Dr. David Millard^@ecs

Technology trends such as the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 are rapidly changing the way in which we capture, represent and use knowledge. The Human Knowledge interface is where people interact with these complex systems, and new technology trends such as tagging, semantic Wikis, and semantic logging can greatly increase the value of the knowledge modelled.

Web Science is a proposed new discipline to study the continuing impact of the Web on people, business and society. Web Science is about understanding how technical innovation changes practice, and how behaviour in the small translates to behaviour in the large. I am particularly interested in social and community interaction in information and sharing systems, for example in Open Educational Repositories and Collaborative Content Creation systems.

Storytelling is a powerful way of recalling, or communicating, information. Narrative systems use a combination of meta-data, schemas, goals and inference to create stories that enable people to make sense of large sets of digital material (such as personal archives or work logs). However, narratives are also purposeful, and can enforce a particular view of those resources. Creating and communicating balance, is therefore as important a research area as generating meaningful narratives in the first place.

E-learning systems typically replicate existing teaching methods and attempt to make them easier to manage, or more engaging to students. However, technology can introduce entirely new learning activities that may offer new pedagogical benefits, and can enable personal and personalised learning applications that can support informal and individualised learning. I am interested in how ubiquitous and mobile learning applications can change the way that teachers and learners interact, how personal learning environments can help people manage their own learning, and how we can cope with the complexity of heterogeneous personal learning systems.