Current Projects

- Emerging Databases, Emerging Diversity (ED2): National Science Foundation-funded initiative to study methods by which digital collections can be shared via systems that maintain diverse tags, ontologies, and interfaces. The collaboration involves Cambridge University's Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, and the Zuni community of New Mexico. What does digital access to ancestral objects mean to diverse communities? Moreover, how does this allow public institutions of information to negotiate deeper relationships with communities and allow knowledge to be presented through information systems that recognize multiple ontologies, perspectives and cultural conceptions?

- South Asian Web: How can a social network system be designed around the diverse, locally-specific ontologies of a diasporic community in Los Angeles? What impact would it have on the social networks of a fragmented immigrant community? And how does this system enable cultural identity and identification to be revealed in the context of different generations of immigrants? Funding received by the UC Humanities Research Institute

- Village Incubators: An ongoing project focused on two largely illiterate villages in Southern India (Andhra Pradesh) and collaborations with the Byrraju Foundation. The goal of this research is the study of the impact of video on the nature of community conceptualizations around "development". Supported by UCLA's International Institute.

- Digital Networks of Indigenous Knowledge: This research will investigate how indigenous and cultural knowledge in Central Asia can be diffused into the university setting and impact pedagogy, cultural communication, and agricultural knowledge within several universities sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation. The work will involve engaging custodians of knowledge and history to begin to engage in media-based documentation of their knowledge through such forms as video. Research shall focus on the impact of such a system on pedagogical and developmental activities within the region. Supported by The Christensen Fund.

- Other areas of exploration include: quantitative ontology modelling, public health and behavioral ICTs, digital microfinance systems, e-governance systems design and evaluation

Recently Completed Research Studies/Projects

- Tribal Peace: The focus of doctoral dissertation research: The creation of a digital media portal to connect the 18 distributed Native American reservations across the San Diego county and Northern Baja California. Tribal Peace is designed to generate engagement across the fragmented communities and serve as a living cultural archive through the sharing of knowledge and narratives.

- Village Voice: M.S thesis work with a community of Somali refugees. Village Voice is an Interactive Narrative System that connects different video pieces created by Somali community members. Village Voice creates a public space of dialogue, and confrontationfor a community emerging from a civil war, while also providing the potential for the many community to re-connect with others in refugee pockets around the world.

- Baatchit : Based in Faridabad (Haryana, India), this media system served as a community-created repository of agricultural, economic, and cultural knowledge that could be accessed by the villagers of Tikavali.

- Murray Darling Basin, Australia (Basin Bytes): Designing new media with the intention of integrating aboriginal and rural communities toward a collective goal of ecological sustainability.

Refereed Journal Publications / Chapters

Srinivasan, R. and Fish, A. "Grassroots Internet Authorship in Kyrgyzstan: Democratizing or Stratifying?", in preparation.

Srinivasan, R., and Spielberg, F. "Global Health Technology Innovation Model: Integrating Sustainable Innovations and Technologies in Community Settings", in preparation.

Srinivasan, R. and Wallack, J.S "Lost in Translation: Community Ontologies and Development Strategies", in preparation.

Srinivasan, R., Boast, R., and Furner, J. "Performative Tags: Analyzing the relative performance of expert folksonomies in Digital Museum systems", in preparation.

Srinivasan, R. “Eliciting Cultural Ontologies: A comparison between Hierarchical Clustering Methods and Participatory Design Processes.”, Information, Processing and Management, in preparation.

Srinivasan, R. “Evaluating Marginalized Community Information Services Models: A comparative study”, in preparation.

Srinivasan, R. "Diasporic Information Behavior - Applying Normative Models Cross-culturally", in preparation.

2006: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "How does one do qualitative internet research that has global relevance? : A critical response", in "Internet Inquiry: Dialogue Among Scholars." (eds. Nancy Baym and Anette Markham), in press.

2007: Shilton, K., and Srinivasan, R., "Preserving Empowered Representations: Using Archival Principles to Maintain Context for Cultural Heritage Materials " Archivaria 63.

2007: Srinivasan, R. and Pyati, A. "Diasporic Information Environments: Re-framing Information Behavior Research"., Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, in press.

