Participatory research led us to identify that students lacked means to represent their individual journeys through study and that their diverse goals, challenges and personal contexts were not easily understood. Prompted by this, we created ‘Our Journey’ to support them and harness the value of these narratives as a means for reflection and communication. This paper explores self-narrative processes and how they can be beneficial, describes the design of Our Journey, and introduces examples of collaboratively-developed pilots, where different activities using the platform are being devised and trialled. We reflect here on how new opportunities for self-narrative creativity can be supported in simple and engaging ways, and how flexibility in the design means the same underlying structure can be used online and in a physical form, for one-off retrospective narratives and ongoing journal activities, and with prompts for individual and shared reflection as appropriate.

In this paper, we describe accessible design considerations for the Assistants for the Disclosure and Management of Information about Needs and Support project (ADMINS). In ADMINS, artificial intelligence (AI) services are being used to create a virtual assistant (VA), which is being designed to enable students to disclose any disabilities, and to provide guidance and suggestions about appropriate accessible support. ADMINS explores the potential of a conversational user interface (CUI) to reduce administrative burden and improve outcomes, by replacing static forms with written and spoken dialogue. Students with accessibility needs often face excessive administrative burden. A CUI could be beneficial in this context if designed to be fully accessible. At the same time, we recognise the broader potential of CUIs for these types of processes, and the project aims to understand the multiple opportunities and challenges, using participatory design, iterative development and trials evaluations.

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are making low cost learning opportunities available at large scale to diverse groups of learners. For that reason, MOOCs need to be accessible so that they can offer flexibility of learning and benefits to all. In order to direct efforts towards developing accessible MOOCs, it is important to understand the current expectations of disabled learners. Analysis of data from MOOC surveys that support disclosure of disability provide quantitative information such as the proportions participating in MOOCs; their reasons for participating, and the types of MOOCs they prefer. This paper presents analysis of pre- and post-study survey data from eight MOOCs offered by the UK's Open University on the FutureLearn platform. Results from disabled learners are compared with those of other learners and preliminary findings are used to frame an agenda for our further work.

Mobile technology plays an increasing role in museum and cultural heritage contexts. In most cases, these tools support the relatively passive consumption of expert interpretations, or the unguided generation of content by users. This paper explores the potential for technologies to help museum visitors, encountering unfamiliar objects, to engage with them as a skilled professional interpreter would, through structured mobile experiences that focus on creating multimedia content. We explore this concept in the area of artefact interpretation and specifically how to enact a structured process of interpretation, as would commonly be taught in courses dedicated to the analytical diagnostics of visual evidence, such as Classical Archaeology or Art History. We discuss two field trials of prototype systems through which the structured creation of multimedia forms a basis for learning to interpret historical artefacts conducted in contexts of both formal and informal learning. By describing, implementing, and evaluating this approach, we contribute understanding of a new way to conceptualise active engagement in museum contexts, through the effective use of scaffolding and user generation of multimedia. We identify issues around the properties and flexibilities of multiple media for this purpose, links between provision for procedural and factual learning, and the value of media creation-based structures in improving the skills and confidence to interpret.

Creating and utilizing simple links between items and locations in map-based systems has become a mainstream component of modern computing. In this paper, we explore support for "art mapping", an activity that requires consideration of more complex interpretations of spatial relationships as users engage with identifying locations of relevance to artworks. Through a user study of the ArtMaps platform, and an exploratory study with professional artists, we identify diverse interpretations of spatial meaning in relation to art. We find that art mapping highlights potential for more active engagement with art through technology, but challenges existing systems for spatial representation. Through connecting our findings with work on designing for interpretation, and on space and place in HCI, we contribute new understanding of creating engagement through the spatial interpretation of art, and define potential characteristics and uses of holistic "footprints" for artworks.

