RGU bringing Orkney’s folklore stories to life

Dr Rachael Ironside from RGU’s School of Creative and Cultural Business, and Dr Stewart Massie from the university’s School of Computing Science and Digital Media, along with Tim Melcherson, a 3rd year computing student from Sweden, have been working with Orcadian storyteller Tom and his wife Rhonda Muir to develop a folklore trail of Orkney.

The Orkney Folklore Trail is a digital Android mobile app that includes ten ‘stops’. It is GPS based so you unlock the stories as you reach each location. The stories capture Orkney from every aspect – they are narrated by local story teller Tom Muir and accompanied by local music by Fionn McArthur, and the folklore illustrations are by local artist Bryce Wilson.

Dr Rachael Ironside, senior Lecturer and course leader on the Events Management course and has been co-ordinating the project, said the purpose of the app is to engage and educate people – visitors or locals – about Orkney folklore and the landscape it exists within.

“Many of the stories are linked to the landscape but it is also looking to see whether this kind of technology can help disperse tourists from some of the hotspots on Orkney and visit lesser known, but equally wonderful, parts of the island,” she said.

“When seasonal cruise ships reach dock at Orkney, tourists flock to well-marketed world heritage sites like the prehistoric village of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar. This can result in congestion of rural transport routes and sporadically crowd local communities.

“While residents may welcome the potential benefits of tourism, ideally the impact of this influx could be better managed by dispersing the tourists across the islands and attracting them to other equally interesting heritage and natural sites.”

Rhonda Muir, who runs Orkneyology.com, said: “Orkney has so much to offer and we are always trying to encourage people to explore lesser known places on the islands. By encouraging people to visit places, learn about Orkney’s folklore and also providing information about local services through the app, we hope to spread some of the economic benefits of mass tourism.”

The Orkney Folklore Trail project received support from RGU’s research pump priming fund and involved knowledge exchange and collaboration between the schools within the university.

Dr Stewart Massie, who is a senior research fellow working with the Smart Information Systems group in the School of Computing Science and Digital Media at RGU and who has been developing the app with Tim Melcherson, spoke about the process to create the app.

He said: “The sheer volume of information available on the web makes it difficult to find specific information at the time and place it will be useful. Targeted, location-aware applications are becoming a popular approach in information retrieval to overcoming these challenges. We also add simple gamification aspects to the app which helps make finding new information fun”

The Orkney Folklore Trail app will soon be released to the public for free. It is just one of the many projects happening on Orkney as part of The Orkney Project. RGU’s work in Orkney is truly multidisciplinary, seeing the involvement of many individuals from across the university, both from academia and the professional support departments.

Working in partnership with Orkney Islands Council (OIC), Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the local community, the Orkney Project has established a research hub in Stromness to drive and support collaboration and innovation.