Dynamic, Real time, On-demand Personalisation for Scaling (DROPS)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of the West of England
Department Name: Faculty of Business and Law
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Stelmaszak M
(2023)
Data are in the eye of the beholder: Co-creation for sustainable personal data value
in Strategic Change
Kharlamov A
(2020)
The impact of servitization and digitization on productivity and profitability of the firm: a systematic approach
in Production Planning & Control
Del Vecchio M
(2020)
Improving productivity in Hollywood with data science: Using emotional arcs of movies to drive product and service innovation in entertainment industries
in Journal of the Operational Research Society
| Description | Researchers have been examining personal data and how it can be used in personalisation, particularly in relation to the creation of eBooks for children. Our research focus has been examining digital business models and privacy, which together create trust. Our work has developed through a series of explorations. Firms need to collect personal information to provide personalized services and products. However, consumers may be reluctant to share their personal information due to privacy concerns. This is commonly referred as the personalization-privacy paradox. Firms need to deal with the paradox to gain benefits from personalization. Research has sought to address the question "How can an organisation manage the personalization-privacy paradox for digital services?". A study of personalization literature. Our findings suggest that the adoption of personalization should be based on the perceived value which can be improved through personalization. Personalized services need to be designed in the specific strategic context, and firms provide a clear privacy policy to reduce customers' privacy concerns. The presentation of personalized content, such as quality, forms and presentation timing, needs to be designed carefully to achieve the desirable effect. The dynamics of the value of personal data is used in the co-creation of value lacks empirical evidence. We conducted a case study of the development of a personalised e-book, speaking to the parties involved we found different perceptions of the value of personal data exist from the firm, intermediary and customer perspective. This difference can create tensions leading to different and sometimes opposing expectations of desired data characteristics. As people want and expect different things from the data, product, policy and managerial tensions emerge. We argue that customers' privacy concerns are strengthened by the power asymmetry between service providers and users. We consider the collection and monetization of personal data as a data supply chain along which data, rather than material artefacts, are moved and stored. In our work we explored the design of an extensible personal data store (ExtPDS), which was created under the EPSRC HAT project, and that may help to reduce power imbalance in the data supply chain of personal data. A number of functions were created that captured and manipulated personal data. Functions included sentiment analysis and word density. To test our functionality we implemented a prototype app that utilised these functions based on an individual's personal data, by capturing their twitter and calendar data. We then conducted an online survey to examine whether consumers' privacy concerns can be mitigated through the adoption of the proposed ExtPDS solution. Overall, the majority of respondents find the proposed solution helpful in reducing privacy concerns. |
| Exploitation Route | The work has built new understanding of the value and characteristics of personal data, particularly privacy and trust, and how they form part of a business model (Impact 1). The underlying technology employs a decentralised approach to data, but does not employ a blockchain. There are many potential future business models that could employ such a structure. We have shared this learning with our project partners and are working to share more broadly with both industrial and academic communities through ongoing presentations, publications (both academic and mainstream). We hope to take this work further with current project partners. We are already taking this work further as part of new projects including with an international Rail company developing digital services for both London Underground and National Rail, and with over 34 firms as part of our new research centre examining decentralisation of the digital economy. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Transport |
| Description | Insights from the work have been picked up to help Pickatale, children's book publisher, develop their offerings. They have been a very active and engaged partner on the project, and we are waiting to see exactly how our work impacts upon their design and offerings. We have seen a new offer being developed - Play Concepts Ltd - based on ideas from the work. The business is developing a reading and engagement platform for parents and guardians who are the primary caretakers of their children and wards, for children under the age of 12 (or before they go on to secondary school education). The business includes content creation and reading assessment application that assists parent users in creating stories using different kinds of media such as words, audio, images and video. The platform also includes a co-journaling application that chronicles the life journey of the child. This is a new application and we wait to see how it develops. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2000 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Retail,Transport |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Next Stage Digital Economy Centre in the Decentralised Digital Economy (DECaDE) |
| Amount | £3,816,713 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/T022485/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2020 |
| End | 06/2025 |
| Description | RCUK Network+ DEAS "Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services" |
| Amount | £98,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2020 |
| End | 02/2021 |
| Description | Bid for Next Stage Digital Economy Centre in the Decentralised Digital Economy (DECaDE) |
| Organisation | University of Surrey |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been collaborating with Prof John Collomosse from Surrey Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing. I have particularly been explaining our work on business models and value in the digital domain arising from the HAT/CONTRIVE/DROPS project. This work has contributed to a bid to form a centre at Surrey university, in partnership with previous HAT project colleagues at Edinburgh University. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof John Collomosse from Surrey Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing is leading the bid to bring a research centre to Surrey. Their expertise includes depth knowledge of distributed ledger technologies. |
