Associate Professor Jerry Watkins

Jerry_Watkins

 

Biography

Jerry Watkins is Associate Professor in Design. He has over 20 years' high-profile international experience in communication and interaction design and he has led major projects for some of the world's biggest companies, including AT&T Wireless, Bell Canada, Telecom Italia, and Vodafone Group.

His research focuses on strategic design considerations around broadband, mobile devices, digital content, social media, and information and communication technology for development (ICT4D). He has presented his methods and findings to conferences in China, India, Italy, Thailand, UK, and USA. Jerry has worked in three Tier 1 research centres including the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence and Innovation and the Institute for Social Research. He is Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council project 'Opportunity Spaces' (2011-14). Jerry has led a number of research projects for partners including UNESCO and Intel, and he is a UNESCO Invited Expert in Mobile Media. His recent fieldwork has included sites in India, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, and the Solomon Islands.

Jerry has previously lectured at University College London, University of Westminster, Queensland University of Technology and Swinburne University.

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, Computing Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, (2010).

Master of Science, Human Factors in Human-Computer Interaction, University College London (2000).

Master of Research & Development Management, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (2010).

Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours, Communication & Information Technology, University of Westminster, London (1996).

Graduate Certificate of Research Commercialisation, University of Technology, Sydney (2009).

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Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise

1203 Design Practice and Management

2001 Communication and Media Studies

0806 Computer-Human Interaction

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Grants / Current Projects

2011-14

D.Meredyth, I. McShane, J. Watkins
Opportunity Spaces: Community Engagement in the Planning, Use and
Governance of Shared School Facilities
Australian Research Council Linkage Project LP110200550
Partner Organisation: Victorian Government, Department of Education and Early Childhood

2007-10

J. Tacchi, J. Watkins
Moving Content: Creative Engagement in Marginal Spaces
Funded by: Intel Labs, Intel Corporation, Portland OR

2006-09

J. Tacchi, J. Watkins, A. Skuse, S. Cunningham, H. Pillay
Finding a Voice: Making Technological Change Socially Effective and Culturally Empowering
Australian Research Council Linkage Project LP0561848
Supported by: UNESCO, UNDP

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Selected Publications

Scholarly book chapters

Watkins, J., and Russo, A. (2009) ‘Beyond Individual Expression: Creative Tools, Systems and Teams’. In Story Circle: Digital Storytelling around the World, J. Hartley and K. McWilliam (eds.) Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell

Russo, A. and Watkins, J. (2006) ‘Digital Cultural Communication: Audience and Remediation’. In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, eds. F. Cameron and S. Kenderdine, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, pp.149-164

Edited books

Watkins, J., and Tacchi, J. (eds. 2008) Participatory Content Creation for Development: Principles and Practices. New Delhi: UNESCO

Refereed journal articles

Watkins, J. (2010) ‘Intermediaries and end-users in telehealth and education’. Communication, Politics & Culture, vol 43.1, RMIT Publishing

Given, J. and Watkins, J. (2010) ‘Broadband: users and policy’. Communication, Politics & Culture, vol 43.1, RMIT Publishing

Kuriyan, R., Kitner, K. and Watkins, J. (2010) ‘ICTs, development and trust: an overview’. Information Technology and People, vol. 23, no.3, Emerald

Russo, A., Watkins, J., and Groundwater-Smith, S. (2009) ‘The impact of social media on informal learning in museums’. Educational Media International, vol. 46, no.2, pp.153-166

Tacchi, J., Watkins, J. and Keerthirathne, K. (2009) ‘Participatory Content Creation: Voice, Communication and Development’. Development in Practice, vol. 19, nos. 4&5, June 2009, pp. 573-584

Watkins, J. (2008) ‘Digital literacy and cultural institutions’. Media International Australia, no.128, August, pp.121-127

Russo, A., Watkins, J., Kelly, L., Chan, S. (2008) ‘Participatory Communication with Social Media’. Curator: the Museum Journal. Issue 1, vol. 51, pp.21-32

