Introducing Alex

Alex Shermon is a Digital Skills Trainer at MDAP helping to guide researchers through using NVivo, Omeka, and CATMA. He is pursuing a PhD at the University of Melbourne which uses qualitative methods of textual analysis to examine the form and function of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Australia. Alex is passionate about thoughtful and reflective qualitative methodologies, and integrating technology into those practices in a meaningful way.

Tell us a bit about your career trajectory so far

I started out at the Universit of Melbourne as a Students@Work intern in 2018 during my undergrad. From there, I was picked to start teaching Omeka to researchers, and started teaching NVivo in 2020, primarily online during lockdowns!

I have been balancing this with an Honours, Masters, and now a PhD at the Univeristy, alongside seasonal tutoring, research assistant, and other odd jobs around campus!

Tell us about your experience working at MDAP

I started working with MDAP in 2021 when they took on the reponsibility for the Digital Skills Training team. Despite being a casual, they have always made me feel welcome and I feel like I have learnt a lot from them over the years.

They have encouraged me to develop new training material and improve the quality of my training whilst also helping to take a lot of the pressure off the expectations I put on myself.

What are some of the solvable, difficult, or wicked problems on your horizon?

I am developing training materials for CATMA, which is a piece of textual annotation software with some neat collaborative functionality. Unfortunately, this collaborative functionality is a bit of a vulnerability when it come s to sensitive data storage, so I am currently collaborating with researchers, administrators, and developers to sort out a locally hosted solution.

In terms of my other tools, I'd love to develop some more online resources for my NVivo classes, potentially some short videos which cover FAQ's that I receive. I am also hoping to get the ball rolling on some "Shut up and code" style workshops, something that I have found they tend to have lots of reservations about!

Can you tell us about your latest adventure or next planned one outside of MDAP?

I am very excited to finish my PhD. I am hoping to submit in December. I am really happy with the quality of work that I have done.

I have been researching the form and function of pandemic conspiracy theories in Australia.

Once it's finished and submitted, I think I'll be taking some time off work on a few creative outlets, putting together some adventures for my favourite hobby, Tabletop Roleplaying Games (like Dungeons and Dragons) inspired by some of the theories that I have encountered in my research.

In the context of a rapidly evolving global environment and UoM's research strategy, what would you most like to explore, challenge, or innovate in your work in the future?

When it comes to teaching, I think that I'd love to look at how to incorporate a wider range of tools (particularly open source ones) into my tool-belt.

I think that qualitative methodologists have a unique perspective on the strengths and limitations of many new innovations, and I believe that we can develop a sensible framework for the integration of Large Language Models and AI powered search engines into our research design.

I think that the University could make a positive and significant contribution to the ethical deployment of these technologies in a research context. I think that by continuing to explore tools for qualittative analysis, I can continue to arguue for the thoughtfulness over smaller, richer datasets in an environment that is increasingly dominated by quantitative "Big Data".