Reading Europe Advanced Data Investigation Tool (READ-IT)
Lead Research Organisation:
The Open University
Department Name: Faculty of Arts and Social Sci (FASS)
Abstract
READ-IT is a transnational, interdisciplinary R&D project that will build a unique large-scale, user-friendly, open access, semantically-enriched investigation tool to identify and share ground-breaking evidence about 18th-21st century Cultural Heritage of reading in Europe.
The corpus encompassed is a rich 'human archive' in multiple media and languages depicting a transaction between reading subjects and reading material. Yet it is currently scattered and insufficiently labelled, thus untraceable. Without gathering, describing and structuring, it will remain unknown. Innovative tools are also needed to leverage community and critical engagement with this crucial common heritage, thereby preserving and enriching it.
READ-IT will ensure the sustainable and reusable aggregation of qualitative data allowing an in-depth analysis of the Cultural Heritage of reading. State-of-the art technology in Semantic Web and information systems will provide a versatile, end-users oriented environment enabling scholars and ordinary readers to retrieve information from a vast amount of community-generated digital data leading to new understanding about the circumstances and effects of reading in Europe.
The interdisciplinary collaboration between established digital humanists, human & social sciences scholars and computer researchers will investigate innovative ways of gathering new resources through crowdsourcing and web-crawling as well as linking and reusing pre-existing datasets. Extracting descriptors from a sample of multilingual textual sources will contribute to a robust ontology as well as to multiple thesauri of invariants accounting for the lowest common denominator of European reading experiences across times and cultures.
READ-IT will maximize research outputs and foster further active engagement with the digital Cultural Heritage of reading in Europe through 'beyond the state of the art' smart APIs and user interfaces designed for the co-curation of personal collections and memories of reading. It sheds light on the societal impact of digitally mediated knowledge and of public engagement with the Cultural Heritage of European print culture.
The corpus encompassed is a rich 'human archive' in multiple media and languages depicting a transaction between reading subjects and reading material. Yet it is currently scattered and insufficiently labelled, thus untraceable. Without gathering, describing and structuring, it will remain unknown. Innovative tools are also needed to leverage community and critical engagement with this crucial common heritage, thereby preserving and enriching it.
READ-IT will ensure the sustainable and reusable aggregation of qualitative data allowing an in-depth analysis of the Cultural Heritage of reading. State-of-the art technology in Semantic Web and information systems will provide a versatile, end-users oriented environment enabling scholars and ordinary readers to retrieve information from a vast amount of community-generated digital data leading to new understanding about the circumstances and effects of reading in Europe.
The interdisciplinary collaboration between established digital humanists, human & social sciences scholars and computer researchers will investigate innovative ways of gathering new resources through crowdsourcing and web-crawling as well as linking and reusing pre-existing datasets. Extracting descriptors from a sample of multilingual textual sources will contribute to a robust ontology as well as to multiple thesauri of invariants accounting for the lowest common denominator of European reading experiences across times and cultures.
READ-IT will maximize research outputs and foster further active engagement with the digital Cultural Heritage of reading in Europe through 'beyond the state of the art' smart APIs and user interfaces designed for the co-curation of personal collections and memories of reading. It sheds light on the societal impact of digitally mediated knowledge and of public engagement with the Cultural Heritage of European print culture.
Planned Impact
READ-IT aims to achieve impact through the following carefully mapped pathways.
1. Building upon existing networks on a greater scale: READ-IT impact strategy (see A3&C3) draws upon previous successes from an extensive pan-European network (http://eured.univ-lemans.fr) and the public engagement expertise of the UK-RED Database which was an impact case study for the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF2014).
2. Utilising public engagement expertise of academics and stakeholders in the project: Events are specifically organised to maximise the existing dissemination and public engagement expertise of humanities academics, and with targeted stakeholders supporting READ-IT such as IMEC for CH data and knowledge transfer and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme-Ange-Guépin for redistribution.
3. APs will direct dissemination and communication towards special target groups and user-communities, e.g. JGU towards Book professionals (Frankfurt Book Fair, Prague Book World); QMUL towards assistive literacy associations (RNIB,UK); U.Milano towards Reading Russia network group; U.Tours towards French social media clubs and European readers blogs. Expectations are that cumulatively the project will gather considerable public engagement momentum through its strategy.
4. Leveraging the PEA and expertise of our contracted SME to facilitate qualitative engagement with various user-groups: READ-IT will benefit from the extensive experience of IN-2 who has developed innovative PEA interfaces for major European research projects (e.g. http://www.europeana-space.eu/). IN2 will bring in multiple constituencies of users during the development and beta testing of the PEA. As such, all interface design will factor in the impact aims and objectives from the start. This will be a powerful example of impact aims shaping iterative ICT tool development.
