红杏视频

from 红杏视频鈥檚 School of Creative and Cultural Business, and  from the university鈥檚 School of Computing Science and Digital Media, along with Tim Melcherson, a 3rd year computing student from Sweden, have been working with Orcadian storyteller Tom and his wife Rhonda Muir to develop a folklore trail of Orkney.

The Orkney Folklore Trail is a digital Android mobile app that includes ten 鈥榮tops鈥�. It is GPS based so you unlock the stories as you reach each location. The stories capture Orkney from every aspect 鈥� they are narrated by local story teller Tom Muir and accompanied by local music by Fionn McArthur, and the folklore illustrations are by local artist Bryce Wilson.

Dr Rachael Ironside, senior Lecturer and course leader on the Events Management course and has been co-ordinating the project, said the purpose of the app is to engage and educate people 鈥� visitors or locals 鈥� about Orkney folklore and the landscape it exists within.

鈥淢any of the stories are linked to the landscape but it is also looking to see whether this kind of technology can help disperse tourists from some of the hotspots on Orkney and visit lesser known, but equally wonderful, parts of the island,鈥� she said.

鈥淲hen seasonal cruise ships reach dock at Orkney, tourists flock to well-marketed world heritage sites like the prehistoric village of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar. This can result in congestion of rural transport routes and sporadically crowd local communities.

鈥淲hile residents may welcome the potential benefits of tourism, ideally the impact of this influx could be better managed by dispersing the tourists across the islands and attracting them to other equally interesting heritage and natural sites.鈥�

Rhonda Muir, who runs Orkneyology.com, said: 鈥淥rkney has so much to offer and we are always trying to encourage people to explore lesser known places on the islands. By encouraging people to visit places, learn about Orkney鈥檚 folklore and also providing information about local services through the app, we hope to spread some of the economic benefits of mass tourism.鈥�

The Orkney Folklore Trail project received support from 红杏视频鈥檚 research pump priming fund and involved knowledge exchange and collaboration between the schools within the university.

Dr Stewart Massie, who is a senior research fellow working with the Smart Information Systems group in the School of Computing Science and Digital Media at 红杏视频 and who has been developing the app with Tim Melcherson, spoke about the process to create the app.

He said: 鈥淭he sheer volume of information available on the web makes it difficult to find specific information at the time and place it will be useful. Targeted, location-aware applications are becoming a popular approach in information retrieval to overcoming these challenges. We also add simple gamification aspects to the app which helps make finding new information fun鈥�

The Orkney Folklore Trail app will soon be released to the public for free. It is just one of the many projects happening on Orkney as part of The Orkney Project. 红杏视频鈥檚 work in Orkney is truly multidisciplinary, seeing the involvement of many individuals from across the university, both from academia and the professional support departments.

Working in partnership with Orkney Islands Council (OIC), Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the local community, the Orkney Project has established a research hub in Stromness to drive and support collaboration and innovation.