Altmetrics: achieving and measuring success in communicating research in the digital age

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Tracking scholarly digital footprints

Like many I communicate my scholarly research over multiple platforms in a range of activities that have now become routine for research-active academics. These include, for example:

Screen shot of Hazel Hall's About.me page

Screenshot of link listings on Hazel Hall’s About.me page

maintaining a personal archive of my publications, presentations and research reports – accessible through the publications and presentations tab on this web site
uploading papers to open access repositories – mine go to the Edinburgh Napier repository, and are also listed with links from the web pages of the Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation
uploading videos of conference presentations – see for example the output from the AHRC-funded DREaM project in 2011-12 on the Library and Information Science Research Coalition Vimeo account
sharing PowerPoint presentations – I maintain a SlideShare account
blogging about research – here at hazelhall.org, and between 2009-2012 at http://lisresearch.org
submitting papers to open access journals – I have submitted, for example, to Library and Information Research and Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
tweeting links to my work – as @hazelh

Continue reading →

New IAESTE summer intern Dushko Stanoeski joins the Connect team

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Tracey Binnie, Dushko Stanoeski, Cheryl Cairns

Dushko with his summer 2013 colleagues Tracey Binnie (L) and Cheryl Cairns (R)

Dushko Stanoeski joined us this week at Edinburgh Napier University to help complete a summer project.

Dushko is a final year student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia where he specialises in Informatics and Computer Engineering.

Continue reading →

Congratulations Dr Robert Irvine

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Dr Robert Irvine

Many congratulations to Dr Robert Irvine, who graduated with his PhD from Edinburgh Napier University on Wednesday at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.

I co-supervised Robert’s doctoral study entitled Success factors for organisational information systems development projects: a Scottish suppliers’ perspective.

The starting point for Robert’s work was the acknowledgement that organisational information systems development (OISD) projects have long been associated with failure, and the cost of these failures is enormous. Yet, despite numerous previous studies, understanding of real-world projects is limited. In particular, Robert identified that little was known about the way in which various factors affect the success of OISD projects. In addition, Robert’s work concluded that earlier research has generally tended to focus on OISD projects from an in-house or client perspective, with the views of the supplier largely ignored.

Continue reading →

Summer Reading Challenge 2013 Scotland launch

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Last week I was delighted to be invited along to the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish launch of the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge.

In Scotland the Summer Reading Challenge is delivered in partnership by the Reading Agency and the Scottish public library service across twenty-nine of its thirty-two local authorities. For the third year Tesco Bank is the sponsor of the Challenge. In 2013 the project partners hope to support 40,000 children engage in reading activities around the theme of “Creepy House”. The launch itself was hosted by Fiona McLeod MSP. Fiona herself is a Chartered Librarian and currently serves as the chair of the Scottish Library and Information Council.

Continue reading →

Applications sought for funded PhD place within the Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Hazel Hall

The Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation (IIDI) is currently advertising a funded PhD place to start in September 2013. The full advertisement can be found at at jobs.ac.uk and on the Edinburgh Napier University vacancies web site. There is also an associated item about the vacancy on the IIDI news feed. The closing date for applications is Monday 1st July 2013, with interviews expected to take place on Wednesday 24th July 2013.

Continue reading →

Social media in the heritage sector: Edinburgh Napier prize-winning student project

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Patrick Notz

At the exam boards this week it was announced that one of the projects that I supervised in 2012/13 has won the Institute of Informatics and Digital Innovation award for knowledge exchange.

The winning work examined the application of social media in the heritage sector, drawing on a case study of social media practice at the National Museum of Scotland. It was completed by final year undergraduate student Patrick Notz.

Continue reading →

Registrations open for iDocQ 2013, Monday 24th June, Aberdeen

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Hazel Hall

idocq_banner Since 2011 the partner universities of the ESRC Scottish Graduate School of Social Science information science pathway have hosted an annual doctoral colloquium. This is aimed at students studying for PhDs in information science and other related disciplines. This year’s event takes place on Monday 24th June at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and registrations for the day are now open. The event is suitable for doctoral students at all stages of their studies. Registration is free to UK students. International students can also attend for a small fee: if you are an international student who would like to attend please e-mail me at h.hall@napier.ac.uk for details.

Continue reading →

Sharing the DREaM blueprint: lessons in community network building from the DREaM project

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Hazel Hall

This afternoon I gave an invited presentation to staff at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). The RCAHMS is Scotland’s national collection of buildings, archaeology and industry. I’d been invited to contribute to the Commission’s research seminar series not for my knowledge of history, but to share my experience of using social media to support community development. My specific remit was to distil key lessons from the AHRC-funded Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project completed in 2012, the main aim of which was to develop a formal UK-wide network of Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers. My full presentation is available on SlideShare.

Continue reading →

Fingers crossed for Aga and Tracey at the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Hazel Hall

Aga’s poster describes work for the Acquisition for VFX module

Today two Edinburgh Napier computing students are competing for an award at a BCS event at the University of Nottingham.

Two months ago in February 2013 Aga Banach and Tracey Binney responded to a call for students to submit a 250 word abstract for a poster presentation at the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium.

The colloquium is the UK’s main event for women undergraduate students of computing. Now in its 6th year, the day features talks from industry and academia, a panel-based careers session, stalls from employers, and lots of networking opportunities.

Continue reading →

Training provision for the library, information and knowledge sector: invitation to contribute to research project

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Hazel Hall

This is a call to fellow library, information and knowledge professionals to contribute to a research project by completing a short survey on training needs. If you work in the library, information and knowledge sector, please read on to learn more about the project and how you can contribute to it.

The survey is one of the data collection tools for the project Training provision for the library, information and knowledge sector. This work has been commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).

Continue reading →