5. Using an integrated strategy to foster engagement and impact: READ-IT will gather both qualitative and quantitative evidence of impact, as well as run online public engagement in parallel with scheduled location events. This will maximise the potential audience and encourage engagement from non attending users. At all points of design, READ-IT will allow for multi-level public online engagement, with events serving as a 'roadshow' and training future users to make the most of its capacity.
6. Working with key local partners with considerable expertise in facilitating public engagement, e.g. Ouvry-Vial's with MOBILIS (Pays-de la Loire), Etonnants Voyageurs Literary Festival (Saint-Malo, France), Maison des Ecrivains et de la Littérature Paris, Vignale's with ENSSIB, Baillot's with Wikimedia Foundation France, Open Knowledge Foundation, etc.
Quantitative and qualitative measures will be implemented in order to track, record, and narrate the impact from all project activities:
All online dissemination activities and pathways (e.g. blog on the project webpage, PEA, database interface) will be tracked with embedded analytics software with automatic monthly reporting. The PEA (distributed through free download) will also record more detailed download, usage, and engagement information.
Promotional audio-visual material produced by the READ-IT project will be made available on a range of media platforms (YouTube, iTunesU, OpenLearn), and all download, viewing and usage data will be collated.
Hard-copy questionnaires will be distributed to all participants at every event (workshop, conference, DH training school, community engagement etc) to record their level of engagement on the day. This will allow for value neutral collection of qualitative feedback. Online questionnaires will be distributed through the project website and mailing lists as an additional insight into participant engagement to inform workshop design (this will be done for all events);
Testimonies from members of the public about their contemporary reading practices via READ-IT events. All Public participation will be tracked.
1. Building upon existing networks on a greater scale: READ-IT impact strategy (see A3&C3) draws upon previous successes from an extensive pan-European network (http://eured.univ-lemans.fr) and the public engagement expertise of the UK-RED Database which was an impact case study for the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF2014).
2. Utilising public engagement expertise of academics and stakeholders in the project: Events are specifically organised to maximise the existing dissemination and public engagement expertise of humanities academics, and with targeted stakeholders supporting READ-IT such as IMEC for CH data and knowledge transfer and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme-Ange-Guépin for redistribution.
3. APs will direct dissemination and communication towards special target groups and user-communities, e.g. JGU towards Book professionals (Frankfurt Book Fair, Prague Book World); QMUL towards assistive literacy associations (RNIB,UK); U.Milano towards Reading Russia network group; U.Tours towards French social media clubs and European readers blogs. Expectations are that cumulatively the project will gather considerable public engagement momentum through its strategy.
4. Leveraging the PEA and expertise of our contracted SME to facilitate qualitative engagement with various user-groups: READ-IT will benefit from the extensive experience of IN-2 who has developed innovative PEA interfaces for major European research projects (e.g. http://www.europeana-space.eu/). IN2 will bring in multiple constituencies of users during the development and beta testing of the PEA. As such, all interface design will factor in the impact aims and objectives from the start. This will be a powerful example of impact aims shaping iterative ICT tool development.
5. Using an integrated strategy to foster engagement and impact: READ-IT will gather both qualitative and quantitative evidence of impact, as well as run online public engagement in parallel with scheduled location events. This will maximise the potential audience and encourage engagement from non attending users. At all points of design, READ-IT will allow for multi-level public online engagement, with events serving as a 'roadshow' and training future users to make the most of its capacity.
6. Working with key local partners with considerable expertise in facilitating public engagement, e.g. Ouvry-Vial's with MOBILIS (Pays-de la Loire), Etonnants Voyageurs Literary Festival (Saint-Malo, France), Maison des Ecrivains et de la Littérature Paris, Vignale's with ENSSIB, Baillot's with Wikimedia Foundation France, Open Knowledge Foundation, etc.
Quantitative and qualitative measures will be implemented in order to track, record, and narrate the impact from all project activities:
All online dissemination activities and pathways (e.g. blog on the project webpage, PEA, database interface) will be tracked with embedded analytics software with automatic monthly reporting. The PEA (distributed through free download) will also record more detailed download, usage, and engagement information.
Promotional audio-visual material produced by the READ-IT project will be made available on a range of media platforms (YouTube, iTunesU, OpenLearn), and all download, viewing and usage data will be collated.
