Bridge-IT Project: Digitally Connecting Academic Research with the Wider Community in Ireland
Project Remit: The Bridge-IT project will produce an interactive, multimedia online digital resource on the subject of ageing and life history, a new departure in Ireland in the communication of academic research using eHumanities expertise, tools and technologies. The project will create ‘living history': breathing life into raw data and primary source material that is voice-centred and creative.
The Bridge-IT Project is a collaborative initiative between the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, The Lived Life ageing research group, Trinity Library and the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering.
This digital resource for researchers in life history, biography and cultural gerontology from multiple disciplines will simultaneously serve as an interactive connection point for older people who will be able to engage with the content. The project will explore the frontiers of human-centred computing and social networking through investigation of the use of adaptive hypermedia, visualisation, user-generated content, online communities. A highly interactive interface will be designed to be both attractive and intuitive in order to communicate a sense of the reality of the human experience recorded.
Trinity College Library will support the hosting and maintenance of the project's web-based digital archive via its successful Dspace-based institutional repository, thereby ensuring access, dissemination, storage and preservation of the digital outputs of the project. Bridge-IT directly aligns with Trinity College Dublin's Strategic Plan for dissemination of research results and its Information Strategy Guiding Principles (ISGP) requirement for more productive use of resources and information.
Funded by: Long Room Hub – Murphy Innovation Fund
Research Team: Dr. Maryann Valiulis, Deirdre O'Donnell, Jennifer Redmond, Dr. Amanda Piesse, Niamh Brennan, Dr. Linda Doyle.