Research Talk

In the penultimate episode of our "Is AI for me?" miniseries, guest host Peter Findlay is joined by Huw Jones to discuss the age of artificial intelligence. We've almost reached the end of our miniseries, "Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities", with the fifth instalment as Huw Jones, head of the digital library unit and digital humanities coordinator at the University of Cambridge, joins us to discuss librarians, researchers and collections in the age of artificial intelligence. Huw's role has evolved beyond the library, being both the creator and the facilitator of digital content creation. In this episode, Huw and Peter discuss the different ways to provide digital collections, and they explore how AI might impact collection research and what it might mean for librarians to be confronted by an entire collection generated by AI. Together, they consider how digital methods allow librarians to learn new things about their collections and the value of seeing what is revealed through processes and techniques for engaging with collections.

Our 'Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities' miniseries returns with part four with guest Leif Isaksen and guest host, Peter Findlay. Our miniseries returns after its summer break with part four, and we're handing over to a new guest host, Peter Findlay, our subject matter expert for digital scholarship. In this episode, Peter is joined by professor of digital humanities at the University of Exeter, Leif Isaksen. From his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, Leif has gone on to work in Southampton's archaeology department and Lancaster University's history department. Now at the University of Exeter and as a fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, Leif's interests are in spatial and temporal representation in the humanities - both in the ancient world and the modern one - and the paradigm of Linked Open Data to relate online resources about the past. In this episode, Leif and Peter discuss the impact of digital approaches on historical map research, the emergence of new tools for large multidimensional map datasets and the development of map research at scale. They consider the impact of AI technologies, such as neural networks, and how they affect notions of truth and the role of humans in the research process. Together, they explore interdisciplinary working, how we can evolve a baseline set of capabilities for digital working, and the positive application of AI to learning, teaching and research.

Tim Fellows is joined by Dr Alex Freeman, founder of Octopus.ac, to discuss the platform and its future developments. Together, they explore how Octopus could align with researcher incentives and positively impact research culture. Dr Alex Freeman, executive director at Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and founder of Octopus.ac, started her career at the BBC. Alex's work not only involved the development and making of television series, but also working with associated content to bring science to the widest possible audience. Her work at the Winton Centre focuses on helping professionals communicate numbers and uncertainty better. Being an advocate of Open Research practices and reform of the science publishing system led her to founding Octopus, a platform designed to provide a new 'primary research record' for recording and appraising research 'as it happens'. In this episode, we examine how Octopus.ac can resolve the current constraints in research publishing and share what we are up to at the moment, from outreach to platform developments. We consider the benefits of discovering research in Octopus, breaking down research into smaller publications and publishing open peer reviews. We also raise the topic of impact factors, the limitations and the alternative metrics that might support quality research.

Paola Marchionni brings the third instalment of, 'Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities' mini-series In part three of our miniseries, Paola Marchionni is joined by Jane Winters, professor of digital humanities and director of the digital humanities research hub at the school of advanced study, University of London. Starting out working with thirteenth-century materials, Jane is a trained historian. Working out of the school of advanced study, an institution funded to promote and facilitate humanities research across the UK, an important strand of her work is related to digital research and scholarship and supporting others to engage with new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). In this episode, Paola and Jane discussed how data is becoming a primary source for historians working with digital collection and how this data is often complex and messy. They talked about some of the more useful AI tools for analysing historical data sets and the growing importance of transparency, ethics and individual responsibility when making choices about data. They look at the opportunities for the co-production of historical knowledge when marrying together human expertise and AI while concluding it is not a fix-all.

Paola Marchionni brings the second instalment of, 'Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities' mini-series In this episode, James Baker, Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton, joins Paola to discuss the skills for artificial intelligence. A historian by training, James works at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. His interests lay in the history of collecting and describing collections and how curators describe historical collections. Increasingly, James is becoming about infrastructure and how to use it to meet the needs of intellectual agendas. In this episode, Paola and James discussed the need to demystify the digital, the latest and shiniest things, and instead ground it within the continuity of research practice. They talk about the importance of equipping humanities researchers with the right skills to engage with artificial intelligence and how to help students navigate this ever-changing landscape. They also examine the role of the open access publishing platform Programming Historian plays in supporting the development of computational skills.

Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities – the highs and lows of artificial intelligence Host Helen Clare hands over to Paola Marchionni to bring you, 'Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities' mini-series Research talk resumes with Paola Marchionni, head of engagement, content and discovery, at Jisc. Over the next six episodes, she and her colleague Peter Findley will take over Research talk to bring you 'Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities'. This mini-series will explore what it means to engage with artificial intelligence in the context of the humanities. They'll bring together research and informational professionals who will share their views, experiences and work to help us understand AI's place in today's humanities scholarship. In this episode, Paola is joined by Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh. Melissa has been working at the computational sciences and humanities juncture for over 20 years. Her interests lie in how the tools and techniques from applied computing and engineering can be brought over to humanities subjects, the study of the past, and what the humanities can offer the computational sciences.

During this episode of the Research talk, Helen Clare was joined by professor of physical chemistry and head of computational systems chemistry at the University of Southampton, Jeremy Frey. As well as his conducting his own experimental research he is; investigating how e-Science infrastructure helps make an intelligent laboratory; an enthusiastic supporter of interdisciplinary research, the PI of the EPSRC Network+ on artificial intelligence and automated scientific discovery. Together they discuss digital research infrastructure, how the current systems and tools need to change to better support research and the opportunities that could be realised with these advancements.

During this exciting episode of the Research Talk, Helen Clare was joined by Tony Hey to discuss current and future research environments. Tony's extensive career began in 1970 as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Since, he's worked with Nobel Prize winners in physics, been a professor and head of department at the University of Southampton, held the position of corporate vice president of microsoft research and is currently the chief data scientist at Science and Technology Facilities as well as senior data science fellow at the University of Washington eScience Institute. Tony talks through the research environments of today and how they need to improve, the role of AI, how it needs to evolve and his vision for the research environments of the future.

Last month Helen Clare, was joined by Stuart Fancey, Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and Ben Raynor, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), to discuss the future research assessment programme (FRAP), from why it was initiated, its scope and the key aims of the programme. Together, they delve into why it's important the UK has a way of assessing research on a national scale, what has changed since REF2021 and how FRAP aims to listen to the views and concerns of the sector. Finally, this episode gleams insights into how the FRAP team are planning to get an understanding of international research assessment practice and the alignment between FRAP and Jisc's priorities.

Research talk: achieving an integrated research management ecosystem - Donna Swann by Jisc