Prof Ifan Shepherd

I am Professor of GeoBusiness at Middlesex University Business School, where I research and teach personal branding, electronic marketing and geodemographics. I am Director of the Business School's professional practice programmes (including the DBA, DProf, DProf by Public Works, and MProf), and I am heavily involved in a major FP7 R&D project (CRISIS), involving 11 European partners, which is developing interactive training simulations for emergency managers based on 3D videogame technology.

The early part of my career was spent in a geography department, where I first developed an interest in the application of ICT to spatial and educational applications. This led, via diversions into computer graphics, remote sensing and data visualization, to my current interest in the application of videogame technology to geographical information management and analysis, business data visualization, teaching and learning, and the development of interactive training simulations. (These have profited enormously from a fruitful partnership with my son, who is a videogame programmer at Valve Software, a large computer game company based in the USA.)

I have been involved in numerous government-funded research projects, both nationally and internationally. These have led to the publication of books on the application of ICT in teaching and learning, the development of technological support for students with visual disabilities, and the transfer of learning. I have also undertaken numerous paid consultancies in both the public and private sectors. Recent publications include papers and book chapters on the problems of 3D data visualization, the transfer of curricula between subject domains, the convergence of videogame and GIS technology, fidelity in virtual training environments, and the transfer of videogame interfaces to virtual geographical environments. I am also currently completing research into personal branding in a corporate context, time use among students, and ad truthfulness.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) Geography, University College London, 1966
• CITP (Chartered IT Professional), British Computer Society, 2004

Publications:

Authored Books:

• 2007 Five Easy Pieces: reconsidering key skills in higher education (in press).
• 2005 Supporting the Inclusive Curriculum: learning and teaching with visually disabled students (HEFCE and GDN).
• 2001 "Don't shoot the messenger" - an evaluation of the transition from HARMONI to NHS Direct in West London, (with A. Mark), (London: Middlesex University Press).
• 2000 Key Skills: Teaching and Learning for Transfer (London: DfEE; Cheltenham: Geography Discipline Network)

Articles and Chapters in Edited Books:

• 2009 Videogames: the new GIS?, (with I. D. Bleasdale-Shepherd), in: H. Lin & M. Batty (eds) Virtual Geographic Environments, chapter 22. pp.311-344 (Science Press).
• 2008 Travails in the third dimension: a critical evaluation of three-dimensional geographical visualization, in: M. Dodge, M. McDerby & M. Turner (eds) Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications , Chapter 10, pp.199-222 (John Wiley).
• 2002 Internet marketing research, in: P. Baines and B. Chansarkar (eds) Introducing Marketing Research, pp.225-243 (chapter 11) (John Wiley and Sons).
• 2000 Mapping the poor in late-Victorian London: a multi-scale approach, in: J. Bradshaw and R. Sainsbury (eds) Getting the Measure of Poverty: the early legacy of Seebohm Rowntree (Aldershot: Ashgate).

Refereed Articles in Academic Journals:

• 2010 Integration of GIS and RADARSAT SAR data using a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) network as compensation for realtime ground data in automatic image classification (with M. M. Kamal & P. J. Passmore), Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, 4.
• 2010 The design-by-adaptation approach to universal access: learning from videogame technology (with I. D. Bleasdale-Shepherd), Universal Access in Information Society, 10(3), pp.1-18.
• 2009 'Culture' and 'communication' in intercultural communication (with Alan Durant), European Journal of English Studies, 13(2), pp.147-162.2009 From Geography Department to Business School: strategies for transplanting GIS courses between disciplines, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 33(Suppl.), pp.1-18.
• 2008 The Application of Marketing Thinking to Student Retention, Planet, No.19, pp.26-31.
• 2005 From cattle and Coke to Charlie: meeting the challenge of self marketing and personal branding, Journal of Marketing Management, 21(5-6), pp.589-606
• 2004 Religious Marketing: reflections from the other side of politics, Journal of Public Affairs, 4(3), pp.317S-341S.
• 2004 NHS Direct: managing demand for primary care? (with A. Mark), International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 19(1), pp.79-91.
• 2003 How has NHS Direct changed primary care provision?, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 9(1), pp.57-59.
• 2002 It's only a Game: using interactive graphics middleware to visualise historical data, Society of Cartographers Bulletin, 36(2), pp.51-55.
• 2000 Can we develop transferability in skills?, Capability, 4(3), pp.15-19.
• 2000 Internationalising Geography in Higher Education: towards a conceptual framework, (with J. Monk & J. Fortjuin), Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 23(3), 285-298.

