ChiCI News
Dr. Lorna McKnight
All of us in the ChiCI Group would like to congratulate Lorna in receiving her PhD from Lancaster University. Lorna attended her award ceremony in December but so far no photographs have been forthcoming but we will keep trying!
September Newsletter
Click here for a copy of our September newsletter for schools.
UMSIC Update!
The UMSIC project is our ongoing EU project involving researchers from the UK, Finland, Switzerland and Greece, including a collaboration with Nokia, aiming to address the social exclusion of children through the development of a collaborative music-making program on a handheld mobile device. Based on the tests conducted in schools last year, we have been developing prototype software that we hope to be able to test in schools soon. This will not only allow the pupils to see how their feedback has been used so far, but also allow them to help shape the development of the final product. We hope they will also enjoy the chance to see new games and technologies before they are released!
Visiting Researcher
The ChiCI group has recently bid a fond farewell to our latest visiting researcher, Dr. Anja Mohr from Germany. Anja joined us to investigate the aesthetic qualities of childrens drawings on tablet devices.
IFIP TC13.2 SIG on Children and HCI
A new IFIP SIG on Children and HCI has recently been approved. This SIG, reffered to as IFIP TC13.2 or, more affectionately as IDC SIG falls under the IFIP Technical Committee 13, on Human Computer Interaction.
29th June 2009 - Research Seminar - Dr. Anja Mohr
Visiting academic Dr. Anja Mohr will be giving a lecture entitled "Arts Pedagogy and Computational Visualistics. The necessity of interdisciplinary research in the field of the pictorial behaviour of children at the computer" in the ChiCI lab.
She will also be using her time here to carry out research in local primary schools along with other members of the ChiCI group.
International invasion of Hesketh-with-Becconsall All Saints CE Primary School
30th March 2009 - The ChiCI group invaded a local primary school, Hesketh-with-Becconsall All Saints CE Primary School. Six French students from Montpellier and an American PhD student, who were all visiting the ChiCI group in Preston, had their first taste of English primary school life whilst showing the school children technologies they were currently developing and also carrying out surveys.
50 not out for ChiCI
When three members of the ChiCi group present papers at the 7th International Interaction Design and Children Conference in Italy in June, it will mark a landmark for the group which will then have 50 peer reviewed papers. This total is a mixture of journal and conference papers - a trend commonly found in computing and specifically in HCI (Human Computer Interaction) where it is the norm to submit long papers to either high quality conferences or journals where in both cases they undergo a rigorous review process.
The top 10% of these papers have over 10 citations each which, even when taking account of self citations and citations within the group, represents a significant impact on the field given the short time frame in which they have been available.
Members of the group have a combined total of over 100 publications but this achievement - to hit the half century in peer reviewed papers is one we will celebrate especially as the group has only been publishing since 2001.
The group, which has developed with self generated funding (£500K over the last four years) and with the assistance of partially funded RA posts (from the former department of computing and the school of CEPS), is currently awaiting news of the outcomes of two large funding bids that will secure financing into the next four years and is working towards a strong submission to the REF activity in 2011.
UMSIC - Usability of Music for Social Inclusion of Children
UMSIC aims to be a mobile and accessible way to support children's social inclusion by music. Amongst other tasks, the main role of our group within the project is to evaluate a music mobile priototype (Mobikid) and conduct design sessions with children to gather user requirements.
Click here for more information
New Research Assistants
The ChiCI Group has just employed two new RAs... Brendan and Lorna. Both previously studied HCI at Lancaster University and are in the closing stages of their PhDs.
