Over the past couple of days I have achieved something that I would never have agreed to attempt in ‘normal’ times: I attended two PhD examinations on two different continents, 19 hours apart*. Continue reading
The Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) summer school 2021 runs this week between 14th and 21st June. The PhD students in the Centre for Social Informatics have signed up for several sessions at the summer school. In addition, on Thursday afternoon two of our students – Marina Milsoheva and Thoko Kachale – are hosting a rerun of the training event that they ran successfully in February this year. Continue reading
Workplace information literacy: measures and methodological challenges is a new paper published this week in the latest issue of the Journal of Information Literacy. Centre for Social Informatics colleagues Peter Cruickshank and Bruce Ryan are members of the team of authors who co-wrote the paper under the leadership of Professor Gunilla Widén of Åbo Akademi University. Continue reading
Following the completion of our Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) funded Research Impact Value and Library and Information Science (RIVAL) project at the end of March 2021, Dr Bruce Ryan and I are each pleased to have an opportunity to speak about this work at two different conferences this week. The first is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS) annual conference, which opened today. The second is the annual conference of the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL), which takes place on Wednesday. Continue reading
Workplace information literacy: a bridge to the development of Innovative Work Behaviour is a new paper about information-related determinants of Innovative Work Behaviour (IWB). I co-authored this paper with Dr Lyndsey Middleton, drawing on the findings of Lyndsey’s ESRC/Skills Development Scotland-funded doctoral research* completed within the Centre for Social Informatics. The paper was accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation last week. Continue reading
Dr Leo Appleton
The 13th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference (QQML2021) takes place this week from Tuesday 25th until Friday 28th May. At the conference, Dr Leo Appleton, who completed his doctoral study within the Centre for Social Informatics last year, is presenting a paper that he and I have co-authored.
Entitled ‘Using a multi-location, longitudinal focus group method to conduct qualitative research into the role of public libraries‘, the theme of our paper is the novel multi–location longitudinal focus group method that Leo adopted for the empirical phase of his PhD research on the role of UK public libraries. In his presentation slot on Tuesday, Leo will discuss the value of data collection from fifty–three participants in three rounds of focus group meetings in eight UK public library authorities. He will explain that this approach generated a rich data set for qualitative analysis. In particular, he will draw attention to the increasing level of sophistication and depth of discussion amongst the study participants over the course of the three rounds of focus group meetings. Leo will also acknowledge participant attrition as the main drawback of this approach. Continue reading
Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Rachel Salzano is currently seeking submissions for a public exhibition of art work to represent the reasons that refugees and asylum seekers use UK public library services. Rachel will be pleased to feature all types of art work in the exhibition, including, for example, photographs, paintings, collages, and 3D creations. Continue reading
We invite applications for a fully-funded PhD studentship within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University.
The studentship is entitled Enhancing labour market intelligence using machine learning. It is suitable for holders of undergraduate or Masters degrees in subjects such as Business Information Systems, Business Studies, Computing, Data Science, or Information Science, Continue reading
Over the past couple of months, my colleague Peter Cruickshank has been leading work on the development a new collaborative blog to showcase the work of our research group at Edinburgh Napier University. Continue reading
Do you know or work with adult refugees and/or asylum seekers who have lived in the UK for 5 years or fewer? If so, please could you let them know about this opportunity to contribute to an on-going research project within the Centre for Social Informatics by completing a short online questionnaire at tinyurl.com/culturepubliclibraries. Continue reading