Hard-copy questionnaires will be distributed to all participants at every event (workshop, conference, DH training school, community engagement etc) to record their level of engagement on the day. This will allow for value neutral collection of qualitative feedback. Online questionnaires will be distributed through the project website and mailing lists as an additional insight into participant engagement to inform workshop design (this will be done for all events);
Testimonies from members of the public about their contemporary reading practices via READ-IT events. All Public participation will be tracked.
Publications
Antonini A
(2023)
Experiential Observations: An Ontology Pattern-Based Study on Capturing the Potential Content within Evidences of Experiences
in Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage
Antonini A
(2020)
Mediation as Calibration
Antonini A
(2019)
Forms of Mediation of Reading in READ-IT
Antonini A
(2021)
Death and Transmediations: Manuscripts in the Age of Hypertext
Antonini A
(2020)
On Links To Be
Antonini A
(2021)
Understanding the phenomenology of reading through modelling
in Semantic Web
Antonini A
(2019)
All We Do is "Stalking"
Antonini, A
(2021)
'Understanding the Phenomenology of Reading through Modelling'
in Semantic Web Journal
Antonini, A.
(2020)
On Links To Be: Exercises in Style #2
| Description | Project started on 1 June 2018, so it is too early to define all of the key findings as materialised through the project. However, these will be added here once all partners have completed. While UK participation in the project ended on 30/09/2021, the work of the lead organisation continues until May 2022, so a final summation cannot be provided yet. |
| Exploitation Route | Project outputs in humanities and social sciences will be published in open access and will be useful for other researchers in these fields. Project outputs and tools in ICT/digital humanities will be made available in open source software and open access (under creative commons) for free reuse by other users/projects. Project datasets and database will be open access and free for reuse, under CC license. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/about-the-project/ |
| Description | Please note that this information is currently indicative only - as the project only started in June 2018 and will run for three years, activities are currently underway to generate impact through public engagement,, and these will be realised in the coming years. The likely impact areas from the project are as follows: 1. Project findings in ICT/DH will be made available for researchers, practitioners, and SMEs in digital curation and development, and the adoption of tools/reuse of tools/datasets is likely to be a major impact from the project. 2. Public engagement and dissemination campaigns with key stakeholder groups (librarians, cultural organisations, reading charities etc) to recruit a 'citizen science' volunteer group across Europe, who will contribute data and thereby engage in collaborative knowledge construction. 3. Developing tools, assets and data for the benefit of lifelong learners and new researchers in the area of the history of reading. Data from public engagement activities (contribution to the public engagement portal; questionnaire evidence from attending events, etc) is contributing to an Impact Case Study for English unit of assessment (D27) to be submitted by The Open University for REF2021 |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Title | Development of English language Chatbot for reading research (30.11.2020) |
| Description | Development of English chatbot for reading research (30.11.2020) READ-IT launches its friendly chatbot Fancy having a chat about your reading in realtime? Now you can, with the project chatbot. Our friendly bot will ask you questions about your reading, interact with your answers, and suggest further reading and engagement opportunities. You can find the READ-IT chatbot on the Telegram platform: https://t.me/TellMeWhatUReadingbot If you'd like to download the Telegram app on your device, to access the chatbot, follow these instructions: Download and install the Telegram app on your preferred device, mobile or desktop - Smart Phone, Tablet or Laptop, using this link https://telegram.org/ or by visiting your App Store. Just search for 'Telegram' Once you have installed Telegram and set up your account, click the URL link (https://t.me/TellMeWhatUReadingbot), which will take you to ReadItBot with the username, @TellMeWhatUReadingbot Now open a dialogue with the Chatbot, typing 'hi', 'hello' or 'start' Respond to the questions and complete a conversation. If you don't like the question asked, type 'next' for another question You can terminate the dialogue at any time by saying 'no' or 'stop' The chatbot will ask you if it's ok to contact you again, and it will do so two more times in the following days Please note that no personal data is collected via the chatbot, and the data collection process is entirely anonymous and GDPR compliant. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The chatbot has resulted in increasing public contribution to the READ-IT project as well as greater number of accesses to the website. |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/ |
| Title | Development of French language Chatbot for reading research (05.02.2021) |
| Description | Development of French language Chatbot for reading research (05.02.2021) The READ-IT project team are delighted to announce the launch of the French version of our chatbot, ahead of the "Voisins" conference at Le Mans Université, 31 March to 2 April 2021. The chatbot can be accessed via the web or through the Telegram app. Thanks in particular to Elena Prat (Le Mans, France) and Alessio Antonini (The Open University, UK) for development and release of the chatbot. The web version of the French language chatbot can be accessed here: https://go.flow.ai/A5gF7j0Il The chatbot is also available on the Telegram App here: http://t.me/QueTuLisbot |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The French language chatbot encourages members of the public to contribute to the READ-IT project by sharing their reading experiences |
