Future View Personas Researchers, Teachers and Students Contents Matthew Second (Final) Year Postgraduate Student MPA International Development... i Nina Third year Undergraduate Student Architecture and Design... iv
Matthew Second (Final) Year Postgraduate Student MPA International Development Quote We hope to be surprised by the simulations and pushed to figure out why things happen, and what needs to change. Headline Game- based simulation of policy implementation in developing countries, built on real- life data from multiple sources. Summary Matthew wants to discover and manipulate geospatial data in ways that mesh effectively with his other data. In this way he hopes to make the most of the simulations that his team will run. He has experience of simulation games but lacks confidence in geospatial tools and is keen to fill this gap in his knowledge. Goals His goal is to work effectively within the team to ensure that the simulations and final presentation are well informed and resourced. He wants to learn how to do this kind of project, and equip himself with skills that will be valued by potential employers. Time is his scarcest resource, so he wants to contribute fully whenever and wherever he has time often using handheld devices and within a shared learning space. Future plans Matthew wants to attain a good MPA degree and an interesting position focused on policy in an international NGO, either abroad or involving travel to recipient countries. Use of technology Computers: tablet, smartphone. Work environment: home, cafes, sometimes university spaces. Specialised online tools: SimDev. Frustrations Having to remember passwords. Matthew wants to Make best use of his time. Access and manipulate data remotely, from smartphone and laptop. i
Find the most relevant resources and definitely all of the key resources and data. Learn how to select, download and manipulate geospatial data and include those in his simulations. Know that he s not breaching copyright. Be alerted to anything new that becomes available after his initial search. We want Matthew to Become a confident user of relevant EDINA resources and services and recommend them to others. Find all the functions and content that would be useful to him. Create alerts and register details that allow EDINA to keep him apprised of data and information made available after his initial search. Profile Matthew is a full time taught postgraduate student in his second year of an MPA in International Development at a mid- ranking university in England. He has a broader interest in world politics and experience of working for an international NGO in Geneva and of health education work in rural areas of West Africa. Matthew currently works in a team of four students providing consultancy to the UK Department for International Development. This is important to him, not only as a major piece of work contributing towards his degree, but also as an opportunity to influence policy development in the real world. Matthew s team advises on distribution of funds to women s cooperatives in rural areas of developing countries. Team members are often geographically distributed but collaborate in real time, so remote access to a collaborative space is key. Resources from different places bibliographic, geospatial, multimedia, and other data are pulled into the team s shared learning space. A visualisation tool reveals key themes and cites resources that focus on those themes, including news clips and theses. This is a good starting point to learn about related policy and economic, political and cultural factors influencing outcomes. To explore further, they use a game- based simulation tool, SimDev, that allows them each to try out different roles in the political field and to vary political, economic, cultural and policy parameters. They have time to run four simulations, with a week between each to study them and agree on changes before running the next. Their presentation to DFID will include clips from the simulations. Discovering resources is not difficult for the team. Their personal learning spaces are configured to search relevant sources of information including EDINA s multimedia and bibliographic sources, and registry of bibliographic and data repositories; their searches cover both open access and subscription materials. They run identical searches on user- generated content within EDINA services and others and compare. All of the team members have some experience of playing simulation games. None have experience of using geospatial data or the tools provided through Digimap to manipulate those data. ii
Video content is central to Matthew s studies as a contemporaneous source on recent history. He needs to annotate and reference, organise, embed and remix clips of relevant content. His assessed work is submitted only in digital form. Matthew has had access to the Internet and to mobile devices throughout his life. He is constantly online. He stores content in the cloud and expects a consistent user experience across devices; he also expects to be able to collaborate from any device. Much of his work takes place outside the university, although he uses the library and other university spaces for studying, as well as coffee shops and WiFi zones. Matthew has a part time job to support his studies. He is therefore time poor but keen to gain the most value from his degree. He does not use physical library resources. He prefers journals and resources that his university makes available