The Creativity Bento Box is a physical resource pack, designed to support casual social interaction and break taking in an intensive, computer-mediated social activity. It was developed within the Creativity Greenhouse project, which piloted a mechanism to create research proposals and distribute funding at a distance. This involved facilitated phases of collaboration and competition over multiple days of computer-mediated work, where participants communicate and interact through a virtual world. During the iterative development process, the lack of time for socializing, the intense focus on virtual resources, and a lack of time spent away from the screen were reported as negative issues in feedback from participants. This article reports on the development of the Creativity Bento Box and how it helped to address these issues. By providing physical resources that contrasted with the properties of the virtual world, it supported people to socialize and take breaks from their primary activity, allowed them to include physical space and artifacts in their interactions, and provoked moves away from the otherwise intense focus on the computer. The article reflects on the roles of the Bento Box as a gift, in bridging between physical and virtual contexts, its higher suitability during the earlier phases of ideation and group development, and its perception by participants as something “framed.” Through this, we highlight the underexplored potential of using physical, offline resources as a means to solve difficulties in distanced social interactions.

Journal Article Tailored Scenarios: A Low-Cost Online Method to Elicit Perceptions of Home Technologies Using Participant-Specific Contextual Information Get access Michael Brown, Michael Brown * 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK2Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK *Corresponding author: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Tim Coughlan, Tim Coughlan 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK3Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jesse Blum, Jesse Blum 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Glyn Lawson, Glyn Lawson 2Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Robert Houghton, Robert Houghton 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK2Human Factors Research Group, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Richard Mortier, Richard Mortier 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK3Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Murray Goulden, Murray Goulden 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Unna Arunachalam Unna Arunachalam 1Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Interacting with Computers, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 60–71, https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwu028 Published: 25 July 2014 Article history Received: 02 January 2014 Revision received: 06 June 2014 Accepted: 19 June 2014 Published: 25 July 2014

The last fifty years have seen an exponential increase in the amount of technology embedded in and passing though home environments, creating spaces that are now technologically as well as socially, psychologically and environmentally complex. It is only in the last fifteen years that the study of Human-Computer Interaction in the home has entered the mainstream, with essential challenges and themes (Edwards & Grinter 2001, Blythe & Monk 2002) defined, and groundbreaking environments for research created and analyzed (Kidd et al., 1999). Diverse aspects within the domestic use of technologies, from childcare to health and wellbeing, to food, media, and energy, have now become the focus of detailed bodies of research in their own right. This trend has brought with it unique methodological concerns which need to be considered by those researching and designing interactions with technologies in the home (Coughlan et al., 2013). This special issue has emerged from an ongoing interest within the Human-Computer Interaction community in the practice of performing research and design activities in and about the home. While home based technology research has been performed and widely reported previously we focus on the methods themselves, exploring the development of novel methods, and the implication of applying existing methods in home environments.

Web 2.0 has provided organizations remarkable opportunities to improve productivity, gain competitive advantage, and increase participation by engaging a crowd to accomplish tasks at scale. However, establishing and integrating crowd-based systems into organizations is still an open question. The systems and the collaborative processes they enable appear diametrically in dissonance with the norms and culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing in traditional organizations. They require mechanisms for articulation of work, coordination, cooperation, and knowledge co-creation that are fundamentally different from those in current groupwork systems and processes. Building on two workshops hosted at ACM CSCW 2014, we will explore questions such as: How does the shift in organizational work from a closed system with known individuals, to an open and crowd model that requires engagement with an undefined network of people, affect how we conceptualize groupwork? What are the implications for the design of groupwork systems? What can the crowdsourcing research community learn from groupwork systems, or conversely what can groupwork researchers learn from crowdsourcing? How do cultures, motivations, ownership and representation fit into these systems? This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners in crowdsourcing, social computing, collaborative technologies, organizational science, and workplace research, to discuss the future of groupwork systems in the era of crowdwork with the goal of articulating an agenda for future research.

In this paper we analyse the remixing and reuse of online learning materials offered as Open Educational Resources (OER). We explore the practices that developed as a set of course materials were released as OER from the UK, remixed for a US context by a cross-organisational, cross-cultural team, and then reused in a broad range of educational settings. We analyse the approaches taken during these remixing and reuse activities as novel forms of creative collaboration. As a basis for comparison, we explore similarities and differences with openness in other domains. We identify how openness provoked novel inter-organisational collaboration and forms of ownership; define forms of open practice that need support, and present issues that should be considered in devising and supporting open projects in education and beyond.

