Last month, on May 25th 2023, I enjoyed the novelty of participating at a RIVAL network event not as an organiser, but as an invited speaker. Expertly coordinated by Dr Bruce Ryan and Professor Diane Pennington, the event was funded by Edinburgh Napier University with additional sponsorship from McMaster University, Canada (the keynote speaker was Professor Brian Detlor), CILIPS, and SLIC. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Brian Detlor
An afternoon of Social Informatics lightning talks
Dr Brian Detlor, Visiting Professor to the Social Informatics Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University, has been in the Edinburgh for the past week. Last Friday I was pleased to participate in one of the events organised to mark Brian’s visit: a lightening talk showcase of some the excellent research undertaken by researchers in the Social Informatics Research Group.
My own presentation was about the AHRC/Creative Informatics funded Platform to Platform project that I completed last year with Dr Bruce Ryan (PI) and Dr Iain McGregor (Co-I). This work involved the creation of a podcast series based on Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war, and an assessment audience engagement with archives in two different digital formats – (1) a Blipfoto journal of text and images, and (2) sound in podcast episodes. The slides for my presentation are available on SlideShare. Continue reading
Community-led digital literacy training: presentation open to all at Edinburgh Napier University, Monday 22nd May 2023
Dr Brian Detlor, Professor and Area Chair (Information Systems) at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Canada, and Visiting Professor to the Social Informatics Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University, will be in Scotland next month. Continue reading
Narrowing the research-practice gap: a newly published paper and the forthcoming RIVAL Reunion
‘From a network model to a model network: strategies for network development to narrow the LIS research–practice gap’ has just been published. This paper, which I co-authored with my Edinburgh Napier University colleagues Dr Bruce Ryan, Rachel Salzano, and Katherine Stephen, can be found in issue 3 of volume 79 of the Journal of Documentation, and is available as a full-text download from the publisher.
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Centre for Social Informatics ‘all centre’ meeting June 2022

Dr Peter Cruickshank, Dr David Brazier, Dr David Haynes, Dr Hazel Hall, Katherine Stephen, Dr Bruce Ryan, and Dr JP Vargheese pose for a post-meeting selfie
For the first time since 18th December 2019, this week members of my research group gathered for an end of year ‘all centre’ meeting to celebrate our recent research highlights.
Although not everyone could make it on this occasion, those who could enjoyed spending the afternoon of Wednesday 22nd June together. We took it in turns to deliver short personal updates to the rest of the group on our own research. We also read out details sent to us by email from those who could not participate in person, and gave each absent colleague a round of applause. Continue reading
Strong showing from the Centre for Social Informatics at the ASIST 24-hour Global Conference
The two-day ASIST 24-hour Global Conference opens today across all time zones. Five members of the Centre for Social Informatics (CSI) will be presenting their research completed within the Centre in four presentations as part of the the Europe/Africa programme tomorrow (27th April 2022). They are: Continue reading
Goodbye 2021, hello 2022
Edinburgh Napier University opened its doors again this morning after the Christmas break. This, however, is metaphorical reopening for me. As record numbers of Covid19 cases are reported in Scotland (and the UK as a whole), I will be continuing my research and PhD supervision activities off-campus from home. Continue reading
Farewell 2020

The way we were, December 2019. L to R: John Marshall, Peter Cruickshank, Lyndsey Middleton (now graduated with PhD), Katherine Stephen, Rachel Salzano, Marina Milosheva, Laura Muir (now retired), Hazel Hall, Leo Appleton (now graduated with PhD), Ella Taylor-Smith, David Haynes, David Brazier, Frances Ryan (now Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen), Colin Smith, Wegene Demeke, and Bruce Ryan.
Just over a year ago, on 22nd December 2019, I summarised the the previous six months of activities of the members of the Centre for Social Informatics. I illustrated this account with a jolly photograph of us all bunched closely together around the table a few days earlier in room C34a of Edinburgh Napier University’s Merchiston campus. Continue reading
Research group highlights of 2020, and hopes for 2021
This time last year on 18th December 2019, following our usual tradition, the Centre for Social Informatics staff and students marked the end of the year with an ‘All centre’ celebration of their achievements of the previous six months. This kind of get-together is completely impossible under the current pandemic restrictions. So, instead of the usual hilarity in room C34a of Napier’s Merchiston campus, during which I use my enormous egg timer to time five minute updates from everyone around the table over the course of two hours (glass of wine in hand), yesterday afternoon we gathered online for just 30 minutes of social fun. Continue reading
Newly published: version 11.2 of the Centre for Social Informatics flyer (autumn 2020)
The Centre for Social Informatics flyer (version 11.2) has just been updated for the new academic year. Follow the link to read about the work of our group, including details of research expertise, funders, recent PhD completions, and recent publications. The flyer includes profiles of the group’s academic and research staff: Continue reading
