What happens when you swap Switzerland for Scotland, a salary for a stipend, work for study, and leave the familiarity of life-long friends and family for a community of academic colleagues in a University far from home? Continue reading
Lyndsey Jenkins
Welcome to Lyndsey Jenkins who has just joined us as a new research student within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University. I am Lyndsey’s Director of Studies, with Professor Robert Raeside, Director of the Employment Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University, as second supervisor. Lyndsey’s study is entitled Enhancing the capacity for workplace learning and innovation in Scotland.
This ESRC-funded research will investigate innovation and best practice in skills development in the workplace in Scotland, drawing comparisons with the rest of the UK and other countries. Lyndsey will explore how employee-led workforce learning can be encouraged to deliver innovation that leads to competitive advantage, employment growth, and increased productivity. The aims of the work are to: Continue reading
The latest issue of Information Research is published this week. It includes the article ‘Factors, frameworks and theory: a review of the information systems literature on success factors in project management‘, which I co-authored with Dr Robert Irvine. This work is a critical evaluation of the literature on success factors in information systems projects, with a particular focus on organisational information systems development. In the article we identify four broad research themes on success factors in information systems project management. Continue reading
Earlier this year I wrote about a workshop on digital engagement for community councillors hosted by Peter Cruickshank and Dr Bruce Ryan, both of whom are my colleagues in the Centre for Social Informatics. This first event at Edinburgh Napier University was a great success, as can be seen in the blogged review of the day and the outcomes report.
Following on from this, we are running another four such events in other locations this autumn in: South Ayrshire (9th October); Moray (30th October); Angus (13th November); and the Borders (20th November). Continue reading
Welcome to Dr Laura Muir, Dr Gemma Webster, and Dr Tom Kane, who have all recently joined the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University. I am looking forward to working with them as members of my research group (the Centre for Social Informatics within the Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation), and as fellow colleagues within the Information Systems teaching group, which is led by Dr Colin Smith. Continue reading
Seven weeks of dissemination
When Leo Appleton presents the slides for our joint-authored paper on the value and impact of public library services on citizenship development at the 11th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services today, this will mark the end of a busy conference season for the staff and research students in the Centre for Social Informatics. Continue reading
Brian Detlor
The Centre for Social Informatics is currently hosting a visit of Dr Brian Detlor of McMaster University. Yesterday Brian gave a talk on his research and involvement with the Love your city, share your stories (LYCSYS) digital storytelling initiative in Hamilton, Canada. This initiative is led by the Hamilton Public Library, McMaster University Library, and the City of Hamilton.
Brian explained how LYCSYS involves the capture and dissemination of digital stories from Hamilton citizens. The stories relate to significant cultural and historical icons in a wide variety of digital formats, and the use of library resources (for example, photographs, geo-coded digital maps, archival material) to enrich and support the digital stories produced. The initiative is viewed as a critical community-based mechanism by which to promote the City of Hamilton’s cultural identity, and to contribute to the preservation of Hamilton’s history. Continue reading
Since the end of May my colleague Dr Bruce Ryan and I have been investigating the long-term impact of the AHRC-funded DREaM project (for which I was Principal Investigator in 2011 and 2012), and the forms that such impact has taken.
As part of this work we have been considering what ‘impact’ means in the context of library and information science (LIS), and how this relates to conceptions of the term in other domains where there is a perceived research-practice gap, such as policing, social work and nursing. This first part of the study has been based on an analysis of the extant literature. We intend to write this up as a review paper.
Dr Hannah Rudman and Dr Louise Rasmussen in their graduation robes
Congratulations to Louise Rasmussen and Hannah Rudman who were awarded their PhDs at the Edinburgh Napier University graduation ceremony at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh today.
An invitation
On Thursday 16th July 2015 the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University is hosting a seminar led by Dr Brian Detlor on digital storytelling and libraries.
Hazel Hall 