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The Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group (SCRG) has developed web-based indictors and methods for use in research policy and research evaluation for governmental bodies and non- governmental organisations. The research has impact by providing tools and new types of indicators for policy-relevant evaluations for policy makers and decision makers. The research itself includes (a) the direct production and implementation of new indicators and (b) theoretical research into indicator foundations and tool performance, such as that of the web search engines used for indicator construction. The research has impact on policy making within the United Nations Development Programme by aiding evaluations of its initiatives, and within Oxfam and the BBC World Service Trust. It has impact on policy making at the national and international levels to aid the effective directing of funding to aid knowledge production. It has also has impact on public services by helping Nesta and Jisc to evaluate the success of some of their initiatives.
Research over two decades at the University of Southampton into the structure and development of the World Wide Web has led to the establishment of a new scientific field, which has earned recognition — and direct funding — from governments and industry around the world. Web Science is the study of the Web as a sociotechnical system. Southampton's work has influenced the Web strategies of the world's biggest companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Google, informed international Web standards and government information policies, led to a network of international laboratories working with industry to advance the Web's development through the provision of highly skilled people taking up specialist roles that draw on their research training.
`Scenes of Provincial Life' exemplifies the practice based research of M. Szpakowski. It was ground breaking in its presentation of "art" video on the world wide web, and involved both conceptual and technical experimentation/research/ development which fed into other activities and outcomes offline, which then fed back into the work itself. The sequence generated offline presentations including 78 screenings of works from the sequence in the period Sept 2009 - Dec 13 at film festivals and galleries on 5 continents, fed into a substantial body of applied work with school students (2 DVDs and a CD ROM, screenings at the BFI and the Shortwave Cinema) and informed Szpakowski's approach as editor in chief, co-curator and writer on the pioneering online curated video resource DVblog (2005 - the present). This research has also fed into writing on short form and online video for the journal MIRAJ and for Furtherfield, the leading UK digital arts platform. It is important to note that, although this document covers the period 2009 -13 the project began in 2002/3, assuming its current format in 2006.
Human-computer usability research within the university's Sensory Disabilities Research Unit (1993-2002) led to the construction of accessibility guidelines that are widely used, with an estimated reach to a maximum of 30 million people in the EU. PAS 78: Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites and BSI BS8788 Web Accessibility Code of Practice met 2010 web accessibility law in the UK and subsequent EU legislation. Similarly, BS EN 15823:2010: Braille on Packaging for Medicinal Products met UK, EU and International Standards for Braille on medicine packaging. Further research resulted in award-winning guides for blind users of Windows software that improves accessibility to work.
Based in the School of English, the Research and Development Unit for English Studies (RDUES) conducts research in the field of corpus linguistics and develops innovative software tools to allow a wide range of external audiences to locate, annotate and use electronic data more effectively. This case study details work carried out by the RDUES team (Matt Gee, Andrew Kehoe, Antoinette Renouf) in building large-scale corpora of web texts, from which examples of language use have been extracted, analysed, and presented in a form suitable for teaching and research across and beyond HE, including collaboration with commercial partners.
Aston University researchers developed and maintain the Uncertainty Markup Language (UncertML) for quantitative specification and interoperable communication of uncertainty measures in the Web. It is the only complete mechanism for representation of uncertainty in a web context. UncertML has been:
- Used in policy and decision making by UK (Food and Environment Research Agency) and international (European Commission) government agencies, and many research / industrial institutes;
- Presented at industrial /technical workshops, leading to ongoing international collaborations with bodies such as national space agencies (ESA and NASA) and government data providers;
- Accepted as a discussion paper for formal standardisation by the Open Geospatial Consortium;
- Chosen by independent data providers for efficient sharing of complex information and rigorous risk analysis across scientific domains such as pharmacy, global soil mapping and air quality.