| Impact | We have submitted a bid to EPSRC Next Stage Digital Economy Centre call. The bid made it through the first round, and following interview is currently shortlisted and awaiting funding decision. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Blockchain visibility and trust in food supply |
| Organisation | University of Bath |
| Department | School of Management |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration with PGR in Business School at Bath University to help with research to examine blockchain and how it helps with trust and privacy. Building on our insights on trust and privacy from this project I was asked to support work by a PGR at Bath, Mike Rogerson. I have supported him in developing a piece of research into blockchain and how it can be used to develop trust in supply chains in the agrifood industry. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Mike (University of Bath) developed the case research. |
| Impact | We have written a paper that will publish soon in Supply Chain Management: An International Journal |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Legal Academic collaboration at UWE |
| Organisation | University of the West of England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I have been working with Dr Anna Chatzimichali, a lecturer in UWE with interest in new product development strategies and Intellectual Property. Anna was previously a lawyer. I have been guiding her on methods for research and given her access to the DROPS project. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Chatzimichali has been working on a systematic literature review to gather understanding of data right architectures for personalised cyber-physical products in a decentralised data economy. |
| Impact | This collaboration brings legal, particularly IP law expertise to the business side of the project. Hopefully there will be a paper from the work. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Title | BusyTime SHE Function |
| Description | Smart Hat Engine (SHE) functions are tools that are made open to those working on Hub of All Things (HAT) developers and can be accessed in the HAT sandbox. BusyTime is a function that analyses a GoogleDiary, looking at how often a person has appointments vs free time. It then returns a percentage 'busy time'. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | We do not yet track the use of the SHE functions. |
| URL | http://stockvirtual.info/BusyTimeDemo.php |
| Title | Sentiment History SHE function |
| Description | Smart Hat Engine (SHE) functions are tools that are made open to those working on Hub of All Things (HAT) developers and can be accessed in the HAT sandbox.Sentiment History is a rule based function that counts the number of positive and negative words that appear in a given text. If the number of positive word appearances is greater than the number of negative word appearances, the system returns a positive sentiment, and vice versa. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | We do not yet track the use of the SHE functions. |
| URL | https://www.hat-lab.org/sandbox |
| Title | WordCloud SHE Function |
| Description | Smart Hat Engine (SHE) functions are tools that are made open to those working on Hub of All Things (HAT) developers and can be accessed in the HAT sandbox. WordCloud is a function that analyses text data, counting how often a particular word appears, giving it a ranking. The output can be used in visualisations such as Wordle, usually with the font size linked to the words predominance. The tool can also indicate preference etc. based on popularity of words. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | We do not yet track the use of the SHE functions. |
| URL | https://www.hat-lab.org/sandbox |
| Description | Attended the annual Entertainment Data Analytics Conference at The Lowry in Manchester, Thursday 6th and Friday 7th of June. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Organised by the BBC, the event draws a select group of data analytics experts from the leading global media firms. This is a closed event for practice that I was invited to. I was there to engage business to gain support for the DROPS project and seek engagement in our broader activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Chaired the interactive session at the Data Science, Personalisation, and Responsibility Workshop at the Alan Turing Institute. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | On May 14th, 2019 the Alan Turing Institute is organized a one-day workshop on Data Science, Personalisation and Responsibility with particular focus on entertainment, media, and retail sectors. Using AI to personalise services generates substantial consumer benefits, tailoring services/goods/information to their interests, delivered continuously and conveniently. Yet, the example of Cambridge Analytica's political microtargeting using bulk-harvested Facebook profiles highlights how data-driven personalisation could be employed to manipulate individuals at scale. Consequently, there have been growing concerns about privacy, highlighting the importance of responsible use of data-driven business models. One of the major tasks for current businesses is striking a balance between using data science to provide personalised services to consumers and doing this responsibly. This has been reflected in legislation with the current GDPR regulations requiring companies to learn how to continue to improve their business models whilst maintaining customer wellbeing. So, we are asking how the use of data-analytics in creative industries and retail are being successfully deployed to deliver personalized services to customers in responsible and ethical ways? I chaired an interactive session where participants were asked to discuss their current practice and describe the key challenges they faced. The audience of leading practitioners gave us great insight into the state of the art and research we might take up to help competitiveness. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | CoChair of the May 20-22, 2019: Venice, Italy. The 6th Competitive Advantage in the Digital Economy (CADE) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We brought together 30 international researchers and practitioners interested in personal data and Cyber Security. The group both presented and discussed issues pertinent to the DROPS project and its underlying technologies. Agreement was made during the conference to bid for more work and also to co-author papers, contributing to new knowledge. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/mediacentre/wmgevents/cade2019 |
| Description | Presentation at Data and Policy conference, London June 11-12 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of work on privacy and personalisation which engaged audience and sparked debate and questions afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/id/eprint/41219 |