Russo, A., Watkins, J., Kelly, L., Chan, S. (2007) ‘How will social media affect museum communication?’ Nordisk Museologi (1): pp.19-29

Russo, A and Watkins, J. (2006) ‘Establishing and Maintaining Cultural e-Communities’. WSEAS Transactions on Advances in Engineering Education. Issue 1, vol. 3, pp. 27-33

Conference submissions

Watkins, J., Tacchi, J., and Kiran, M.S. (2009) ‘The Role of Intermediaries in the Implementation and Development of Asynchronous Rural Access’. C. Stephanidis (ed.) Universal Access in HCI, Part III, HCII 2009, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5616, pp. 451–459, Springer-Verlag

Watkins, J. (2009) ‘Engaging a Design Community Online’. L. Fennessy et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the Cumulus Conference, 12-14 November. Swinburne University of Technology, RMIT University

Watkins, J. (2009) ‘Engagement through Mobile and Community Media’. Invited presentation to UNESCO Communication and Information Sector, Expert Meeting on Mobile Media, Paris, 17-18 Dec

Watkins, J. (2009) ‘Make Do. Use the Bus’. Invited presentation to ARC Cultural Research Network Self, Place and Broadband Connectivity workshop. U. Wollongong, 12-13 Feb

Kiran, M.S., Watkins, J. and Tacchi, J. (2009) ‘The role of mobile infomediaries: a BOP approach’. Presented to 5th eIndia conference, 25-27 Aug, HICC, Hyderabad

Kiran, M.S., Watkins, J. and Tacchi, J. (2008) ‘Optimizing Rural E-service Engagement: Comparing development-driven and entrepreneurial models’. Information Technology in Developing Countries, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, vol. 18, no. 2

Watkins, J., and Tacchi, J. (2008) ‘ICT for Creative Engagement: Participatory Design and Ethnographic Action Research’. Position paper for HCI for Community and International Development workshop, CHI 2008 Conference, Florence, 05 Apr

Watkins, J. (2007) ‘Social Media, Participatory Design and Cultural Engagement’. ACM Proceedings of the 2007 Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of Australia. Vol. 251

Watkins, J. (2007) ‘Creative Engagement in Marginal Spaces’. CMS Symbols Symposium on Communication for Social Development. U. Hyderabad 1-3 Nov

Watkins, J. and Russo, A. (2007) ‘Cultural Institutions, Co-creativity and Communities of Interest’. Schuler, D. (ed.) Online Communities and Social Computing. Second International Conference, OCSC 2007, Beijing, China, July 22-27, Proceedings. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 4564, pp. 212-221

Tacchi, J., and Watkins, J. (2007) ‘Participatory Research and Creative Engagement with ICTs’. Burke, J. et al (eds.): Participatory Urban Sensing & Community Based Participatory Research. ACM Sensys Conference, Sydney, 06 Nov

Watkins, J. and Russo, A. (2005) ‘Developing communities and collections with new media and information literacy’. E.A. Fox et al. (eds.) Digital Libraries: Implementing Strategies and Sharing Experiences, ICADL 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3815, pp. 390-394, Springer-Verlag, Berlin

Watkins, J. and Russo, A. (2005) ‘New media design for cultural institutions’. Proceedings of the Conference on Designing for User eXperience (dux 05). AIGA, pp. 2-11

Watkins, J. and Russo, A. (2005) ‘Extending Site-specific Audience Experience via Multi-Platform Communication Design’. M.H. Hamza (ed.): Proceedings of the Ninth IASTED International Conference on Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications. Calgary, ACTA Press, pp. 298-303

Watkins, J. and Russo, A. (2005) ‘Digital Cultural Communication: designing co-creative new media environments’. L. Candy (ed.) Creativity & Cognition: Proceedings 2005. ACM, pp. 144-149

Russo, A. and Watkins, J. (2005) ‘Digital Cultural Communication: tools and methods for community co-creation’. Proceedings of International Conference on Engaging Communities, D. Gardiner & K. Scott (eds.) Queensland Department of Main Roads

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