Mission

MERLin is the Multimedia Ethnographic Laboratory in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia created in 1991 by Dr. Ricki Goldman-Segall, Director of MERLin. We develop theories and tools for conducting ethnographic inquiry using digital video technologies. We are both a research and development lab.Our approach is to encourage multiple points of viewing data in order to build configurations of interpretations that overlap and layer.

Multimedia Ethnography, or Video Ethnography, is an area of exploration integrating theories and practices from:

• Visual Anthropology
• Interactive Video-Cinematography
• Epistemology, and
• Computers In Educational Settings.

Tools

Digital video analysis tools, such as Constellations, a tool first developed by Dr. Goldman-Segall as part of her doctoral dissertation from the MIT Media Lab. Tools developed by Goldman-Segall and her research team in MERLin are:

• Constellations, a stand-alone video analysis tool, available for download
• The Global Forest, a web-based environment and CD-ROm
• WebConstellations 1.0, web-based tool for video analysis
• Orion, an tool under construction for collaborative web-based knowledge building

Our approach is to encourage multiple points of viewing data in order to build configurations of interpretations that overlap and layer. Theories emerge and retreat as users layer and add their views.

Contact us

ricki.goldman-segall@ubc.ca

Room 1224
Neville Scarfe Building -- Faculty of Education
2125 Main Mall
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia
telephone (604) 822-3569