The CO:RE project aims at developing a European knowledge platform on digital technologies in the lives of children and young people (read more about us). What makes it different from other knowledge platforms in this field is that it is structured along a range of activities tailored to bring actors in academia, education and policy-making together and to foster dialogue with as many stakeholders and interest groups as possible.
The speech bubble encapsulating the “O” in the CO:RE logo emphasizes precisely that focus on dialogue, interaction and exchange. Our key principle in all our work lies in fostering dialogue and thus creating an online platform which provides evidence- and experience-based answers to your questions. All this is designed to offer maximum benefit for you and your work.
The way we imagine developing the CO:RE platform is powered by you, its users. And there are several ways to participate in this creation process. A few of them apply to all of you, regardless of your background or motivation for using CO:RE. Others are more closely related to how you use the knowledge base and resources. You probably are
a researcher or a student concerned with children and youth online media use,
a member of an interest group or policy-making institution, or
a teacher or otherwise working in education.
In the following, we would like to show some possibilities for participating and contributing to the design of the knowledge platform.
Reflecting on topics, theories and methods from different angles
If you are a researcher or a student, there are many activities you can participate in concerning different realms of research practice. CO:RE thereby focuses on four key areas in the research on children and online media:
hot topics and themes
key theories and concepts
contemporary methodological approaches
ethical guidance for research practice
In work package 4 (Key Topics), Veronika Kalmus and her team are organising regular consultations with experts and practitioners to monitor relevant thematic currents in the field of children and online media research. To report on and further explore these, the WP4 team invites researchers and other stakeholders to author a short report on selected sub-topics.
With work package 5 (Theories), Sonia Livingstone and her colleagues are hosting regular consultations, some accompanied by an online forum, to map out key theories and concepts, as well as associated critical reflections. Multidisciplinary webinars complement these activities and bring to the fore contrasting approaches to key theories and concepts amongst the variety of disciplines concerned with children and online media use.
In work package 6 (Methods), Jussi Okkonen and his team are creating a research methods workshop and are hosting a European summer school on methods in research with children and families in online environments in 2022.
With work package 7 (Ethics), the team around Elisabeth Staksrud is creating and moderating online discussion forums for researchers and students on ethical concerns in research with children and families. This forum provides space for discussion, deliberation and reflection on relevant ethical issues at play. International research workshops complement the work in this realm focusing on research integrity in research with children, ethical dilemmas in online research, and ethical dilemmas in comparative and longitudinal research with children and families.
Exchanging perspectives on emerging topics and needs for action in regulation
If you are working in policy-making, the three events organised by work package 8 may be of interest to you.
Brian O’Neill and his team are hosting an annual Policy Seminar, facilitating effective research and policy dialogue, ensuring mutual exchange and providing opportunities to inform both research and policy agendas. Additionally, the team organises Research-Industry Forums twice per year from 2020 to 2022 complemented by a youth policy forum in 2021.
Identifying blind spots on digital challenges in educational contexts
If you are an educator or teacher trainer, work package 9 is the right address for you to take part in making CO:RE a better knowledge platform.
Sabrina Vorbau and the team from European Schoolnet organise national consultations helping translate CO:RE evidence into meaningful and practical guidelines and resources for the school community, including children, teachers, parents and other professionals and carers. These consultations are followed-up by a central EU Consultation to bring together the key ideas and findings from all national consultations. In 2021, the team hosts Co-Creation Workshops to develop more effective ways to communicate empirical evidence in a school-friendly way.
As you can see, there will be numerous opportunities and events in the coming years to give you the opportunity to bring in your questions and perspectives. Together with you, we would like to develop CO:RE into an agile, well-founded, and demand-oriented knowledge platform.
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Header image by Marcos Luiz on Unsplash.
