TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (TCD)
Trinity College Dublin was founded in 1592 and has approximately 800 academics catering for 15000 students (of which a third are postgraduates). TCD is recognized internationally as Ireland's premier university and is ranked in the top 100 world universities (52nd) and amongst the top 50 European universities (14th).
On average it attracts approximately €90m per year in research income.
TCD has two separate partners in CULTURA, the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group (KDEG), in the School of Computer Science and Statistics, and the Department of History (TCDH). TCDH and KDEG have entirely distinct roles in the project. KDEG is the scientific leader of the project and TCDH are digital humanities experts, validators and end-users. Both have teams of researchers involved in CULTURA.
CULTURA Partners
The School of Computer Science and Statistics (SCSS) in TCD is one of the largest computer science departments in Ireland and the UK. The School of Computer Science and Statistics consists of over 60 academic staff, with over 200 full-time post-graduate students and support staff. It attracts approximately €7m in research income annually. The contributing group to the project is the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group (KDEG), which is within the School of Computer Science and Statistics and consists of 8 academics, 12 postdoctoral researchers and approximately 40 students by research. KDEG has established a worldwide reputation in the research of knowledge and semantic representation, adaptive portals for information analysis, educational systems, Adaptive Hypermedia systems and intelligent pedagogic systems. KDEG is a world leader in the area of knowledge driven personalisation and dynamic adaptation of digital content. Over the last fifteen years, the group has pioneered innovation in dynamic techniques for digital content retrieval, composition and automated customisation. KDEG has extensive experience in developing knowledge-driven content portals and supporting diverse communities of users. For example, KDEG is responsible for the development and management of the National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR) and community portal across the entire Irish HE sector.
The Department of History (TCDH) is one of the strongest academic units in the Humanities in Ireland and is home to some of TCD's leading researchers, whose publications cover the history of Ireland and continental Europe from earliest times to the present day. The Department of History currently has over 100 researchers. The department enjoys a strong international research reputation in a number of areas, including Irish and Western European history. TCDH is particularly active in the application of ICT to Humanities research, in the digitisation of cultural heritage materials and their use in international, multidisciplinary research. TCDH has been responsible for several large-scale digitisation projects in which textual artefacts have been made available to the wider research community.
Contribution to CULTURA
KDEG's role in CULTURA is overall scientific leadership, as well as responsibility for the user and community modelling and the adaptive environment design and implementation. KDEG brings to CULTURA experience in the interdisciplinary field of Digital Arts and Humanities, specifically relating to the intersection of ICT and Knowledge Management with traditional humanities disciplines including History and Linguistics. KDEG also brings to CULTURA established and internationally recognised experience in the research of knowledge and semantic representation, adaptive portals for information analysis, educational systems, Adaptive Hypermedia systems and intelligent pedagogic systems.
TCDH brings a digital, fully searchable, edition of the 1641 Depositions held in Trinity College Dublin Library. This collection comprises transcripts and images of all 8,000 depositions, examinations and associated materials. This body of material is unparalleled anywhere in early modern Europe, and provides a unique source of information for the causes and events surrounding the 1641 rebellion and for the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political history of seventeenth-century Ireland, England and Scotland.
The TCD research team is supported by the SCSS Research and Innovation Services unit, which promotes and manages the interface between researchers, funding agencies and industry and assists researchers in protecting and exploiting IP produced during the course of their research activities. TCD is committed to the transfer of technology and IT knowledge to industry and has a proactive policy to both creating links to existing industry and as well as supporting emergent companies.
Related Work
Members of KDEG and TCDH have participated and are participating in several EU projects relevant to CULTURA:
- Language and Linguistic Evidence in the 1641 Depositions explores how a computer environment can be created in which scholars interested in historical and corpus linguistics can work collaboratively with historians and other specialists to interrogate a key historical source, the 1641 Depositions, in ways not currently possible, by exploiting effective language technologies.
- 1641 Depositions Project aims to transcribe, digitise and analyse the 1641 Depositions, which comprise 8,000 depositions, examinations and associated materials, located in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, in which Protestant men and women of all classes told of their experiences following the outbreak of the rebellion by the Catholic Irish in October, 1641.
- GRAPPLE aims at delivering to learners a technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environment that guides them through a life-long learning experience, automatically adapting to personal preferences, prior knowledge, skills and competences, learning goals and the personal or social context in which the learning takes place.
- 80Days is a path-finding research initiative of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7) to explore new frontiers in Digital Educational Games (DEGs), which combine effective learning with fun and pleasure.
- ELEKTRA aims at revolutionising technology-enhanced learning. Nine interdisciplinary partners from six different European countries merge their expertises in cognitive science, pedagogical theory, computer science and neuroscience with the innovations of computer gaming, design and development.
