Keywords

• Human Computer Interaction (HCI / CHI)
• Human Factors
• Hypertext / Hypermedia
• Information Systems
• Web Accessibility
• Web Science
• World Wide Web

Extended Biography

I founded the Web4All Conference Series (now in its 11th Edition) and organised the first four (2004-2007 inc.) as General Chair; Steering Committee - International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility; Steering Committee - International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility; and Steering Committee - International ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia. Programme Chair for ACM ASSETS (2006); Submissions Chair for the WWW Conference (2006) and Accessibility Chair for the 2012 edition; ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals Judge (2012), General Chair for ACM Hypertext (2007) and ACM ASSETS (2008) and is also a member of the steering committee for these two conferences. I have served on the programme committees, doctoral consortium panels, and review panels for a number of international conferences including ACM HT, WWW, ISWC, ACM CHI, UIST, ACM ASSETS, and ACM SAC. I have guest edited the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia; Journal of Web Engineering; Journal of Disability and Rehabilitation, and Universal Access in the Information Society. He currently reviews for ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction, ACM Transactions on the Web, Elsevier Journal of Web Semantics, and IEEE Internet Computing.

I have delivered invited talks to Loughborough University HCI 'GuruLecture' (2013), the Technical Superior Insitute, LaSIGE, Lisbon, Portugal (2012); Informatika Fakultatea, UPV-EHU, Spain (2011); Fujitsu Labs Europe (2010); IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory (2009); and keynoted the WebMedia conference (2008). I am also a recipient of the ACM Doug Engelbart prize (2000), the ADDW IBM Research prize (2005), the Microsoft Web Accessibility Judges Award at the W4A (2008), and the Best Paper Award at W4A (2010). My last book `Web Accessibility: A Foundation for Research' has for two years ranked in the Amazon - Human Computer Interaction top 40, and in the top 10 for six months after it's publication.

Impact Ranking and Reach

Impact (circa August 2013): Metrics for my full 11 year career can be summarised as follows: Papers — 176: Citations — 1229: Years — 15: Cites/year — 81.93: Cites/paper — 6.98/2.0/0: Cites/author — 450.33: Cites/author/year — 30.02: Papers/author — 74.01: Authors/paper — 2.78/3.0/3: h-index — 19: g-index — 29: hc-index — 14: hI-index — 6.12: hI-norm — 11: hI: annual — 0.73: AWCR — 191.75: AW-index — 13.85: AWCRpA — 70.17: e-index — 18.55: hm-index — 11.08.

Ranking (circa August 2014): Both Google Scholar and Microsoft Research rank me first for Web Accessibility, in the top three for Accessibility, and in the top 0.5% for Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and WWW; while Scholarometer ranks me 38th for HCI (internationally) using their career and domain normalised hs-index measure. Further, the University rates me as REF 4* with an h-index of 20 and an i10 index of 42 (both excellent for Web Accessibility, Accessibility, and HCI). I have been successful in 15 grants since 2007 resulting in total funding over six years of 1.45 Million.

Reach (circa August 2014): Finally, ACM Bibliometrics indicate the scope and influence my work has and of the 50 papers available for download I have achieved: 

• Publication years 1999-2013
• Available for download50
• Downloads (6 Weeks)283
• Downloads (12 Months)1,959
• Downloads (cumulative)21,283
• Average downloads per article425.66
• Average citations per article4.95

Research Group(s)

• Data Science Institute
• IAM
• Information Management

Research Groups

• Information Management
• Web Ergonomics Lab

Research Identification

• ACM: http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100139139
• Google: http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=SQEdResAAAAJ
• ORC-ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9301-5049
• Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon_Harper/

Teaching

I believe that only by having a strong and leading research culture can we also ensure 'deep' and successful teaching. Not the superficial learning of facts and figures but the conveyance of a deeper understanding of the subject along with an ability and requirement for students to think. Fundamentally, I am committed to undertaking and disseminating this research based teaching and maintaining a central position in the delivery of high quality professional teaching. All my teaching are highly coupled with current thinking, and up-to-date industrial practice. Taking any of them will require a high degree of self discipline and high work through-put. This isn't intended to put you off; you'll learn a lot, and I'll teach you how its normally done in the real world (I was a consultant for seven years).

I am an experimental Computer Scientist working in Human Computer Interaction and Information Systems as well as being a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, a Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Research Lead for the Web Ergonomics Laboratory here at the University of Manchester. My particular interest is in Web Accessibility with specific regard to profound blindness and visual disability. My work is centred around building computational models of human behaviour and includes understanding, predicting, and influencing a user’s interactions and flow through interfaces and information, while taking into account neurophysiological, cognitive, behavioural, perceptual, and technological factors. In this case, my contributions lay along two paths. The first investigates ‘facilitating access and enhancing interactive Web behaviours', while the second focuses on ‘understanding, evaluating, and modifying the Web experience'.

I am Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia and the Web (2011--present); Chair of the ACM SGB Task Force on Full Inclusion; Chair -- World Wide Web Consortium (International Standards Body for the Web), Research and Development Working Group (2010--Present); and Member of the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative -- responsible for all Web accessible standards -- (2010--Present); Invited Expert -- RCUK EPSRC Digital Economy Inclusion Cluster (2009-2011); Invited Expert -- European Commission Information Society and Media Directorate-General ICT for Inclusion, eAccessibility and Assistive Technology, (2011); Invited Expert -- EU Challenge 7 ICT 2009 Coordination Action in R\&D in Accessible and Assistive ICT (Inclusive Human-Machine Interaction), External Examiner for all Computer Science Programmes at the University of Abertay; Consultant -- Fujitsu Labs Europe (2006-2010); Reviewer for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, to review for grants in Computer Science (2007-Present); Responsive Mode Panel Member for the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), 2012 -- Reviewer since 2008; Reviewer for the NWO, the Dutch National Research Council, to review for grants in Computer Science (2006-Present); Editorial Board Member of Journal of Interaction Science (Springer); Editorial Board Member of ACM Transactions in Accessible Computing (ACM); Editorial Board Member of PLoS One; Research Lead, Eclipse ACTF Project.