Charlene Jennett

• Research Interests
• External Activities
• Internal Activities
• Teaching Students
• Current Project
• Previous Projects
• Articles in Popular Media
• Brief biography
• Research Publications

Research Interests

I'm interested in understanding how novel technologies and games stimulate positive experiences and learning. Currently I'm researching users' experiences of online citizen science projects - where volunteers (citizen scientists) collaborate with professional scientists to conduct scientific research. I enjoy using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including interviews, questionnaires, eye-tracking.

External Activities

• Co-chair for CHI Play Student Game Design Competition 2015 and 2016
• Reviewer for various conferences and journals since 2010, including ACM CHI conference series, CHI Play, CogSci, Entertainment Computing, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Journal of Science Communication

Internal Activities

• PALS Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team member since 2015
• PALS Green Impact Team member since 2015
• STEM placement supervisor for in2scienceUK, 2014 and 2016

Teaching Students

• UCLIC MSc Human-Computer Interaction project supervisor since 2011
• UCL BSc Psychology mini-project supervisor (2nd year students) since 2009
• UCL BSc Psychology seminar tutor (1st years) since 2015

Current Project

• Open3D: Collaborative Editing for 3D Virtual Worlds (EPSRC). This project started in June 2015 and will run for 36 months. I will be leading research evaluating user's experiences of the Open3D platform.

Previous Projects

• Citizen Cyberlab: Technology Enhanced Creative Learning in the field of Citizen Cyberscience (EU FP7). The project started in October 2012 and ran for 3 years. I led research evaluating the usability of citizen science platforms, exploring people's motivations for participation, and their experiences of creativity and learning.
• TARGET: Transformative, Adaptive, Responsive and enGaging EnvironmenT (EU FP7). The project started in 2009 and ran for 3 years. I joined the project in 2011 and led research evaluating the usability and learning effects of a serious game.
• PVNets: Privacy Value Networks (EPSRC). The project started in 2008 and ran for 3 years. I joined the project in 2010, researching different ways that people value their personal data.
• SOLID project (TSB). The project started October 2009 and ran for 6 months. I joined the project as a research assistant, testing the usability of their new security system.
• Immersion in Video Games (EPSRC studentship). I started my PhD research in 2006 and finished in 2009 (viva in 2010), investigating people's immersive experiences playing video games.

Articles in Popular Media

• article in The Conversation: "Bored during the Christmas break? Get creative with Citizen Science" (Dec 2017)
• article in The Conversation: "The gamer in your life isn't ignoring you, they're blind to your presence" (June 2014)
• article in The Conversation: "Is sending shoppers ads by Bluetooth just a bit creepy?" (Oct 2014)

Brief biography

I grew up in Hackney, East London. After studying Psychology A-level at Hackney Community College (2001-2003) I decided to continue my studies at university. I started my journey at UCL as a BSc Psychology student (2003-2006), where I first found out about Human-Computer Interaction research.

I joined UCLIC in the Summer of 2006, first as a research assistant, and then as a PhD student. My PhD supervisors were Dr Anna L. Cox and Dr Paul Cairns. During my PhD I investigated players' experiences of immersion in video games. Notably we developed the Immersive Experience Questionnaire (IEQ; Jennett et al., 2008) which has received over 800 citations to date.

After my PhD I joined the UCL Information Security group in October 2009, led by Prof. Angela Sasse. I worked on 3 projects (SOLID, PVNets, TARGET), investigating how privacy and trust issues can affect a person's experience of a security system, online services, and a serious game. In 2012 our conference paper "Too close for comfort" (Malheiros et al., 2012) was awarded a CHI honourable mention.

In October 2012, I returned to UCLIC to work on the Citizen Cyberlab project with Dr Anna L. Cox. This project allowed me to combine my interests of technology, games and learning, as I investigated people's experiences of citizen science apps and games. Recently our journal paper "Motivations, Learning and Creativity in Online Citizen Science" was published in the Journal of Science Communication (Jennett et al., 2016). In my current project, Open3D, I continue to investigate people's motivations and experiences of taking part in online citizen science projects.