Research Methods Festival 2010 Prospects for research methods in the coming decade Peter Halfpenny University of Manchester

The driver of change  The digital revolution ■digital footprints ■‘born digital’ data ■digitisation of the past ■digital natives ■digital everything

The digital age pre-digital ■‘computers’ ■adding machines ■analogue radio ■vinyl records ■landline phones ■photographs ■post ■fax digital ■computers ■Internet ■mobile phones ■digital tv ■music players ■streaming ■p2p ■m2m

Chips with everything  Advanced ICTs will transform the world even more than they have done to date  Networks + wireless  ubiquitous ■ any where ■ any time ■ any device  ICTs are embedded in our lives  Constant innovation

Prediction for ten years hence  Impossible! ■1940s - computers ■1960s - ARPANET ■1970s - ■1980s - PCs ■ - JANET ■1990s - WWW ■ - public ISPs ■ - smart phones ■2000s - peer to peer ■- dot com boom ■- and bust ■- broadband ■- WiFi ■2004- Web 2.0 ■- Facebook ■ iPhone apps

Some tentative pointers - 1  digital data deluge  convergence ■devices cf mobile ‘phones’ ■data integration  data access ■authorisation

Some tentative pointers - 2  sensors ■mobile ‘phones’ ■wearable computers ■Radio Frequency Devices  the cloud ■pay-as-you go computing power

Transformative potential  Societies transformed  Social research transformed ■huge samples ■real-time ■active participation  Scientific authority transformed ■multidisciplinary ■collaborative ■distributed

Barriers  Technical ■business models ■sustainability  Social ■privacy ■confidentiality ■real-world and online identities ■the digital divide