| URL | https://widget.flowai.app/standalone/YUlSc3RkcjVDfGNmbUpaN2VVVg== |
| Title | Development of Italian language Chatbot for reading research (16.02.2021) |
| Description | The READ-IT project team are delighted to announce the launch of the Italian version of our chatbot (16.02.2021) The chatbot asks you a series of five different prompt questions, to encourage you to share your thoughts and responses about your reading habits, tastes and preferences. It is available via a web browser, as well as the Telegram messenger service app. The chatbot was developed by The Open University Researcher Dr Alessio Antonini (KMi) working with colleagues in English & Creative Writing (OU). The web version of the Italian language chatbot can be accessed here. The chatbot is also available on the Telegram App: http://t.me/QueTuLisbot |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The chatbot is currently being used to encourage members of the public to contribute to the READ-IT project by sharing their experiences of reading. |
| URL | https://widget.flowai.app/standalone/YUZ2TUNoamxOfGN5LTNNa0c4bQ== |
| Title | Multilingual public contribution portal now available in 6 languages (30.11.2020) |
| Description | The READ-IT public contribution portal is now available in six languages - English, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Czech Language toggle function now available on the Contribution Portal The READ-IT team are continually exploring new ways to talk to readers across the world. It is with great pleasure that we introduce the language toggle function on our public Contribution Portal. Find our Portal here: https://read-it.in-two.com. You can contribute images, as well as text to it, about your reading experiences, memories, and habits, visiting the portal again and again. And now alongside the English version, you can now toggle to Czech, German, French, Italian, and Dutch postcards. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Has resulted in additional public contribution across Europe |
| URL | https://read-it.in-two.com/ |
| Title | Most Frequent Words from UKREDIDDESC corpus |
| Description | The UKREDIDDESC corpus was uploaded into Voyant Tools. The Most Frequent Words (MFW) are saved in this file. The edited stopword list employed is available on ORDO (doi: 10.21954/ou.rd.19902094) |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Most_Frequent_Words_from_UKREDIDDESC_corpus/19901656 |
| Title | New data ontology and mappings for history of reading released (4.01.2021) |
| Description | On 4 January 2021, the UK team of READ-IT released a new version of the UK-RED data including a documented ontology and mappings with the READ-IT Reading Experience Ontology and Crowdsourcing Experience Ontology and the CIDOC-CRM implementation of the Reading Experience Ontology. Data and ontology are available on Github (eureadig/UK-RED) and ORDO. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | To early to say as only recently launched |
| URL | https://github.com/eureadit/reading-experience-ontology |
| Title | New experience and observation data ontology released (28.08.2020) |
| Description | Release of the Experience & Observation We're pleased to announce the Release of the Experience & Observation (E&O). E&O is an ontology design pattern for describing the research case studies on experience. The E&O addresses the relations between sources of activities (e.g. reading) and the creation of observations of experience (i.e. sources of testimonies of experience), such as diaries, letters, marginalia or comments. The E&O will support the interoperability of data by providing a novel perspective on the epistemology of sources, i.e. the potential information content. This pattern is the result of a collaboration between Dr. Alessio Antonini of the UK READ-IT team, Dr. Alessandro Adamou of NUI and Prof. Mari Carmen Suárez-Figueroa of UPM. The E&O is being release in Common Creative (CC0-v1.0) on the Ontology Design Pattern repository: http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/wiki/Submissions:Experience_%26_Observation, and on GitHub: https://github.com/eureadit. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Too early to say |
| URL | http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/wiki/Submissions:Experience_%26_Observation |
| Title | Stopwords employed to calculate UKREDIDDESC MFW |
| Description | An edited stopwords list used in Voyant Tools with UKREDIDDESC corpus to produce Most Frequent Words (MFW). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Stopwords_employed_to_calculate_UKREDIDDESC_MFW/19902094 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1550-1599 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1550-1599/19902379 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1600-1649 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1600-1649/19902778 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1650-1699 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1650-1699/19902862 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1700-1749 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1700-1749/19902949 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1750-1799 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1750-1799/19903030 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1800-1849 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1800-1849/19905130 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1850-1899 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1850-1899/19905157 |
| Title | UK RED entries with unique IDs 1900-1945 |
| Description | One of eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UK_RED_entries_with_unique_IDs_1900-1945/19905178 |
| Title | UKREDIDDESC corpus |
| Description | Eight datasets comprising text extracted from the UK RED data from data.open.ac.uk, divided into 50-year periods based on the date of the reading experience. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UKREDIDDESC_corpus/19905514 |
