All change for Dr Bruce Ryan

Dr Bruce Ryan

Dr Bruce Ryan

After 13 years at Edinburgh Napier University, Dr Bruce Ryan’s role as Senior Research Fellow has come to an end. Last Friday, I joined Bruce for a special meal to mark his last day in paid employment at the University. Amongst the other guests were our (former) colleagues Dr Peter Cruickshank, Dr David Haynes, and Dr Rachel Salzano.

I worked closely with Bruce for over a decade when we were colleagues in the Centre for Social Informatics. Of the many projects on which we collaborated, three stand out: Continue reading

A new role for Dr Iris Buunk

Dr Iris Buunk

Dr Iris Buunk

All the best to Edinburgh Napier University PhD graduate Dr Iris Buunk, who has recently taken up a new position at the Service écoles-médias (SEM), DIP Etat de Genève. Iris’ new job title is Scientific Assistant and Project Manager. In her new role as a member of staff of the Département de l’instruction publique, de la formation de la jeunesse, Iris contributes to the development of digital technology, audiovisual, and documentation services for teaching staff working in primary and secondary schools in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Iris’ new job also includes project management, research, and event organisation, as well as managing a team of around ten colleagues. Continue reading

Congratulations Dr Marina Milosheva!

Napier graduate pub Shakespeare Edinburgh

Shakespeare’s pub on Lothian Road was transformed into the Napier Graduate last week

Congratulations to Dr Marina Milosheva, whose doctoral degree was conferred in absentia at the Edinburgh Napier graduation ceremony at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh last Friday 5th July. Although Marina did not attend the ceremony in person, this day was a significant milestone in her PhD journey. This is because it is only from the date of the graduation ceremony that new PhD graduates are permitted to place the term ‘Dr’ before their names. Continue reading

All set for ECIL 2023

ECIL 2023 | European Conference on Information LiteracyThe 2023 European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL2023) takes place in Krakow, Poland this coming week from Monday 9th until Thursday 12th October. Continue reading

Community validation as a method to establish trustworthiness in qualitative LIS research: submission accepted for #asist2023

ASIST 2023 #asist2023 logo LondonCommunity validation as a method to establish trustworthiness in qualitative LIS research has been accepted for the 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology. The conference takes place in London between 27th and 31st October this year.

This contribution to the conference poster session is an output from Dr Rachel Salzano‘s doctoral study. It was co-authored by Rachel and her supervision team members: Professor Hazel Hall, Dr Gemma Webster, and Dr David Brazier. Here we evaluate a novel means to determine trustworthiness in qualitative and mixed methods research, while making reference to Rachel’s doctoral study on the adoption and use of public library services by forced migrants. Continue reading

Platform to Platform project: 2022/3 review; 2023/4 preview

RSS Diary of the war header page Lorna Lloyd

The diary of the war is available as a podcast series from https://rss.com/podcasts/lornalloyd/

The Platform to platform (P2P) project ran between February and July 2022. In that time the P2P team met its two main aims. The first was to produce a podcast series based on Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war. The second was to use this new audio version of archival content (originally made available as text and images as the LornaL Blipfoto journal between 2019 and 2021) to explore modes of audience engagement with different formats of digitised archive data sets. Continue reading

Trapped in the wrong job? Marina Milosheva offers advice in her latest contribution to ‘The Conversation’

Marina Milosheva

Marina Milosheva

What can you do when you feel like you are trapped in a job that leaves you feeling unfulfilled, or you find yourself in a role for which you are over-qualified and that does not allow you to use the full extent of your talents and skills?

Edinburgh Napier University Social Informatics PhD student Marina Milosheva addresses these questions in a new article for The Conversation entitled Why it’s so difficult to figure out what to do with your life – and three steps to take. The article is a contribution to The Conversation‘s Quarter Life series on issues that affect those in their twenties and thirties. Continue reading

A contribution to the RIVAL reunion

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

Information literacy competencies for career transitions in the digital age: book chapter now published

Pete Robertson, Hazel Hall, Marina Milosheva, Peter Cruickshank

L to R: chapter co-authors Pete Robertson, Hazel Hall, Marina Milosheva, and Peter Cruickshank

Information literacy and the digitalisation of the workplace has recently been published by Facet. I picked up my copy of the book this morning when I was on campus for a meeting with my fellow co-authors of Chapter 6: Marina Milosheva, Pete Robertson, and Peter Cruickshank (pictured above). Continue reading

An afternoon of Social Informatics lightning talks

Hazel Hall, Brian Detlor

Professors Brian Detlor & Hazel Hall

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