Refereed and Published Conference Proceedings:

• 2010 The many faces of realism, paper presented at the NordiCHI 2010 conference, Reykjavik, Iceland; 16 October 2010.
• 2009 Experiential Engagement with VGEs: What can we learn from videogames?, (with I. D. Bleasdale-Shepherd). Paper presented at the ISDE 6th International Symposium on Digital Earth, Beijing, September.
• 2009 Ludic Cartography: what can videogames teach us about maps?, Paper presented at the annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society, Manchester, August.
• 2008 Rethinking Consumer Loyalty: the challenge of complex services, Presented at the 22nd International Service Conference and Workshop, London.
• 2008 Towards effective interaction in 3D data visualizations: What can we learn from videogames technology? (with I. D. Bleasdale-Shepherd), Paper presented at international conference on: Virtual Geographic Environments, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• 2008 Multi-sensory data representation in virtual worlds: abstraction or pragmatism? (with I. D. Bleasdale-Shepherd), Presented at international conference on: Virtual Geographic Environments, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• 2007 The Enemy Within: Do personal brands threaten corporate brands? Presented at the international conference: Intangible Economies: Brand, Corporate Image, Identity & Reputation in the 21st Century, Brunel University.
• 2006 A brief history of the future in advertising, Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Conference, Middlesex University, July.
• 2005 From cattle and Coke to Charlie: meeting the challenge of self marketing and personal branding, Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Conference, Dublin Institute of Technology, July.
• 2003 Religious Marketing: reflections form the other side of politics, Proceedings of the Political Marketing Conference, London, September.
• 2003 Transfer: the missing ingredient in employability, Delivering Employability: The Diversity of Approaches in Higher Education Conference, University of Central Lancashire, 9 April 2003.
• 2003 How has NHS Direct changed primary care provision?, (with A. Mark), TeleMed '03, International Conference on Telemedicine and Telecare, The Royal Society of Medicine, London, 29-30 January.

Other Refereed and/or Non-Published Conference Contributions:

• 2011 The Development of the First British Cadastre: Towards an Evolutionary Model (with Steve Chilton), Keynote lecture, The Charles Close Society Annual Conference, 7 May 2011, Kingston upon Thames.
• 2010 Staff Carriers and Bean Counters: Data from the margins of the first edition OS 6-inch maps (with Steve Chilton), Map Curators Group Workshop, 8 September 2010, University of Cambridge.
• 200611 Travails in the third dimension: a critical review of 3D computer graphics in geographic data visualisation, paper presented at JISC conference on 'Geographic Visualisation across the Social Sciences', University of Manchester, 12-13 June 2006.
• 2005 Teaching and learning GIS in a Business School, The Place of GIS in the Curriculum, University of Leicester, 11-12 May 2005.
• 2003 What can relationship marketing learn from religion?, ESRC Relationship Marketing Seminar, 12 December 2003.
• 2003 Booth's Map of London, Historical Association invited lecture, Bath, 25 September 2003.
• 2003 Visualising Nineteenth Century Family Data, Use of GIS to understand socio-demographic and economic change, Conference, University of Manchester, 27 June 2003.
• 2002 Booth's Map of London, Historical Association Lecture Series, Bromley, Kent, 12 December 2002.
• 2002 (Re-)Creating Charles Booth's Poverty Mapping of Late Nineteenth Century London, Society of Cartographers Annual Conference, University of Liverpool, 2-5 September 2002.
• 2002 Problems and Possibilities in the Research of NHS Direct, Second NHS Direct Conference, Guy's, King's and St Thomas's School of Medicine, 11 January 2002.

Grants and Awards:

• 2010 Major consortium funding to research and develop interactive training simulations for emergency managers (CRitical Incident management training System using an Interactive Simulation environment) (with 11 European partners), FP7 EC grant (No. FP7-242474).
• 2009 Small grant to investigate applicable learning across the univerity (with Jeff Evans), Middlesex University Development Fund.
• 2005 Small grant to investigate surprise shopping (with Paul Garneau). Funding Body: Business School Research Committee.
• 2002 Grant to develop an inclusive curriculum for disabled students, under the HEFCE funding programme: 'Improving Provision for Disabled Students' (member of GDN consortium drawn from 7 universities). Funding Body: HEFCE.

Professional Memberships:

• British Computer Society (BCS)
• Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) (RGS)
• Geographical Association (GA)
• Remote Sensing and Photogrammetric Society (RSPSoc)
• Computer Education Society (CES)
• National Steering Committee, TLTP Development Group for Geography
• Higher Education Study Group, Royal Geographical Society (with the IBG)
• National Steering Committee, Geography Discipline Network (GDN)
• National Steering Committee, Geography in Education Network for Empowerment (GENE)
• Organising Committee, Higher Education Study Group (RGS-IBG)
• Geographical Association IT Working Group (corresponding member).

Editorships:

• Founding member, joint-editor and editorial board member of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education
• Member of editorial board: Middlesex Journal of Educational Technology
• Reviewer for various journals: Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Direct Marketing, Society of Cartographers Bulletin, etc.

Languages Spoken

English