UCL DIS research student Alexandra Eveleigh has been awarded a one-year graduate research scholarship for cross disciplinary training and will spend a year from October 2012 at the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC).  The scheme encourages PhD students from any discipline right across UCL to apply to study for an additional year in another UCL department, thus acquiring new research skills and knowledge which can be applied back into their normal area of research.  Up to four students are awarded scholarships each year.

Alexandra’s research focuses on the impact and implications of user collaboration initiatives for archival theory and practice.  She is particularly interested in online user participation or ‘crowdsourcing’ – in what motivates people to take part in projects such as UCL’s Transcribe Bentham or the Old Weather project, and in the interactions that occur on such sites between participants, professionals and the research users of these kinds of collaboratively constructed resources.  UCLIC is a leading UK centre of excellence in Human-Computer Interaction teaching and research, studying the interactions between people and technology.

Research students Alexandra Eveleigh and Claire Ross are speaking at the Fifth Bloomsbury Conference on e-Publishing and e-Publications at UCL this week.

Alexandra is speaking today in the session on the role of intermediaries’ role(s) in the research process, while tomorrow Claire will be presenting how Humanities scholars use social media.

Images: Alexandra: @ammeveleigh ; Claire: by Dr Melissa Terras for UCL Centre for Digital Humanities.

Research students initially register for an MPhil and then progress to full PhD study following an upgrade meeting at which they defend a part of their thesis.

This week the Department held two successful upgrade meetings, and we are delighted to congratulate Alexandra Eveleigh and Melissa Adams on passing the requirements to upgrade to full doctoral status.

Melissa is researching the impact and implications of truth and reconciliation commissions on archives, under the supervision of Andrew Flinn and Elizabeth Shepherd.

Alexandra is The National Archives Collaborative Award Winner, working on a thesis entitled ‘We think not I think: harnessing collaborative creativity to archival practice; implications of user participation for archival theory and practice.’ Her supervisors are Elizabeth Shepherd and Andrew Flinn of the Department of Information Studies and Valerie Johnson of The National Archives.