| Title | UKREDIDDESC keywords compared to CLMET corpus |
| Description | Keywords extraction was performed using the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts, version 3.0 (CLMET3.0) as a normative corpus (Diller et al., 2011). CLMET3.0 was created by Hendrik De Smet, Hans-Jürgen Diller and Jukka Tyrkkö as a "principled collection of public domain texts" containing 34 million words of running text from the period 1710-1920 (for the full composition of CLMET, see Diller et al., 2011). The corpus was uploaded into AntConc 3.5.9, a corpus analysis toolkit developed by Lawrence Anthony (Anthony, 2020). Keyness was calculated using Log-likelihood, with a Keyword Statistic Threshold of p < 0.05 (Rayson, 2004). The results were saved as UKREDIDDESC_CLMET_keywords (doi: 10.21954/ou.rd.19901791) |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/UKREDIDDESC_keywords_compared_to_CLMET_corpus/19901791 |
| Description | Collaboration with PoKUS (Remembering Literature in Everyday Life) project, Zagreb University, Croatia (1.03.2022-30.06.2022) |
| Organisation | University of Zagreb |
| Country | Croatia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Open University collaboration with PoKUS: Extending and repurposing the READ-IT chatbot for in-depth data collection and interviews (4 month pilot project funded by the Open University with in-kind contribution from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, 1.03.2022-30.06.2022). The Open University objectives and contribution to the project are as follows: To develop the READ-IT chatbot further to make it an effective tool for supporting semi-structured interviews for future research projects; To develop a new collaboration with the PoKUS project (Zagreb University, Croatia) via a networking event (online workshop); To explore synergies with PoKUS and develop future external funding applications to AHRC, led by the OU. Remembering Literature in Everyday Life (ReLEL or PoKUS in Croatian) is an Installation Research Project financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. The specific goal of the project is to comprehensively identify and interpret facts about the memory of literature in everyday life, with a focus on non-professional readers in Croatia. The bespoke development and deployment of the chatbot is therefore an enabling tool to enhance the project and maximise their public engagement for impact. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The specific stakeholder for this pilot is the 'Remembering Literature in Everyday Life' PoKUS project (2021-25) https://pokus.ffzg.unizg.hr/en/. Their interest is to adopt, customise and develop the bespoke Croatian language chatbot developed from the READ-IT chatbot in collaboration with the OU team. There are two specific research interests/problems articulated by the Croatian team: 1. Change in research practice: (a) can the chatbot be successfully employed to recruit potential participants from members of the public to come forward for the semi-structured interviews that are the core of their research?; and (b) can the chatbot be used to develop long-term engagement with participants post-interview ('sustainability of research engagement')? 2. Iterative design through public consultation: can feedback gathered from members of the public testing and using the Croatian language chatbot contribute new research questions and deliver iterative development and design of future digital applications for participant-based (human centred) research? |
| Impact | 1. Croatian language chatbot which has been installed and is in current use at https://pokus.ffzg.unizg.hr/en/ 2. A completed impact pilot logbook which has been validated and stored at The Open University. 3. A range of public facing/public engagement events were held in Croatia and the real-time and post event impacts on change in thinking and practice were recorded in the impact logbook. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | 'Bookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 pandemic' (online conference, 3-4 November 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 'Bookshelves in the Age of the COVID-19 Pandemic', 3-4 November 2020, which is supported by The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP). The conference attracted over 200 attendees from more than 20 countries, and the READ-IT project was showcased.The conference was held online via Microsoft Teams, and was free to all (prior registration required). As part of the conference, we curated an online gallery of images of bookshelves and reading during the pandemic - images were contributed by the public via Twitter, by sending them to us @eureadit, with the hashtags #pandemicreading and #pandemicbookshelves, or submitted directly to our contribution portal at https://read-it.in-two.com/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/book-history/conferences/bookshelves |
| Description | 'Edinburgh: A City of Readers' Book Week Scotland reading group and public contribution event at Blackwell's Bookshop, 20/11/2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Facilitated reading group event on the theme of 'Edinburgh: A City of Readers' organised and run by Dr Shafquat Towheed and Dr Sally Blackburn-Daniels at Blackwell's Bookshop, 53-62 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1YS on 20/11/2019. The reading group event was free and open to the public, and encouraged participants to share their own experiences of reading via newly developed QR enabled postcards which can be submitted to the READ-IT project public contribution portal at https://read-it.in-two.com/rdt/media This event was supported by the Scottish Book Trust and The Open University in Scotland, and listed in the Book Week Scotland festival programme of events. Around 12 people attended the event and contributed their thoughts about reading in the light of the reading group activity to the READ-IT public contribution portal. Questionnaires also recorded their change in thinking about the history and practice of reading as a result of attending the event. Details at: http://fass.open.ac.uk/events/edinburgh-city-readers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/10/31/contribute-to-read-it-at-edinburgh-a-city-of-readers-20-11-2019... |
