CNN Interactive just got more interactive

Interactive gallery installation which playfully re-contextualised online news feeds from CNN’s website with a soundtrack of found music in order to comment on an online environment where 'serious' news and trivial 'infotainment' often occupy the same space. ‘CNN Interactive just got more interactive’ aimed to investigate the balance between information and ‘info-tainment’ on the web. It demonstrated how the authority and presence of global news corporations online could be playfully subverted by enabling the audience to add a variety of emotively titled soundtracks to the monolithic CNN Interactive website. The project also explored how a work could exist dually as website and gallery installation. ‘CNN interactive’ contributes to the taxonomy of new media art as a new form of contemporary art. One of the first examples in the world of a gallery installation using live Internet data, it is also one of the first attempts in a new media art context to address how individuals respond to and comprehend the changed nature of the news as an immediate phenomenon as relayed by network communications systems. 'CNN interactive’ continues Craighead and Thomson’s research into how live digital networked information can be re-purposed as artistic material within gallery installation contexts but with specific reference to online-international news events, rather than arbitrary data sources (see e-poltergeist, output 1). ‘CNN Interactive’ was commissioned by Tate Britain for the exhibition ‘Art and Money Online’. This was the first gallery exhibition in Tate Britain featuring work that utilised and explored new media as an artistic area, and the first work commissioned by the Tate to operate simultaneously as an online gallery artwork. Selected reviews and citations include ‘Digital Art’ by Christiane Paul, 2003; ‘Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce’ by Julian Stallabrass. (2002); ‘Thomson & Craighead’ by Lisa Le Feuvre for Katalog Journal of Photography and Video, Denmark. All work is developed jointly and equally between Craighead and her collaborator, Jon Thomson, (Slade).

Supporting the learning and networking experiences of doctoral students

This study explores the impact of a Graduate Virtual Research Environment (GVRE) on the learning and networking experiences of research students. The GVRE was established to support and enhance research skills and employability training across a university. It provides an extensive range of resources including video reflections based on the experiences of students and staff; GVRE members are encouraged to comment and engage in discussions on these resources. Our work is framed using social theories of learning and the role of communities in the support and development of research students. In particular, we are interested in exploring the challenges involved in developing communities and networks for students whose main focus is their individual research. The GVRE was made available to over 600 students and in this research we explore its impact on the experiences of research students. In particular, we investigate four questions: (a) what impact does the students use of the GVRE have on the development of their research skills; (b) what impact does membership of the GVRE have on the networks and communities of research students; (c) how do research students view the relationships between their research skills training programme, their individual research and the GVRE; and (d) how do research students currently use social media. We use an interpretivist approach and our data sources include site statistics, responses to a questionnaire and also feedback from a focus group. Our findings indicate that networking remains an issue and students suggested approaches to facilitating this using the GVRE: (1) A clearer pathway from skills need identification to skills acquisition; (2) Rewards for activities around networking - possibly through credit on the training scheme; (3) Activities that would involve research directly. Feedback on the GVRE indicated that it is valued by research students as it facilitates the development of their research skills. In terms of marketing the GVRE to research students important factors identified were: the ease of access to the site, the overview it gives of the PhD process; and the value of the site to students around the defining moments of their studies when the students felt they needed additional advice and guidance.

Networked learning ten years on: the rise of the virtual graduate school

The aim of this paper is to reflect on how conceptions of networked learning have changed, particularly in relation to educational practices and uses of technology, that can nurture new ideas of networked learning to sustain multiple and diverse communities of practice in institutional settings. Our work is framed using two theoretical frameworks: Giddens's (1984) structuration theory and Callon & Latour's (1981) Actor Network Theory as critiqued by Fox (2005) in relation to networked learning. We use these frameworks to analyse and critique ideas of networked learning embodied in both cases. We investigate three questions: (a) the role of individual agency in the development of networked learning; (b) the impact of technological developments on approaches to supporting students within institutional infrastructures; and (c) designing networked learning to incorporate Web 2.0 practices that sustain multiple communities and foster engagement with knowledge in new ways. We use an interpretivist approach by drawing on experiential knowledge of the Masters programme in Networked Collaborative Learning and the decision making process of designing the virtual graduate schools. At this early stage, we have limited empirical data related to the student experience of networked learning in current and earlier projects. Our findings indicate that the use of two different theoretical frameworks provided an essential tool in illuminating, situating and informing the process of designing networked learning that involves supporting multiple and diverse communities of practice in institutional settings. These theoretical frameworks have also helped us to analyze our existing projects as case studies and to problematize and begin to understand the challenges we face in facilitating the participation of research students in networked learning communities of practice and the barriers to that participation. We have also found that this process of theorizing has given us a way of reconceptualizing communities of practice within research settings that have the potential to lead to new ideas of networked learning.

"One of our hosts in another country": Challenges of data geolocation in cloud storage

Physical location of data in cloud storage is an increasingly urgent problem. In a short time, it has evolved from the concern of a few regulated businesses to an important consideration for many cloud storage users. One of the characteristics of cloud storage is fluid transfer of data both within and among the data centres of a cloud provider. However, this has weakened the guarantees with respect to control over data replicas, protection of data in transit and physical location of data. This paper addresses the lack of reliable solutions for data placement control in cloud storage systems. We analyse the currently available solutions and identify their shortcomings. Furthermore, we describe a high-level architecture for a trusted, geolocation-based mechanism for data placement control in distributed cloud storage systems, which are the basis of an on-going work to define the detailed protocol and a prototype of such a solution. This mechanism aims to provide granular control over the capabilities of tenants to access data placed on geographically dispersed storage units comprising the cloud storage.

Muslims in Public and Media Discourse in Western Europe: The Reproduction of Aporia and Exclusion

This chapter scrutinizes the dominant public discourse in Western Europe. Drawing on examples from the UK, Germany, and France but also from the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain it illustrates the gradual transformation of discourse from an “exotic Islam” to a “threatening Islam” that endangers European values and safety and suggests that the combination of this “securitization” of Islam and the monopoly of the “Muslim voice” by radical Muslim activists leads to a vicious circle of misrecognition and enhancing the aporia of Europe's Muslims.