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) can be expected to radically increase the amount of potentially sensitive data gathered in our homes. This study explores the social implications of the presentation of data that could be collected within the household. In particular, it focuses on how ambiguities in these data, combined with existing interpersonal relationships, could influence social dynamics. Thirty-five participants were each presented with three separate household scenarios, involving ambiguous data that were collected and presented via near-future IoT technologies. Each participant was asked to respond to a series of open and closed questions about how they would interpret the data, how they would react to it and their general opinions of the technologies presented. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of their responses, we contribute an understanding of how people interpret information about those around them. We find a common willingness to make inferences based on ambiguities within the data, even when participants are aware of the limitations of their understanding. We also find that sharing data produced via tagging of everyday objects raises a high level of privacy concern, and that, in a somewhat incoherent stance, users are more comfortable in sharing data publicly than in a targeted fashion with commercial organizations. Our findings also suggest that the age of the target user group has a greater effect on ease of use judgements than the nature of the technology, and we find some evidence that user’s interpretations can be biased by an individual’s age.

A variety of computing technologies, in addition to the personal computer, are now commonly used in many settings. As networking infrastructures mature, it is increasingly feasible and affordable to consider closer integration and use of these heterogeneous devices in tandem. However, little is known about how best to design or evaluate such ‘device ecologies’; in particular, how best to combine devices to achieve a desired type of collaborative user experience. A central concern is how users switch their attention between devices, to utilize the various elements to best effect. We describe here the development of an ecology of devices for groups of students to use when engaged in collaborative inquiry-learning activities. This included a multi-touch tabletop, laptops, projections, video streams and telephone. In situ studies of students and tutors using it in three different settings showed how individuals and groups switched their foci between the multiple devices. We present our findings, using a novel method for analysing users’ transitions between foci, identifying patterns and emergent characteristics. We then discuss the importance of designing for transitions that enable groups to appropriately utilise an ecology of devices, using the concepts of seams, bridges, niches and focal character.

Interaction between in situ and distanced collaborators focused on the physical environment is an under-explored research area, where there is potential for novel mobile and indoor technologies to enhance activities. This paper describes research in progress to explore how new forms of collaborative learning in scientific fieldwork can be supported. We describe field trials of a prototype system designed to connect higher education students engaged in earth science fieldwork with peers based in a 'mission control' type environment. We discuss how analysis of these trials is leading us to identify new requirements to support effective collaboration between users based across contrasting locations, including issues of spatial coherence, deictic communication and reflection.

A deeper understanding of the interactions between people and artefacts that characterise creative activities could be valuable in designing the next generation of creativity support. This paper presents three perspectives on creative interaction that have emerged from four years of empirical and design research. We argue that creative interaction can be usefully viewed in terms of Productive Interaction - focused engagement on the development of a creative outcome, Structural Interaction - the development of the structures in which production occurs, and Longitudinal Interaction - the long-term development of resources and relationships that increase creative potential. An analysis of each perspective is described, along with the development of an exemplary prototype. The use of the perspectives as a basis for design is considered, including the influence of contextual factors on instances of creative activities.

Creative tasks are performed within constraining structures. However, the exploration and development of these structures is central to the creative process. This paper summarizes research on the role of constraint in creative tasks, defines the role of constraint development in a model of the creative process, and classifies types of constraint in order to inform the design of environments for creative tasks. Links between constraint development and end user development in software environments are explored through analysis of the design and use of Music Builder, a prototype for the user development of musical instruments in a collaborative composition environment. Conclusions include the value of scaffolding as a metaphor in design, the utility of collaborative constraint development to negotiation, and coordination and the value of sharing structures in collaborative development.

This research explores links between constraint development in creative processes and end user development in environments for creative tasks. A process model describing the development of constraints in creative tasks is presented. To ground the research, support for the user development of musical instruments in a collaborative composition environment is developed, and the use of the system analysed. We find evidence that the development of tangible constraints in the interface has value to users, particularly in focusing collaborative ideation.

The design of tools for creative activities affects the creative processes and output of users. In this paper we consider how an understanding of creative interaction can inform the design of support tools in a creative domain, and where creative needs cross domain boundaries. Using observations of musical composers we analyse the theoretical approaches to understanding creativity and their use to HCI. Cycles of ideation and evaluation are suggested as atomic elements of creative interactions, with the representation of ideas a central activity for individual and collaborating composers. A model of collaborative composition was developed, along with an analysis of the representational types used in the domain. This led to the design and evaluation of a prototype Sonic Sketchpad for musical idea representation.