| Description | 'll futuro e il passato della lettura. Nuovi metodi d'indagine per nuove prospettive' (hybrid roundtable, 18 November 2021) Book City Milano, Italy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 'll futuro e il passato della lettura. Nuovi metodi d'indagine per nuove prospettive', 18 November 2021, which was orgranised by the Università Statale di Milano and part of the BookCity Milano festival. The roundtable attracted over 30 face-to-face and over 60 online attendees from Italy. Francesca Benatti showcased the READ-IT project. The roundtable was held online via Microsoft Teams, and was free to all (prior registration required). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://bookcitymilano.it/eventi/2021/il-futuro-e-il-passato-della-lettura-nuovi-metodi-dindagine-pe... |
| Description | Collaborative Workshop: Reading the Classical Past, The Open University in London, 3 July 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Together with colleagues in Classical Studies, READ-IT UK PI Dr Shafquat Towheed and colleagues on the READ-IT team organised a 1 day collaborative workshop on 'Reading the Classical Past' at the Open University in London, 3 July 2019. The workshop was attended by some 30 people. As a result of the workshop, there was greater digital engagement with the READ-IT project website and public contribution via the READ-IT public contribution portal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://classicalreception.org/event/reading-the-classical-past-a-collaborative-workshop/ |
| Description | Conference event: 'Reading Popular Culture Offline and Online: Outlining a Comparative Study of Reading Experiences between Webcomics and Twenty-First Century Book Club Choices' (hybrid conference, 24 September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 'Reading Popular Culture Offline and Online: Outlining a Comparative Study of Reading Experiences between Webcomics and Twenty-First Century Book Club Choices', 24 September 2021, long paper presented at the European Association of Digital Humanities conference, organised by the Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk. The paper attracted between 30 and 40 online attendees from an international audience. Francesca Benatti, Alessio Antonini and Corinna Norrick-Rühl discussed the use of the READ-IT project in Digital Humanities research. The presentation was held online via Zoom and required prior registration. EADH 2021 was the main Digital Humanities conference held in Europe in 2021. The presentation attracted an audience of 30-40 of professional practitioners, students and library, archive and museum professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://eadh2020-2021.org/program/ |
| Description | Conference presentation: 'Death and Transmediations: Manuscript in the Age of Hypertext' (online conference, 1 September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 'Death and Transmediations: Manuscript in the Age of Hypertext', 1 September 2021, long paper presented at the HT '21: 32nd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, organised by Trinity College Dublin. The paper attracted between 50 and 70 online attendees from an international audience. Francesca Benatti and Alessio Antonini, together with Open University colleagues Nicola Watson, Edmund King and Jonathan Gibson discussed the significance of the READ-IT project in the context of research on the digital transformations of manuscripts. The presentation was held online via Zoom and required prior registration. HT'21 was the main conference of the Association for Computing Machinery. The presentation attracted an audience of 40-60 professional practitioners, students and computing industry representatives. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ht.acm.org/ht2021/programme/ |
| Description | Conference presentation: 'Into the Macroscope: Systematic integration of micro- and macro-scale study of digital reading' (online conference, 23 June 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ''Into the Macroscope: Systematic integration of micro- and macro-scale study of digital reading', 23 June 2021, long paper presented at the IGEL conference, organised by the University of Liverpool. The paper attracted between 25 and 30 online attendees from an international audience. Francesca Benatti and Alessio Antonini discussed the significance of the READ-IT project in Digital Humanities research. The presentation was held online via Zoom and required prior registration. IGEL 2021 was the main conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature in 2021. The presentation attracted an audience of 25-30 of professional practitioners and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/english/our-events/igel2021/ |
| Description | Dedicated YouTube playlist for project short introductory videos |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | As part of the wider communications strategy, we developed a dedicated playlist for the READ-IT project, housed on the Open University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) YouTube channel. A total of 18 short video assets have been produced in 6 different languages - English, French, Dutch, Czech, German and Italian - and these were cascaded out via social media accounts (Twitter) and the project website during the period from January 2019 to April 2019. As of 13/03/2019, there have been 215 views of the assets on the playlist (this does not include views of assets embedded in social media). The short videos introduce members of the team and are designed to support public engagement for impact over the 3 years of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiUzMkrWK6CvNkxa-EMHPDwX23VX5ChqN |
