Adventures in Digital Ethnography
This session aims to cover how three intrepid researchers from Essex County Council’s Research and Citizen Insight Team delivered the Council’s first in-house digital ethnography, what we learned from the experience and how we shared our newfound knowledge with colleagues. This will equip delegates with the knowledge they too can embark on this adventure and deliver great digital ethnography projects for their organisations too.
Maresa Beazley, Senior Researcher & Liz Roberts, Researcher, Essex County Council

Capturing urban mobility through mobile phone data
The aim of this session is to introduce delegates to mobile phone data and to provide an understanding of the range of ways in which they might be used by local policy makers. Glasgow City Council and the Urban Big Data Centre have been collaborating on the analysis of these data to meet a range of analytical challenges which the Council and its partners are facing. One of these was in transport planning where the Council was very aware that patterns of movement had changed dramatically as a result of the pandemic and that it therefore needed to bring transport strategies up-to-date. A key requirement was recent evidence on patterns of movement across the city, rather than having to rely on 2011 Census data. A second was work on city-regional economic recovery. One need was to understand how footfall in city centre and other ‘high street’ locations have changed as a result of the pandemic. The Council also required analysis in support of its policy to promote ‘liveable neighbourhoods’. UBDC brought an understanding of the different forms of mobile phone data and an ability to procure (licence) appropriate datasets. They conducted the basic work to check the data were ‘fit for purpose’ for the needs identified and to develop methods to measure flows, footfall and other aspects of urban mobility.
Nick Bailey, Director, Urban Big Data Centre, University of Glasgow

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