Blaise Cronin to deliver guest lecture at Edinburgh Napier University, 24 June 2014

Blaise Cronin

Professor Blaise Cronin

Dr Blaise Cronin, Rudy Professor of Information Science, Indiana University is Visiting Professor to the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University. Next week he will be on our Merchiston campus to deliver a presentation entitled “Beethoven vs. Bieber: On the meaningfulness of (alt)metrics” (abstract below) as part of the School of Computing/Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation Tech Talk series.

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Google+ and library and information professionals: findings

Google+-logoBack in March I put out a call from this blog to fellow library and information professionals to contribute to a research project on the use of Google+. Grant Charters, one of my final year project students in 2013/14, had designed a survey to collect data for a project entitled Social platforms as business tools: An investigation into the use of Google+ by librarians for their professional development and in library and information services delivery. Grant was keen to consult with a range of professionals who work in libraries and information services to find out about their use on Google+ to support services delivery and/or for their own professional development.

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Facilitating collaboration: a doctoral defence in Sweden

An invitation to Borås

Yesterday I served as the opponent at a PhD defence at the University of Borås in Sweden. This was my second Nordic PhD examining experience this year, following my March trip to the Åbo Akademi University in the Finnish city of Turku to examine a thesis on social media and public libraries, as reported here.

Dr Ann-Sophie Axellson, Dr Monica Lassi, and Professor Louise Limberg

Dr Ann-Sophie Axellson, Dr Monica Lassi, and Professor Louise Limberg

The PhD candidate on this occasion was Monica Lassi who, until recently, has been working as a lecturer in the Swedish School of Library and Information Science. Monica’s work was supervised by Professor Louise Limberg and Dr Ann-Sofie Axelsson. The broad theme of Monica’s thesis entitled Facilitating collaboration: exploring a socio-technical approach to the design of a collaboratory for Library and Information Science is collaboration in library and information science (LIS) research. The focus is on the potential of designated online spaces – collaboratories – to facilitate and stimulate collaborative work related to the creating, sharing, use and re-use of data collection instruments such as interview guides, questionnaires and observation protocols.

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Applications invited for PhD studentship: The evolution of social networking and its impact on career management skills

IIDI logoWe are currently advertising a fully-funded PhD studentship hosted by the Centre for Social Informatics, (my research centre within the Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation) at Edinburgh Napier University. (The actual advert can be found on jobs.ac.uk and the Edinburgh Napier University vacancies web site.)

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Two events for research students in Information Science: research methods training, and iDocQ 2014

Information Science Pathway logoFrom Wednesday 25th to Friday 27th June the Information Science pathway of ESRC Scottish Graduate School of Social Science information science pathway is hosting three days of activities offered free of charge to PhD students in Information Science and related disciplines (with travel bursaries available to students registered at Scottish universities that are members of the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science).

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