| Description | Digital Books, Digital Readers (research seminar 1) 28 January 2019 (Senate House, University of London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | READ-IT researcher Dr Francesca Benatti with her colleague Dr Edmund King are co-running a seminar series on 'Digital Books, Digital Readers' in 2019. The first of 6 research seminars took place on 28 January 2019 (5.30-7.00pm) and the speaker was Dr Christopher Ohge (IES, University of London) who spoke on 'Digital Marginalia'. The seminar series is run jointly by two research collaborations at The Open University: Digital Humanities, and The History of Books and Reading (HOBAR). Details of the seminar can be found on the Institute of English Studies webpage. All seminars are free to the public and take place at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London. Intended purpose: seminars are designed as dissemination points for the new Reading Europe: Advanced Data Investigation Tool (READ-IT) project. Intended impact: to increase public participation from potential stakeholders in the READ-IT project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/01/17/read-it-related-seminar-digital-books-digital-readers-28-01-201... |
| Description | Digital Books, Digital Readers (research seminar 2) 4 February 2019 (Senate House, University of London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | READ-IT researcher Dr Francesca Benatti with her colleague Dr Edmund King are co-running a seminar series on 'Digital Books, Digital Readers' in 2019. The 2nd of 6 research seminars took place on 4 February 2019 (5.30-7.00pm) and the speaker was READ-IT WP4 researcher and COST E-READ (Action 1404) member Dr Anezka Kuzmicova (Stockholm University) who gave a seminar paper, 'It depends: everyday practices of print vs. digital reading'. The seminar series is run jointly by two research collaborations at The Open University: Digital Humanities, and The History of Books and Reading (HOBAR). Details of the seminar can be found on the Institute of English Studies webpage. All seminars are free to the public and take place at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London. Intended purpose: seminars are designed as dissemination points for the new Reading Europe: Advanced Data Investigation Tool (READ-IT) project. Intended impact: to increase public participation from potential stakeholders in the READ-IT project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/02/18/read-it-related-seminar-everyday-practices-of-print-vs-digital-... |
| Description | Digital Books, Digital readers (Research Seminar 3) 18 March 2019 (Senate House, University of London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | READ-IT researcher Dr Francesca Benatti with her colleague Dr Edmund King are co-running a seminar series on 'Digital Books, Digital Readers' in 2019. The 3rd of 6 research seminars took place on 18 March 2019 (5.30-7.00pm) at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London, and the speaker was Prof Bronwen Thomas (Bournemouth University) who spoke on '#ireadeverywhere: Performing Readerlyness Online'. The seminar series is run jointly by two research collaborations at The Open University: Digital Humanities, and The History of Books and Reading (HOBAR). Details of the seminar can be found on the Institute of English Studies webpage. All seminars are free to the public and take place at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London. Intended purpose: seminars are designed as dissemination points for the new Reading Europe: Advanced Data Investigation Tool (READ-IT) project. Intended impact: to increase public participation from potential stakeholders in the READ-IT project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/02/18/read-it-related-seminar-ireadeverywhere-performing-readerliness... |
| Description | Digital Showcase Conference presentation at the SHARP 2019 conference, Amherst, Mass, USA, 17 July 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | READ-IT UK PI Dr Shafquat Towheed presented a digital showcase of the READ-IT project, including the public contribution portal, at the SHARP annual conference in Amherst, Mass, USA, 15-19 July 2019 (showcase was on 17 July 2019). Some 40 people attended. As a result of the digital showcase, there was an increase in digital engagement with the project website and direct contribution to the public contribution portal at https://read-it.in-two.com/rdt/media |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/06/27/read-it-digital-showcase-at-the-sharp-conference-15-19-july-amh... |
| Description | Launch of READ-IT project Twitter account (August 2018) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A Twitter account (@eureadit) to support the READ-IT project was launched in August 2018. As of 13/03/2019, the READ-IT twitter account metrics are as follows: Following: 305 accounts Followers: 188 Number of tweets since August 2018: 176 Number of likes: 236 The account already features content in 6 European languages, and social media champions are currently being recruited to boost the multilingual reach of the account. The job of the twitter account is to reach new audiences, drive clicks to the project website and wider project engagement, boost the public facing profile of the project, and offer another means of direct contact with the project team. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/EUREADIT |
| Description | Participation in International Heritage Fair, Paris, France (online) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | [Online participation] Taking place in Paris (28-31 October 2020) is the International Heritage Fair. The Fair gathers more than 350 French and foreign exhibitors, sharing a passion for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage. More than 20,000 visitors join the event each year, and project funders Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI-CH) will attend, showcasing resources from the READ-IT project. Find out more about the fair here: https://www.patrimoineculturel.com/the-show/ READ-IT team participated online by sharing a press release, images, and AV assets. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2020/10/27/the-international-heritage-fair-2020/ |
