David Donald, Principal Investigator
Aidan Johnston, IT Advisor/Teaching Support
Ewan MacPhee, Digital Library Assistant
Caroline Noakes, Digital Repository Developer
Susan Paterson, Assistant Digital Librarian
Iain Wallace , Digital Services Development Librarian
Graeme West , Web Services Development Architect

David Donald, Principal Investigator
David Donald is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Government and Principal Investigator (UK) for Spoken Word Services.

He studied at Strathclyde and Glasgow Universities and was a Senior Visiting Scholar at the Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge. He has been elected to executive committees of both the Political Studies Association of the UK and of the American Political Science Association. He has travelled widely on several continents and has particular interests in India, Germany, Japan and the USA. He has taught in what has become Glasgow Caledonian University since 1968.

Disciplinary Interests

• Political economy of economic performance
• The politics of firms and corporations
• Economic ideologies

Professional and Pedagogical Interests

• Information technology in academia.
• Educational theory esp. Whitehead, Dewey, Oakeshott, Freire and Rogers.
• Audio and video archives in teaching
• Trusted digital repositories

Professional Associations

• Political Studies Association of the UK
• American Political Science Association
• Society for the Advancement of Socio Economics

Recent Publications and Presentations

Aidan Johnston, IT Advisor/Teaching Support
Aidan Johnston joined Spoken Word at Glasgow Caledonian University in July 2003. Aidan studied for four years at Glasgow Caledonian University gaining an BSc. (Hons) in Quantity Surveying in 2000. After a brief career in Quantity Surveying, Aidan returned to GCU to study for a Postgraduate degree in E-Commerce Technology & IT in 2001. After completing his postgraduate studies, Aidan worked as a freelance IT consultant for large and small-scale organisations such as The Scottish Qualifications Authority and Renfrewshire Council, before returning to Glasgow Caledonian University as a second line support IT assistant with Caledonian University’s IT Services.As IT advisor, Aidan is responsible for server administration of the Apple systems, the collection and digitisation of audio and video resources as well as systems and website development.

In addition to this, Aidan is also acts as Teaching Support for Spoken Word Services, liaising with teaching staff nationally and internationally who are associated with Spoken Word Services. Aidan has recently been working on 2 podcasting projects that have successfully been making use of BBC audio and video blended together with a Lecturer’s narration and powerpoint slides to deliver to students an enhanced video podcast to compliment their weekly lecture. Aidan is keen to encourage the adoption and the development and use teaching blogs, audio and video podcasts and other Spoken Word web-based tools within the University; a concept that he believes will greatly enhance students’ ability to “write on - and for - the internet.”

Aidan has just completed the first part of the PostGraduate degree in Supporting Student Learning which looks at different approaches to student motivation and how technology can have a positive impact on course delivery. Aidan is an also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Ewan MacPhee, Digital Library Assistant
Ewan MacPhee joined Spoken Word Services in May 2006. He has an LLB (Hons) degree from the University of Strathclyde. His general interests lie with Criminology, Human Rights law, Intellectual Property and Journalism. He has had various articles published in publications ranging from The Saturday Herald Magazine to The Hospitality Review.
In relation to the Spoken Word project Ewan is particularly concerned with digital research. His predominant source of research is the BBC archive but other materials are also available. He communicates principally with academics and deciphers what digital materials he can provide them with in order to supplement their already existing teaching materials.The project has also helped Ewan to gain experience in the new age of journalism that exists in the dot-com era, which encapsulates such things as blogging, immediate online news access and 24 hour news channels. Given his background in Law the project is also of interest to him as it raises issues regarding intellectual property rights and copyright of research material.

Iain Wallace, Digital Services Development Librarian
Iain Wallace joined Spoken Word Services in June 2005. He has responsibility for developing a range of Spoken Word services for the new SALTIRE centre at Glasgow Caledonian University.For 3 years previously Iain was Performing Arts Collections Development Officer for the Arts and Humanities Data Service. Funded by JISC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the AHDS is a UK national service aiding the discovery, creation and preservation of digital resources in and for research, teaching and learning in the arts and humanities. Iain had responsibility for negotiating access to collections, all aspects of metadata resource management, and for the development and implementation of a national dissemination programme.Prior to this, Iain was Deputy Project Manager for the ADAM service, part of the ‘Access to Networked Resources’ strand of the JISC ELib programme. These services have since evolved into the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). Iain has also worked in web development and support at the Glasgow School of Art.Iain has a 1st class MA in Psychology from the University of St Andrews and a Postgraduate Diploma in Information and Library Studies from the University of Strathclyde.

Graeme West, Web Services Development Architect
Graeme West is an undergraduate in Politics and History at the University of Strathclyde, and works with Spoken Word Services part-time. Graeme has used a Macintosh since he was seven years old, and confesses to being interested in far too many technology-related things for his own good.He is currently in the third year of his studies at Strathclyde, and previously worked in an Apple reseller and an internet services firm.Graeme’s role at Spoken Word centres around the development and useful adaptation of software tools for internal and external use by Spoken Word team members. This includes web site development, scripting, development of the Padova repository front-end and maintenance.Other roles include advising team members on current best practices in new technologies and managing technological change. A stickler for open standards, Graeme is interested in the politics of technological change, and in particular how and why open source technologies are introduced in government and society; and the implications of this type of technological development model on economies and political relations. These matters, and the consequent political and legal wrangles over copyright, digital rights management and licensing form the backbone of his blogging efforts.Graeme’s current activities include managing some technical aspects of moving Spoken Word’s collection of learning resources to the Fedora repository; improving standards compliance and accessibility across all Spoken Word services, and administering and further developing the new content management system which runs this web site.