Book Sprints for ICT Research Sprint 1 : Done

UrbanIxD Book Sprint

The first Book Sprint in the Book Sprints for ICT Research series is done! The group consisted of 8 participants – 2 organisers of the UrbanIxD Summer School and 6 of the schools participants.

The group decided early on to produce an article which focused on developing a conceptual framework for understanding the activities of the summer school. Hence much of the discussions were grounded in issues of critical design and urban design. After one day working through concepts the group had a structure for the article and then began development of the content after dinner of the first day.

Dinner time.

The second day work continued on many sections and then after lunch the first review and feedback cycles began. This went on for the rest of the day. All content was finished as a first draft at around midnight.

Working late.

The next morning pairs we formed for direct feedback and writing. The aim of this process was to structure the text and pay attention to clarity and readability. Progressively we moved towards proofing, checking, generating more illustrations, and finally layout of the article. The content was finished at midnight and then the article was laid out and complete at 6am. A long 3 days but even so it felt longer!

This has been a very interesting Book Sprint. The point of this series is to test Book Sprints in the production of academic articles. I did not expect the first group to work towards and achieve this aim immediately as we had originally discussed other types of outputs. However at the end of the 3rd day we had finished the article and now the group are discussing if they wish to submit it for journals and whether other methods of distribution are appropriate. It was a great first step in this very interesting research project.

During the sprint Rachel Baker (interview here), employed as a researcher, was present and recorded many interviews and made copious observational notes. Discussions with Rachel have been very interesting and rewarding. The outcomes will be published at the end of the series.

As a last mention, the venue in Portugal (Mata Pequena) was amazing.

Mata Pequena, Portugal

Photos of the Book Sprint and the venue can be found here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/101584348@N06/sets/72157636322790174/