Contributions from the Centre for Social Informatics to #ISIC2018

#ISIC2018 logo Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2018 takes place in Kraków, Poland, this coming week from 9th to 11th October 2018. Representing Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Social Informatics at the conference will be third year PhD students Alicja Pawluczuk and Lyndsey Middleton (née Jenkins). Continue reading

Congratulations to Associate Professor Dr Colin F Smith

Dr Colin F Smith, Edinburgh Napier University

Colin Smith

Congratulations to Dr Colin F Smith on his recent promotion to the post of Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University.

Colin is a member of the Centre for Social Informatics. His research interests include the role of the Internet for political parties in contemporary democratic practices, digital delivery platforms for public services, and the use of new technology by parliamentarians.

Colin also supervises the doctoral work of three of the PhD students in our group: Najla Almari on interactive education for female students in Saudi Arabi; Iris Buunk on tacit knowledge sharing supported by online social platforms;  and Alicija Pawluczuk on the social impact of digital youth projects.

Successful submissions to #isic2018 for the Centre for Social Informatics

#ISIC2018 logoCongratulations to Alicja Pawluczuk and Lyndsey Middleton (née Jenkins) on the recent news that the conference submissions that they made in March this year to Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2018 have been accepted. The conference takes place in Kraków, Poland, 9-11 October 2018. Continue reading

Measuring the social impact of digital youth participation: new paper available on OnlineFirst

The seventh (and final) article that I recently co-authored for publication in the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. Entitled ‘Youth digital participation: measuring social impact‘, the content of the article concerns scholarly debate around digital participatory youth projects, and approaches to their evaluation. My co-authors Alicja Pawluczuk, Colin F Smith, Gemma Webster and I reveal (1) an over-reliance on traditional evaluation techniques for such initiatives, and (2) a scarcity of models for the assessment of the social impact of digital participatory youth projects. Continue reading

Register now for iDocQ 2018, Thursday 3rd May, Edinburgh #iDocQ2018

iDocQ2018_bannerEstablished in 2011, iDocQ is the longest-running UK colloquium for doctoral students in Information Science and related subjects. iDocQ takes place this year in Edinburgh at Edinburgh Napier University on Thursday 3rd May 2018. All PhD students in Information Science and related subjects are invited to register (free of charge) for an exciting programme that includes opportunities for them to: Continue reading

Alicja Pawluczuk presents at Transmedia Literacy International 2018 #Transliteracy2018

Alicja Pawluczuk presents her slides (Photo credit Angélica Elisa)

Transmedia Literacy International 2018 is currently taking place in Barcelona, Spain. This afternoon at the conference, Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Alicja Pawluczuk presented a paper (co-authored with her supervisors Dr Colin Smith, Dr Gemma Webster and Professor Hazel Hall) on perceptions of social impact held by youth workers, and processes for the evaluation of digital youth projects. Continue reading

Seven JoLIS paper acceptances for CSI #i3rgu

File:Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.jpgLast summer members of the Centre for Social Informatics delivered nine papers at Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017. Following the conference, we were given the opportunity to develop this work into submissions for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS). We took up this offer by working seven of the nine conference papers up to full journal article manuscripts. These were all submitted by the deadline of September 30th 2017. Following peer review and revisions all seven were accepted, and they will be published in JoLIS in due course. The manuscripts for all accepted articles have now been added to the Edinburgh Napier repository, and can be downloaded by clicking the article titles below. Continue reading

Social impact evaluations of digital youth work: paper acceptance at Transmedia Literacy International #TransmediaLiteracy

Congratulations to Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Alicja Pawluczuk on the acceptance of the paper that she recently submitted to Transmedia Literacy International 2018. This conference takes place in Barcelona, Spain next month between 22nd and 24th March.

The paper, which Alicja co-authored with her PhD supervisors Dr Colin Smith, Dr Gemma Webster and Professor Hazel Hall, is entitled ‘Social impact evaluations of digital youth work: tensions between vision and reality‘. Its content is concerned with the perceptions of social impact held by youth workers, and processes for the evaluation of digital youth projects. The conference programme shows that Alicja will present this work in the ‘Methodologies and interventions’ session on Friday 23rd March between 14:00 and 16:00 Spanish time. Continue reading

Save the date for iDocQ8 – Thursday 3rd May 2018, Edinburgh

iDocQ8 2018 banneriDocQ will take place this year in Edinburgh on Thursday 3rd May 2018. Established in 2011, iDocQ is the longest running UK colloquium for doctoral students in Information Science and related subjects. Continue reading

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.

  Continue reading