iDocQ Information Science doctoral colloquium 2016 #idocq2016: a review

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iDocQ 2016 – the sixth annual Information Science doctoral colloquium – took place on Thursday 23rd June at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. Twenty-eight delegates from Scottish and English universities enjoyed a varied programme on the day. This included:

  • Presentations: Dr Alison Brettle of the University of Salford gave a keynote speech on research evidence, and twelve of the research student delegates delivered 20×20 presentations on their doctoral research
  • Workshops: small groups discussed methodological choice, publishing strategies, time management techniques, and means of delivering research impact
  • A Q&A panel: academic staff answered questions posed anonymously by research student delegates
  • Award: a prize was given to the student judged to have made the best 20×20 presentation
  • Opportunities to network: delegates worked on creating PhD super heroes (complete with capes) in the morning ice-breaker session, enjoyed one another’s company in the breaks and at lunchtime, and several stayed on in Glasgow post-iDocQ for drinks and dinner together.

The slideshow below gives a flavour of the day.

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As ever, iDocQ was a busy and fun-filled event. Highlights for me included the extremely high quality of student 20×20 presentations. These covered the following topics:

  • Embedded librarianship in the NHS
  • Information seeking behaviours and use of adolescent learners
  • Information seeking behaviours and use of visually impaired people
  • Job seekers’ use of social media
  • Networks and knowledge flows in the space industry
  • Online information and personal reputation
  • Police use of social media
  • Public libraries
  • The role of information in polio eradication campaigns in Nigeria
  • Tacit knowledge sharing and social media
  • Workplace learning and innovation
  • Youth digital culture

Some students have posted their presentations on SlideShare, including Alicja Pawluczuk of the Centre for Social Informatics, who won the best 20×20 award for her presentation on her doctoral study on youth digital culture co-creation, posted below.

Other students from Centre for Social Informatics have also uploaded their slides to SlideShare: see the work of Iris Buunk, Lyndsey Jenkins, and Frances Ryan.

At iDocQ this year I also enjoyed learning about all the (very imaginative) super powers of the PhD super heroes (invisibility and craziness included), hearing the responses to the varied questions in the panel session (Should PhD students blog about their work? What do you do if your PhD goes horribly wrong? Did any of the panel members ever feel like giving up?), the interesting discussion in my breakout session on how to fit in publishing activity when working on the PhD, and seeing everyone learning from one another in the sessions and during the breaks. (For those interested in the theme of my breakout session, the recent post on Medium entitled ‘Thirty one things to consider when choosing which journal to submit your paper to‘ is highly relevant to our discussions at iDocQ.)

Thanks are due to those who brought everyone together for iDocQ 2016. Most of the work was done by a student committee of four: Lyndsey Jenkins of Edinburgh Napier University, and Elaine Robinson, Cathy Foster and Bader Nuwisser of Strathclyde University. The students were supported by an executive committee made up of staff from each of the ESRC Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) Information Science Pathway member departments: Professor Hazel Hall (Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier University), Dr Frank Hopfgartner (Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, Glasgow University), Dr Diane Pennington (Computer and Information Sciences, Strathclyde University), and Dr Lizzy Tait (Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University).

The organisers are grateful to the SGSSS for sponsoring the day, and to Emerald and CILIP for providing additional goodies for the delegate packs and sponsoring the student prize.

Other iDocQ delegates have also reviewed iDocQ2016:

For a real-time sense of the event (with lots of photos) also do please take a look at hashtag #iDocQ2016 on Twitter.

iDocQ2017 is expected to take place in Aberdeen in June 2017. We hope to see you there!

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