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First Workshop - All Hands Meeting - 14th June 2006

Researching e-Science Analysis of Census Holdings

The All Hands Workshop, the first in the series, was held on Wednesday 14th June 2006. It aimed to ascertain how feasible, and indeed, useful utilizing e-Science technologies to analyse historical census data would be. Undertaking e-science analysis of historical census records may be technically possible - but will it be useful to academic researchers?

The workshop brought together a wide range of interdisciplinary expertise to ascertain the academic community's view of the benefit and concerns in undertaking a full-scale research project utilizing available historical census data and the Research Computing facilities at UCL. Through various presentations and discussions, this workshop explained the technological issues, and explored the historical techniques which may be useful for undertaking research of historical census material in this manner.

Results from this workshop contributed to the discussions held at the Technical and Managerial workshops.

Programme

09.30 Coffee
10.00 Welcome and Introduction - aims of the day
Introducing ReACH

Melissa Terras, DIS, University College London
10.45 Research Computing at UCL - An Overview
Clare Gryce, Research Computing, University College London
11.15 Putting the Census Online: The National Archives' Perspective
Ruth Selman, Knowledge and Academic Services Department, The National
12.00 Lunch
13.00
Grid Enabling Population Datasets - the ConvertGrid and GEMS projects
Keith Cole, Census Data Unit, National Dataset Services Group, MIMAS, The University of Manchester
13.30 Linking Nineteenth-Century Scottish Records: Procedures and Practicalities
Ros Davies, Eilidh Garrett and Alice Reid, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
14.00 Coffee
15.00 Discussion Session: e-Science Analysis of Historical Census Records: Feasible or Useful?
In this discussion session all participants were asked their opinions of the potential research project. Will undertaking this analysis result in any new information of worth for the academic community? What potential pitfalls are their in undertaking this research? What type of results can be generated from the available datasets? Is undertaking a research project in this area worthy of the time and expense it will take to set it up? 
16.00 Summary and Conclusion
16.30 Close

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