognised for innovation and invention in
the field of community ICT.
Steve is currently working with diverse groups to achieve digital
inclusion through community media. These groups, combining a variety
of ages and ethnicities, come collectively under the title of
Tees
Valley Community Media – www.tvcm.co.uk. He recently delivered a UFI-funded
ICT project, Social Inclusion Demonstrators (SID). The Teesside SID
project was one of 20 Social Impact Demonstrators throughout England
set up to explore the links between social and digital exclusion,
and how ICT and the skills to use it can benefit individuals,
families, communities and society itself.
Currently he is delivering a Big Lottery funded research project
“The Digital Village Network” which seeks to which seeks to
investigate a concept developed by Steve, The Digital Village:
“A
Digital Village is a space where a community expresses their
identity though ICT and Digital Media. This may be from an artistic,
heritage, or economic perspective or a mixture of all three. This can
be done through poetry, digital stories, community newspapers
online, image collections (old and new), audio (Internet radio, oral
history), animations, video, and text. To engage in the activities
the participants need to learn new skills and so the Digital Village
also becomes a learning community”
Some examples: Loftus
-|- Skinningrove -|-
Stockton -|-
Margrove Park -|-
Carlin How -|-
Moorsholm -|-
Saltburn
Steve also develops and designs ICT solutions for community groups
wishing to engage in community media and is an advocate for the
social development and sustainability that open source software
affords. He has collaborated with and advised many national
organisations including NIACE, BECTA and Futurelab and has given
keynote addresses at the The Community Media Association, Futurelab,
Nesta and Becta Annual Conferences.
He also takes on occasional consultancy roles and is currently
a consultant to engaged as a consultant to a consortium of six
Universities led by the University of Loughbrough working on a
research program on the New Dynamics of Ageing funded by 5 of the UK
research councils. Steve is also a consultant to Eden
Council on a Youth (Media) Engagement project Eden Media.
Research
Steves research interests include open source and web 2.00
software for community and social media as well as cross platform
free tools for music and audio.
|