Leslie Carr

Since the 1980's I have experimented with multimedia information systems, novel ways of constructing hypertexts, digital libraries and knowledge management systems. As a practical application of these ideas (time to change the world instead of just thinking deep thoughts), I am working with Open Access and Digital Repositories. My goal is to encourage researchers and scientists to become responsible curators of their own intellectual assets, and to build the information environments that enable that goal and also that take advantage of it (repositories, literature analysis services, community maps, new idea trackers).

I'm fascinated by the way that humans can take advantage of new information sources (like Google or the Semantic Web) and whether these things can help to make us genuinely smarter. Can the Web act as a cognitive extension to our own brains? Can Google make someone behave like an expert? And if so, can we change the way that we teach children or undergraduates ?

I am a co-director of the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre and the technical director of the EPrints Repository software team and the EPrints Services repository hosting and consultancy company. I am Course Leader for the MSc in Web Technologies and the MSc in Web Science. I am also the manager of the ECS Computer Science Teaching labs.