Poor health, disability, family breakdown, poverty and unemployment are just some of the reasons why people of all ages may become marginalised from society. SiDE aims to tackle social exclusion by making it easier for people to access the life-changing benefits offered by digital technologies. Research is focusing on four activities where digital technologies can deliver major social benefits: Connected Community & Community, Accessibility, Inclusive Transport, and the Creative Industries. An interdisciplinary approach is essential for the work to have a real impact, and so these activities are being investigated from the research perspectives of technology, society, business and the user. Watch our video and find out more here
Featured Case Study
Reminiscence room
Researchers from SiDE's Connected Community activity have been working with an adult mental health and learning disability development unit where many of the patients have chronic dementia.
Building on dementia research in the Personhood project they have developed a digital artwork that enlivens the 'quiet room' and provides interactive reminiscence for clients living in the unit
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Featured Case Study
Portrait
This healthcare work addresses the needs of the growing population of people in care homes. The work takes a novel approach to this area by focusing on care givers, addressing the need to facilitate conversations between care staff and residents. For residents with communication difficulties, such as those that arise from late stage Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, it is difficult for care staff, giving their limited time and skills, to initiate conversations with such residents. The Portrait system was designed from the perspective of care staff workers. It provides an easy to use and quick means of getting information about the lives of residents before they entered the care home. In short, it allows care staff to know who the people are.
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Featured Case Study
Interactive and mobile music workshops
SiDE has been working with Generator on their Urban Music Training programme, to expose young people to innovative experimental music technologies and processes. The “Remix Your Instrument” workshop built on the young people's existing musical skills, to open up a new world of musical innovation. They experimented with augmenting musical instruments with sensors that modified the sounds they produced. The technology was open-source hardware and software, packaged into simple modules. This allowed the young people to learn quickly how to use and even modify them.
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Featured Case Study
SiDE Driving Lab
SiDE’s Transport team now have a complete driving lab in order to monitor driver behaviour and enable older drivers to remain on the road, safely, for longer. DriveLab now has a driving simulator alongside the Peugeot Ion car and specialised instrumentation kit.
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Featured Case Study
Music in the Household
Much has been written about how the digital economy can transform people’s lives; change the relationships among individuals and society through the growing and constantly changing ecosystem of ICTs and applications. Digital music, as one of the keystones of the digital economy is a useful lens through which we can understand such transformations.
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Featured Case Study
Electronic footprints in the sand
Work led by SiDE CoInvestigator Aad van Moorsel is exploring the need for privacy in Internet-based social support systems. Working with domestic violence survivors at the Angelou Centre (a women’s support centre for BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) the research investigates how to design and implement various technological features that can be used to assist domestic violence survivors.
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Featured Case Study
Position papers
Research is focussed on a systematic literature review of the Smart Home concept (business-related issues) and a comparison of theoretical perspectives on smart homes vs. the business model approach. The work will look at the historical developments of the smart home concept (technological configuration vs. product integration), market opportunities and barriers, existing business models and possible market development scenarios.
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Featured Case Study
A Good Death
SiDE Society strand researchers, Angela Abbott and Ranald Richardson, are conducting research into what it might mean to support what has been termed ‘A Good Death’ at home.
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Featured Case Study
The SiDE user panel
User Panels contribute to the formulation of SiDE research strategy, the design and delivery of research activities and the evaluation of research outputs, ensuring that all outputs are tangible, meaningful and usable. A workshop in January, 2011, brought together the full SiDE research team and User Panels constructed to provide specific insights about SiDE projects.
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