Overview

Director: Dr Hazel Hall

Social informatics is the interdisciplinary study of the design and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that takes account of institutional and cultural contexts. Social Informatics research relates to the body of knowledge about the use of ICTs as influenced by institutional arrangements, social forces and organisational practices.

The aim of the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University is to continue to develop a distinctive body of work that reflects a shared interest in socio-technical interaction at different levels of organisation, and at different stages in the system life cycle. In addition the Centre works on the development of methods to support research in these areas. Our work provides critical perspectives on, as well as analysis of, ICT trajectories, socio-technical and organisational issues in the context of corporate knowledge management, large scale infrastructures such as e-government, e-health, and the information society.

The Centre for Social Informatics (CSI) is home to Edinburgh Napier University's International Teledemocracy Centre (ITC) http://itc.napier.ac.uk/. Established in 1999, the ITC undertakes applied research and evaluation of policy and practice in relation to the e-society in general and e-democracy in particular. The ITC has built an international reputation as a centre of excellence in e-participation, with a strong record of success in gaining research grants and carrying out consultancy and commissioned research.

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) the CSI continued to demonstrate both world leading and international excellence with 85% of its research activity judged to meet the standard of international recognition or above.

	Current and Recent Projects Biometric Technologies in Self-Service Environments To develop a user-centred biometric technology evaluation framework to reliably and consistently assess the suitability of new technologies for use in the ATM environment. e-Community Councils In February 2004 the ITC received funding from the Scottish Executive to investigate how technology could be developed to help regenerate democracy at the local community level. Community councils are at the heart of local government in Scotland. e-engaging young Scotland on radioactive waste management The ITC is being funded by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) to research appropriate tools and techniques to engage young people in their continuing dialogue on radioactive waste management. E-petitioner for the Scottish Parliament The ITC has been working with the Scottish Parliament since 1999, researching the design and management of an electronic petitioning system for the Public Petitions Committee of the Parliament. e-petitions and The Scottish Parliament (2) ITC are working with the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament to research and report on e-engagement using the e-petitioning tool in order to support the electronic participation agenda of the Parliament. e-Representative: A virtual desktop to support the mobile elected Representative The primary focus of “eRepresentative” is to investigate the potential impact of a “virtual elected representative’s desktop” to support the work of elected representatives at national, regional and local level by making legislative services more effective and more tailored to meet their i EDEN The ITC's role is to identify what officials and the public require and to evaluate the likely impact of the EDEN software toolkit. This toolkit is a set of web-based applications that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology. EuroPetition An EU-funded project a trans-European Local Authority e-participation service providing distributed citizen engagement and interaction with the European Parliament's PETI Petitions Committee and the European Citizens Initiative. ITC is providing the evaluation function. HANDS Helping ANswers Decision Service aims at validating in the European market the results obtained from the IST EDEN project which Napier was previously a partner in. Two natural language based tools developed by Italian partners under EDEN are being further developed and deployed in other public authorities and Utility companies. Highland Youth Voice ITC are working with Highland Youth Voice (a democratically elected assembly for young people in the Highland Region) in the development of a suite of e-democracy tools for their website. HuWY The HuWY project aims to support young people’s eParticipation in policies about the Internet and its governance, through a distributed discussion. HuWY partners provide information, support and organise influential audiences for young people’s suggestions. Information sharing, exchange, reward and social capital This work tests the applicability of the analytical concepts and assumptions of social exchange theory to information markets, and the potential for this to generate further theory related to information and knowledge sharing. Library and Information Science Research Coalition Dr Hazel Hall, Director of the Centre for Social Informatics, is seconded to lead the implementation of the LIS Research Coalition in 2009/10. The broad mission of the LIS Research Coalition is to facilitate a co-ordinated and strategic approach to LIS research across the UK. Maximising Value from Communities Learning Consortium Dr Hazel Hall was involved in this project when on industrial secondment to TFPL, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2006. Dr Hall’s inclusion in the MVC began at the first meeting of the consortium in February 2006. Smartgov The main objective of the project is to help public authority employees to design, deliver and maintain electronic services. They will do this through use of the SmartGov software platform that is being developed in the project. U'say for Young Scot The ITC is creating on-line materials and carrying out social research for the Ur'say channel. WEB.DEP The project aims to establish a communication and information management network which support democratic engagement in the Western Balkans. The network will be run by the National News Agencies.