The School of Information Studies at the University of Glasgow is hosting a SICSA-sponsored talk on two networking grants – the Developing Research Excellence and Methords (DREaM) and Research Impact Value and Library and Information Science (RIVAL) projects – in the Kelvin Hall Glasgow at 3:00pm on Wednesday 19th February. The presentation will be followed by a discussion on the support of networking and collaboration across professional groups. All welcome!
Updated with new deadline: midday 30th April 2020
We are currently advertising a fully-funded PhD place within the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University for an October 2020 start date.
The scholarship is a Skills Development Scotland Collaborative award offered through the ESRC-funded Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS). It is for a doctoral study on natural language interfaces to support career decision-making of young people. The practical work to be undertaken for this PhD centres on the development of a dialogue system utilising existing data held by Skills Development Scotland, for young people to engage ‘in conversation’ about their career interests, aspirations, and strengths. The system to be developed is anticipated to take the form of an interactive avatar with identifiable human characteristics.
The doctoral study will supervised by staff from two research groups within the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University: (1) the Centre for Social Informatics (Professor Hazel Hall), and (2) the Nature-inspired Intelligent Systems group (Dr Dimtra Gkatzia). A third supervisor from the Social Sciences Research Group in the School of Applied Sciences completes the team (Dr Pete Robertson). Our group has a strong track record of supervising SDS collaborative studentships, with two completions to date (in 2018 and 2019) and three on-going studentships on this scheme.
This fully-funded studentship is offered full-time either as a three year programme (all spent on the doctoral project at Edinburgh Napier University), or a four year programme (one year on the MSc by Research in Science and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh, followed by the three year doctoral project at Edinburgh Napier University). The length of programme to be undertaken by the successful candidate will depend on their existing qualifications. (These ESRC studentships can also be held on a part-time basis, subject to a minimum time commitment of 50%. In practice, this means that successful candidates who undertake the part-time route are permitted to work 18.75 hours in paid employment over the course of a week.)
We are keen to receive applications from Computer Science or Software Engineering graduates (or those due to graduate in these or other relevant subjects in summer 2020), who have some experience of studying Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, or Machine Learning (e.g. as part of a module, or in a project), and have achieved (or are on target for) a 1st class or 2.1 degree. The successful candidate will be interested in developing their skills in research methods and interdisciplinary approaches to tackling research problems, and in the application of computing in the social sciences (e.g. in Education, Information Science, Psychology), as well as to the core themes of this studentship.
Full details of eligibility criteria and the application process (through GradHub) can be found on the Current studentship opportunities page of the SGSSS web site at https://www.sgsss.ac.uk/studentship/natural-language-interfaces/.
After successfully completing the SGSSS application process (i.e. submission of application documents to GradHub, successful interview in the week beginning 4th May, and studentship offer from SGSSS), the candidate to be appointed will be admitted to the PhD programme at Edinburgh Napier University.
For further information about this studentship, please contact Professor Hazel Hall (h.hall@napier.ac.uk) or Dr Dimitra Gkatzia (d.gkatzia@napier.ac.uk).
On Thursday 27th February my Centre for Social Informatics colleagues Peter Cruickshank and Dr Frances Ryan are hosting a free workshop at the Edinburgh Napier University Merchiston campus as part of the Digital identity security information practices of citizens (DISIPRAC) project. Continue reading
Dr Bruce Ryan and I have recently added new content about network members to the Research Impact Value and LIS (RIVAL) project web site. This includes:
Yesterday, on 15th January 2020, the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University held its annual New Year research conference. The format of the event included sessions on REF2021 led by Professor Ben Paechter and Professor Emma Hart, good practice in PhD supervision led by Professor Ahmed Al-Dubai, data management plans led by Dr Lindsay Ramage, research culture led by Dr Frances Ryan, and a series of short presentations on on-going research projects within the School. There were also good opportunities for networking in the breaks. Continue reading
The article ‘Networking as an information behaviour during job search: a study of active jobseekers in the Scottish youth labour market‘, which I co-authored with Dr John Mowbray (University of Glasgow), is now available as an EarlyCite paper from the Journal of Documentation.
In the paper we show that young job seekers acquire a range of networked information throughout a variety of tasks related to job search, and demonstrate the value of active networking during this process. We also highlight that the propensity for job seekers to network is contingent on a host of factors. These include the occupational level of the job role sought, motivation to find a job, and an awareness of the utility of networking as an information behaviour. Continue reading
At the Social Informatics ‘All centre’ meeting, L to R: John, Peter, Lyndsey, Katherine, Rachel, Marina, Laura, Hazel, Leo, Ella, David H, David B, Frances, Colin, Wegene, and Bruce
Every six months the staff and research students from the Social Informatics group at Edinburgh Napier University gather for an ‘All centre’ celebration of their recent achievements. The December 2019 gathering took place on Wednesday 18th December, with 19 participants. The format of the meeting allowed for a maximum 5 minute update from each person. Continue reading