online. Where ebooks and some journal articles are not available digitally from his library, he will purchase them for convenience. Matthew is aware of copyright and of the importance of provenance. He often selects an authenticated or purchasable resource over an open access equivalent whose quality is unknown. Nevertheless, he does use free and open access materials, particularly those recommended by tutors, peers, and respected personas on social media spaces or if they are verifiable by other means. He uses a wide array of free and paid- for tools to manage his documents and data; his university provides access to online email, storage, and research tools, some of which he uses. In order to track political discourse and experiences in other parts of the world, Matthew engages with new online communication tools, including some niche tools used beyond the UK and US. iii
Nina Third year Undergraduate Student Architecture and Design Quote I love architecture I just wish I understood the geographical stuff better! Headline Linking spatial data, augmented reality and cloud processing to support the learning process. Summary Nina enjoys her architecture and design course and is about to plan for her dissertation. She is generally comfortable with using technology as a consumer, but has some difficulties with specialist professional architectural applications. Lacking confidence with geographical concepts such as coordinates and projections, she needs help to develop these skills and to understand what data are available to her. She also wants to be able to visualise her designs using augmented reality and modify her models whilst out on the move. Goals Nina is a self- motivated learner and wants to learn to use spatial data more effectively. She needs to be able to access her data and university services from anywhere, because she is going to be very busy working on various projects for a local architect at the same time as doing her dissertation. Future plans Nina would like to qualify as an architect and secure a good junior position at a respected firm. She knows that competition in the field is fierce and that she cannot afford to have pieces missing from her professional skillset. Ultimately Nina would like to design her own house. Use of technology Computer: Laptop/tablet for most desk work. It is vital to have a portable device with a camera to make use of augmented reality and to interact with the lecture materials produced by her lecturers. Work Environment: Nina works at home a lot and has access to most of the software she needs on her laptop. However, she sometimes has to use large drawing tablets in the department. Much of her course work is submitted digitally to her lecturers cloud- based work space. Spatial Data/Software Experience: Nina is comfortable with technology as a consumer, but wary of some of the more technical professional applications used by architects. Her experience of spatial data and projections is limited; many of the building models she interacts with are mapped against a local projection rather than the British National grid or WGS84. iv
Frustrations Nina has very little knowledge of OS products and struggles to understand what data will best suit her needs. She is also unfamiliar with technical geographic terms. Nina wants to Obtain 3D data to use in computer- aided design. Visualise her designs in the real world through augmented reality. Modify models in the field so she can visualise the change while on location. We want Nina to Find the data that best suits her needs first time. Learn the technical language of spatial data through accessing Digimap services. Switch seamlessly between her laptop and mobile device and be able to visualise changes in situ. Profile Nina is a third year student studying architecture and design. She is about to start putting together the plan for her dissertation project which she will look to complete during her placement year. She uses CAD to create drawings and then uses Digimap data to place this in the real- world environment. Nina also makes use of Digimap s Fieldtrip AR+, an augmented reality app, which allows her to visualise her designs whilst in the field. By making use of Digimap s cloud processing, Nina can make changes to her model and see how they might look in the real world. In fact, Nina can change other aspects of the existing environment such as vegetation, building rendering and street furniture, to simulate how a development would look when finished. Much of Nina s course work is submitted online. She either uploads projects to her lecturers cloud space or shares her space with them. This gives her the flexibility to work at home or on the road. While comfortable with technology, Nina struggles with geography. It was not her favourite subject at school and coordinates and projections confuse her. She has little knowledge of geographic datasets and how they might complement her work. She relies on interactive learning modules to fill in the blanks. Nina often accesses these while travelling to and from university on the train, as there is no official module that explains geographic terms and data in her course. Nina will be heading out on a sandwich year with a local architecture firm and is looking forward to seeing how a qualified architect works. She will be working on a mix of actual jobs and her own dissertation project during this year. The ability to access all her data and university services from anywhere will be a big help. v