OR2012 Developer Challenge: Boastr

The big challenge for researchers at the moment is all about demonstrating impact, and showing off research outcomes. The problem is, there are no tools to support researchers collecting and storing evidence of impact. The activities that happen because of the research (invitations to speak, events, input to important committees, changes in policy, input to standards, new courses, business outcomes) are unreflected upon. Researchers say things like “we must remember this marvellous thing for the final report” but they actually spend all their effort trying to produce the event / activity and not record it for later dissemination or publicity.

I propose a smartphone app, something like Path, that allows a researcher to connect together a diary event, a place, a set of known people and a project with some descriptions (and categories from ROS). Basing this on a ubiquitous smartphone app allows the user to conveniently annotate any of their activities as “Impact Fodder” as they happen. Using a native app interface allows us to escape the standard form-filling metadata paradigm of the 1990s, and opens up the possibility of a beautiful and enjoyable user experience. Collecting impact and outcome evidence should be a constant preoccupation for a researcher – not something that happens at the end of a project.

The collected information can be easily dumped via SWORD into a repository and from thence submitted to ROS.