2007: Mehra, B., and Srinivasan, R. "A Framework for Proactive Community Action: The New Role of the Library as a Catalyst of Social Change", Libri, 57(3).

2006: Boast, R., Bravo, M. and Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Return to Babel: Emergent diversity, digital resources,
and local knowledge", The Information Society, in press.

2006: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Where Information Society and Community Voice Intersect", The Information Society, 22(5).

2006: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Indigenous, Ethnic, and Cultural Articulations of New Media", International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(4)

2005: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Ethnomethodological Architectures - The Convergence Between an Information System and the Cultural Landscape", Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, in press

2005: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Revolutionizing Information Architectures within Learning-focused web environments" in E-learning and Virtual Science Centers (Idea Group)

2005: Srinivasan, Ramesh and Huang, Jeffrey- "Fluid Ontologies for Digital Museums", Journal of Digital Libraries special issue on Digital Museums 5(3).

2004: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Reconstituting the Urban through community-articulated digital environments", Journal of Urban Technology 11(2).

2004: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Knowledge Architectures for Cultural Narratives", Journal of Knowledge Management, 8(4).

2006: Srinivasan, R. , "The Future of Global Knowledge Collaboration", in The Swiss Development News (EZA)

2006: Srinivasan, R., and Shilton, K., "‘The South Asian Web’: An Emerging Community Information System in the South Asian Diaspora" ACM Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (2006), ACM Press (August 2006), http://pdc2006.org/.

2006: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Reinvoking Culture and Context in Digital Libraries and Museums" - In Proceedings of the Information Architecture Summit (ASIS), 4/2006 - Vancouver, Canada

2005: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Communities and Cultural Differentiation: Issues of
Ontologies, Metadata, and Knowledge Representation" - In Proceedings of 4S conference, 9/2005 - Los Angeles, CA, USA

2005: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Weaving Spatial, Digital, and Ethnographic Processes in Community-driven Media Design", Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, 6/05

2004: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Tribal Peace - Preserving the Cultural Heritage of Dispersed Native American Communities", In the Proceedings of International Conference Cultural Heritage and Informatics (ICHIM), 9/2004 - Berlin, Germany

2004: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Mediation: Indigenous Ontologies and Design" - In proceedings of the 4S EASST 9/2004 Paris, France

2004: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Creating digital places for culture and community", Extended Abstract - Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing Conference 9/2004 - Rome, Italy.

2003: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Articulating the Digital Environment via Community-Generated Ontologies", In the Proceedings of Digital Cities 9/03, (Springer-Verlag) Amsterdam

2003: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Village Voice: A methodology, interface, and evaluation of the collection of cultural heritage material", In the Proceedings of International Conference Cultural Heritage and Informatics (ICHIM), 9/2003 - Paris, France

2003: Srinivasan, Ramesh - "Village Voice: An architecture for online community exhibitions", In the Proceedings of Museums and the Web 4/03, Charlotte

2002: Srinivasan, Ramesh, "Village Voice: Expressing Narrative through Community-designed Ontologies", M.S thesis Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6/02

2001: Srinivasan, Ramesh, et. al., "PhotoGlas," In the Proceedings of Conference on Semiotics in Games and New Media 9/01, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Grants Received

The Christensen Fund - 2007/2008 - Kyrgyz Culture and Media Research - Full Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) - $50,000

The National Science Foundation - Science and Society - Full Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) - Digital Objects and Cultural Difference - $300,000

International Institute Small Research Grant - Village Incubators Research (Peer Reviewed) - UCLA - $10,000

Faculty Senate Research Award for Rural Development Research (Peer Reviewed) - $3,000

Village Incubators in Public Health – California Institute for Information Technology (Cal IT2) – 7/06 – $20,500 (Peer-Reviewed)

UC Humanities Research Institute - Full Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) - Extramural Explorations - Creating Digital Systems for the South Asian Diaspora - $20,000 - Beginning 9/06

The Christensen Foundation - Planning Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) - Creating Digital Networks of Indigenous Knowledge - $20,000 - Beginning 8/06

Faculty Senate Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) – Community Voice and ICT Development - $6000 – 9/06

International Institute Full Research Grant (Peer Reviewed) – Community Voices and ICT Developments – 9500$ - 9/06