Sometimes, all it takes to get a project off the ground is a little help. This year, our team supported a wide variety of projects with guidance and advice in digital project planning, small-scale seed funding, scholarships and access to expert technologists who can develop prototypes and troubleshoot issues. We're proud to work with a range of researchers across disciplines to move their digital projects forward and turn ideas into realities.
We have a rolling open call for applications to our Digital Research Fund, which can cover software and hardware expenses or the cost of technical help. Read about two of the projects we funded this year below!
We helped Dr Glenna Nightingale develop 'Regression Challenge', a new app that will be used to teaching quantitative methods in Nursing.
This project allowed Glenna to develop more challenges for the game, design the interface and interactive guide, and build a scoring mechanism so players can evaluate their learning. The app is openly accessible and will particularly support postgraduate students in the School of Health in Social Sciences.
We supported Rea Michalopoulou's project to develop a VR app to use in schools as part of her research into the perception of Covid and other viruses.
COVID-19 has led to a rapid and ever-changing public communication landscape, providing a unique opportunity to study lay people's understanding of the virus. Previous research on children's understanding of diseases is outdated, and it remains unclear how children conceptualise COVID-19 information. Rea created a prototype Virtual Reality (VR) application to collect data on how children understand infectious diseases, and to improve knowledge and understanding of COVID-19.
We run regular open calls to invite researchers in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to propose early stage projects that they'd like to explore with our research technologists. This year, ten applicants proposed ideas, and we were able to help them all take appropriate next steps. The projects that our team were able to support ranged from work on European politics, to video games, to mapping storytelling.
This year, we were also delighted to support the development of research funding bids for two of the projects that came out of last year's sandpit.
Our team offers one-to-one advice to help troubleshoot and get researchers through tricky moments in their projects. This year, we assisted 26 people with:
We support outstanding digital scholars from around the world to visit Edinburgh through our partnership with the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.
Digitisation of Welfare and Implications for the Welfare State: An Examination through Social Welfare Funds in India
The Reviews Are In: A Computational Study of Fanfiction, Canonicity and Literary Value on Goodreads
Locating A New Historiography for India: Digital Archives and Public History