| Description | Presentation of READ-IT data model at KMi Fest, The Open University, 14/11/2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | READ-IT team members Dr Alessio Antonini and Dr Francesca Benatti (both from The Open University) presented the data modelling for the READ-IT project at KMiFest at The Open University's Betty Boothroyd Library on 14 November 2019. KMi Fest, run by the Open University's Knowledge Media Institute, is the leading open festival of research in digital technologies for knowledge learning and media at The Open University and attracts a wide range of specialist researchers. Details of KMi Fest here: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/festival/ The public engagement was in the form of a poster presentation that ran all day during the KMi Fest, and attracted between 50-100 visitors to the stall. The main outcome was increased knowledge of the project across different research areas in the university, and increased participation/involvement in future development. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/2019/11/21/kmi-fest-at-the-open-university/ |
| Description | Public engagement as part of the 'Being Human' Festival, 18 November 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was a public engagement event for the 'Being Human' Festival, 18 November 2020 [online]. The READ-IT team are pleased to host the event Reading in the Pandemic (18 November, 5-6pm, online) for the Being Human Festival. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything. Confined to our homes, many of us have turned to books and reading for reassurance, contemplation or escape. At this free, online and interactive event you will have the opportunity to reflect on your reading, and share this with the READ-IT project. The event will include: A short talk by Dr Shafquat Towheed, on 'New Worlds or Old Habits? Reading during the Pandemic'; A conversation with Bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud, offering pandemic reading recommendations; An interactive question and answer session with Dr Maya Parmar, showcasing our digital postcards and encouraging you to share your reading stories. A free podcast by Prof Josie Billington, about reading for wellbeing during the pandemic, will also be available after the event. The event was recorded. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://beinghumanfestival.org/event/reading-in-the-pandemic/ |
| Description | Public facing blog launched (5 May 2020) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Public facing blog was launched on 5 May 2020 and now has over 20 individual blog entries. What have we been reading during the current COVID-19 pandemic? How has the quarantine changed the way we read? And how have books (and reading) become even more important to us at this time? READ-IT UK PI Dr Shafquat Towheed together with his Open University colleague Dr Edmund King have started a 'Reading and Wellbeing' blog hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London, as part of their IES Virtual Community. The first blog entry, on 'Reading and Wellbeing Revisited: Surviving the Pandemic' appeared on 5 May 2020, and new posts are being added each week. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown/hobar-reading-and-wellb... |
| Description | READ-IT project presented at the DH2019 conference, Utrecht, Netherlands, 8-12 July 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Open University READ-IT team members Dr Alessio Antonini and Dr Francesca Benatti together with French colleague Dr Francois Vignale presented the READ-IT project at the DH2019 conference in Utrecht, Netherlands, 8-12 July 2019. DH2019 is the annual conference for Digital Humanities scholars and attracts over 1400 delegates each year in all areas of Digital Humanities research and scholarship. The presentation led directly to a higher number of hits to the project website and greater social media and digital engagement as well as peer-reviewed publication. Over 50 academics, librarians and knowledge workers attended the presentation; the abstract was published in advance, and the conference usually has some 1400 delegates. A peer-reviewed journal article emerging from the conference presentation has been accepted for publication and is forthcoming. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://dev.clariah.nl/files/dh2019/boa/0197.html |
| Description | READ-IT project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The READ-IT project website was launched at the start of the funded period (June 2018) as it the main public facing information source about the project. The main objective of the website is to support publicity and dissemination campaigns, serve as an online newsletter, and archive activities (events, workshops etc) over the course of the 3 year project. Since launch, the project website has had 1138 unique visitors and 3895 page views. The website is hosted by Utrecht University and content is populated and editorial control managed by the Open University. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |
| URL | https://readit-project.eu/about-the-project/ |
| Description | Workshop presentation: From UK-RED to READ-IT (2018-2021): Insights and Challenges for the Future (19-30 April 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Towheed gave a presentation at the Library Circulation History Workshop (online) hosted by Ball State University, USA. The workshop presentation was linked to a three week asynchronous forum and over 50 people attended the session and contributed feedback. The audience included third sector professionals (librarians, curators, publishers). One outcome of the workshop was the production of a white paper on policy around library circulation which was sent by the event funder, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://lchw.bsudsl.org/presentations/from-uk-red-to-read-it-2018-2021-insights-and-challenges-for-t... |