MiMeG – The MixedMediaGrid NCeSS node University of Bristol & Kings College London

Key areas of research Building on VidGrid pilot project Identifying needs of qualitative social science user communities Understanding social scientific practice Synchronous and Asynchronous support for mixed media qualitative analysis Capacity building across the social sciences, training, software roll-out programme

Studies of social science practice Scope of existing systems Interviews with expert practitioners Observational studies of existing practices Studies of MiMeG system in use

Shared real-time text and graphics annotations

Web data services for long-term data analysis

Off-Screen Annotations (full paper at CHI 2007) Enable remote understanding of pace and position of off-screen movement –Especially off-screen to on-screen transitions Requires two components: –Real-time tracking of local off-screen position –Visualising at remote site(s) appropriately

Tracking Annotations Ultrasound Receiver Gumstix Computer Electronic Whiteboard Marker Bluetooth Aerial Battery

Response time results

1 second

Studies of MiMeG system in use (full paper at ECSCW 2007) Some groups have agreed to be studied in using the software in greater depth describes the mechanisms researchers use to manage distributed analysis –Local/remote activities –Gestures and imitation Significant evidence that managing local work is useful for distributed collaboration

Next Steps Do we aim to preserve/amplify existing practice? (which we have ethnographic evidence works for users) or do we aim to alter practice (based on experimental studies that say collaborative responses are easier to predict) What do we really want our software to do here – to support or to alter existing practice? Can we generate new domains of practice in real- time distributed research – is this a better commercial space than traditional workplaces?

Next Steps Studies of distributed research practice in CSCW are few and lack detail Buxtons (1992) Telepresence challenge remains –integrating task-focused activities with object-focused activities is still tough Real time groupware needs to move into the real world more, and perhaps researchers offer an improved testbed than traditional workplaces for real-time distributed tools