Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of John Napier (1550-1617)

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Merchiston Tower

Merchiston Tower

Whenever I deliver an invited presentation to an international audience I like to give a little bit of background about myself, the city of Edinburgh, the city’s four universities, and my home institution: see for example slides 7-23 in the presentation that I recently gave in Brazil. For the latter I refer to the work of John Napier (1550-1617), after whom Edinburgh Napier University is named, and whose former home – Merchiston Tower – is situated on the campus where I work. Continue reading →

Reflections on a first visit to the University of São Paulo

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university of sao paulo logoLast week I was honoured to visit Brazil as a guest of the Departamento de Engenharia de Produção da Politéchnica at the University of São Paulo.

My visit was timed to coincide with a two-day research symposium that showcased the work of the University’s Laboratório de Gestão Estratégica da Tecnologia da Informação, do Conhecimento e da Inteligência Competitiva (LETICIC) on 15th and 16th March 2017. The symposium was organised by Professor Renato de Oliveira Moraes of the Departamento de Engenharia de Produção. Renato was also the main host for my visit to São Paulo. Continue reading →

Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM) project: findings

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Information Literacy group logoPeter Cruickshank, Dr Bruce Ryan and I recently completed the Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM) project. This work set out to investigate levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system. It was supported by a grant from the CILIP Information Literacy Group.

We explored how community councillors develop the skills required to inform and engage with the citizens that they represent, and how libraries support this work. In doing so have extended further two established research streams within the Centre for Social Informatics: (1) Cruickshank and Ryan’s work on digital engagement in local democracy (such as our DigiCC workshops), and (2) mine with Christine Irving on information literacy and life-long learning. This work also builds upon our group’s track record in library and information science research. Continue reading →

Knowledge sharing and networking behaviours in job search: two new papers in the latest issue of Information Research

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Information Research headerThe latest issue of  Information Research published this week includes two papers that draw on research from the Centre for Social Informatics. I was a co-author on both:

Buunk, I., Hall, H., & Smith, C.F. (2017). Tacit knowledge sharing: the determination of a methodological approach to explore the intangible. Information Research, 22(1).

Mowbray, J., Hall, H., Raeside, R., Robertson, P. (2017). The role of networking and social media tools during job search: an information behaviour perspective. Information Research, 22(1). Continue reading →

An invitation to speak about the Centre for Social Informatics in Brazil

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Next week I am travelling to Brazil at the invitation of Professor Renato de Oliveira Moraes of the University of São Paulo. While there I will make a contribution to a research symposium hosted by the Departamento de Engenharia de Produção da Politéchnica da USP.

The main aim of the symposium is to showcase the work of the University’s Laboratório de Gestão Estratégica da Tecnologia da Informação, do Conhecimento e da Inteligência Competitiva (LETICIC) (which roughly translates as the Centre for Strategic Information Technology, Knowledge Management, and Competitive Intelligence) to an audience of academics, postgraduate students, and practitioners. Continue reading →

Love your PhD #PhDates

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#PhDate logoDo (did/would) you love your PhD? Last week a number of Edinburgh Napier University PhD students celebrated Valentine’s Day by explaining why they are passionate about their doctoral research. Amongst them was one of the students that I supervise: John Mowbray. Continue reading →