Centre for Social Informatics at the ‘Ways of being in a digital age’ review conference

Ways of Being in a Digital AgeThe Ways of being in a digital age review conference is currently underway at the University of Liverpool. The conference closes the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project Ways of being in a digital age. The project was commissioned by the ESRC in 2016 to help identify and prioritise future areas and methods for research on the social, economic, political, psychological and cultural impacts of digital media and technologies.

Amongst the delegates at the conference is Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Alicja Pawluczuk. At the conference Alicja is presenting a paper that she has co-authored with the members of her supervision team: Dr Gemma Webster, Dr Colin Smith and myself. The paper is entitled ‘Digital culture co-creation: capturing the social impact of small-scale community projects’. The slides are available on SlideShare and below.

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Forging a path into computing: perspectives of a PhD student on women in computing

Marwa Salayma, who is one of the PhD students in the School of Computing, recently recorded an interview about her journey from Palestine to doctoral studies at Edinburgh Napier University.

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Invitation to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2017 at Edinburgh Napier University #ALD17

Ada Lovelace Day Polly Purvis bannerTuesday 10th October is Ada Lovelace Day. Following the success of previous years (2016, 2015), Edinburgh Napier University’s Athena SWAN team, the School of Computing, and EQUATE Scotland are marking this worldwide celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and maths by hosting free workshops and a public lecture on campus on October 10th 2017. Continue reading

Centre for Social Informatics at the 18th European Conference on Knowledge Management #ECKM2017

The 18th European Conference on Knowledge Management (#ECKM2017) has been taking place in Barcelona this week at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC).

Today Iris Buunk (one of the PhD students in the Centre for Social Informatics) is presenting a co-authored paper at the conference. Entitled ‘Skills in sight: how social media affordances increase network awareness’ this work examines the extent to which social media afford new capabilities in the sharing of tacit knowledge. The slides for the paper are available on SlideShare, and below.

McMaster Library Research Symposium 2017 #lib_research17

McMaster University logoLast month I participated at a second McMaster Library Research Symposium. This was hosted along the lines of an inaugural event held on November 3rd 2015.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to renew friendships at the 2017 symposium, make new connections with academics and practitioners from a range of library settings who are interested in library and information science research, and deliver a closing paper on the main findings of the CILIP/ARA Workforce Mapping Project and the impact of this work to date (slides for which are available on SlideShare). Continue reading

Defining the UK information worker: the CILIP/ARA Workforce Mapping Project #lib_research17

Senator William McMaster, founder of McMaster University

William McMaster

Yesterday I delivered a presentation about social media research undertaken by staff and students within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University (slides available on SildeShare) at McMaster University.

Today I am returning to campus to contribute to the McMaster Library Research Symposium 2017.

At this event I will be relating the main findings of the CILIP/ARA Workforce Mapping Project completed in 2014/15, and the impact of the work to date. The slides for my presentation are available on SlideShare, and below. Continue reading

Research into social media practices and social media practices for research

Downtown Toronto

Downtown Toronto last Friday

I’m currently working in Canada, where I am a guest of McMaster University, hosted by Dr Brian Detlor.

This week, amongst other activities at McMaster, I am delivering two invited papers. The first paper, which I am presenting twice to two different audiences on Monday 14th August, is about social media research undertaken by staff and students within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University. The slides for this presentation are available on SildeShare and below.

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Athena SWAN departmental bronze awards for Edinburgh Napier University #athenaswan

Congratulations to Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Computing (SoC) and the School of Engineering and the Built Environment (SEBE), both awarded bronze awards at yesterday’s Athena SWAN awards ceremony at Imperial College, London.

Athena SWAN awards ceremony July 2017

Athena SWAN awards ceremony July 2017

Athena SWAN is the Equality Challenge Unit’s charter for gender equality in higher education and research institutes. As part of its work, the Equality Challenge Unit grants bronze, silver and gold Athena SWAN awards to recognise work undertaken to address the barriers that may impede the career progression of both students and staff in such organisations. Continue reading

Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 review #i3rgu

CSI staff Peter Cruickshank, Dr Laura Muir, Professor Hazel Hall & Visiting Professor Brian Detlor at #i3RGU

Centre for Social Informatics colleagues Peter Cruickshank, Dr Laura Muir, Professor Hazel Hall & Visiting Professor Brian Detlor gather at #i3RGU

This blog post was updated in March 2018 to include links to the full text of seven manuscripts of articles developed from nine of the papers presented by CSI staff at i3 2017. These articles will be published in the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) later in 2018.

Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 took place at Robert Gordon University at the end of last month from Tuesday June 27th until Friday June 30th 2017, with a packed programme for delegates who had travelled to Aberdeen from across the world. As in previous years, staff and research students from the Centre for Social Informatics (who didn’t have too far to travel) enjoyed participating at the event. We delivered a total of nine papers, as summarised in the table below. Continue reading