28th June 10:00 – 10:20
Speaker: Prof Paul Gooding
Abstract: This talk will provide an overview of the iREAL project, which is funded as an AHRC Bridging Responsible AI Divides scoping project to develop a model for Responsible AI (RAI) systems development in libraries that are seeking to include knowledge from Indigenous communities, specifically Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. Globally, libraries hold collections extracted from these communities, each with its own perspective on data governance. Institutions and associated professionals must therefore understand their responsibilities when incorporating Indigenous knowledges. iREAL focuses specifically upon Requirements Elicitation: in IT management, it refers explicitly to the elicitation process – from relevant stakeholders or user groups – of functional and non-functional requirements related to the creation of a new system or process. We aim to give Indigenous peoples the Right to Reply to the potential use of their knowledges in AI systems assessment and development, thus improving understanding of how libraries can move towards an inclusive form of requirements elicitation that balances Indigenous rights and needs with existing RAI Principles.
The talk will describe the aims objectives, and critical framework of iREAL, then explain our methodological approach, informed by key texts including Smith’s (2021) Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples and the Indigenous Archives Collective Position Statement on the Right to Reply to Indigenous Knowledges and Information Held in Archives (2021). These texts, in combination with our critical framework, will inform a series of “pathfinder” workshops to enable Indigenous peoples, librarians, and research technology professionals to collaborate to define how responsible AI systems might be critiqued and created including the knowledge and data of Indigenous peoples. It will finish by explaining how these activities will inform the development of avrequirements elicitation model that can be applied when considering whether, and how, to use Indigenous knowledges in library-developed or adopted systems.
Bio: Paul Gooding is Professor of Library Studies and Digital Scholarship at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on evaluating the impact of digital library collections on institutions and users, and how library and archival collections can be harnessed for innovative reuse in the Digital Humanities. He is particularly interested in the interaction between human and non-human actors and digital collections, with a current focus on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the library sector. He is the author of Historic Newspapers in the Digital Age: “Search All About It!” (Routledge, 2016), and co-editor of Electronic Legal Deposit: Shaping the Library Collections of the Future (Facet Publishing, 2020). He has a track record of publications that span Digital Humanities and Library and Information Studies.
Paul’s funded projects include the currently funded AHRC BRAID Demonstrator project iREAL, which is developing a model for responsible AI systems development that centres Indigenous perspectives and knowledges, Digital Library Futures, which investigates the impact of non-print legal deposit upon academic legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom, and the AHRC-funded Network to Investigate the Development of a Global Dataset of Digitised Texts. He is an Associate Editor for Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, and holds Fellowships of the Higher Education Academy and Royal Historical Society.
Paul is an experienced information professional who previously worked as a librarian with BBC Sport. His TV credits include the Open Golf, the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. He holds an BA in English Literature from the University of East Anglia, and an MA in Library and Information Studies (2007) and a PhD in Digital Humanities (2014) from University College London.