Congratulations Dr John Mowbray!

Posted on November 2, 2018 by Hazel Hall

PhD graduate Dr John Mowbray with his Director of Studies Professor Hazel Hall

Congratulations to Dr John Mowbray, who was awarded his PhD at the Edinburgh Napier University graduation ceremony at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh yesterday. I was John’s Director of Studies, and his second supervisor was Professor Robert Raeside.

John’s PhD was funded by an ESRC Skills Development Scotland Collaborative studentship. Robert and I won the grant for the award through a competitive process administered by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science in spring 2014, and John came to us later in the October of that year having applied for the PhD studentship that we advertised in June 2014. Continue reading →

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

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Hazel Hall

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 →

Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: paper available on OnlineFirst

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Hazel Hall

Iris Buunk

The sixth of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. This is ‘Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: locating ‘Ba’ within a platform for public sector professionals‘ by Iris Buunk, Colin F. Smith, and Hazel Hall. It reports findings from Iris‘ doctoral study, which I supervise with Colin.

With reference to the concept of Ba (Nonaka and Konno, 1998), and based on empirical research conducted in the UK public sector, we draw two main conclusions in our article. First, online social platforms play a strong role in the facilitation of tacit knowledge sharing, and this leads to outcomes of learning, expertise sharing, problem solving, and innovating. Second, such platforms are important to the initiation of discussions among experts, the fostering of collective intelligence, and making tacit and personal knowledge visible and accessible quickly, with minimal effort. Continue reading →

Blurred reputations: new research on managing professional and private information online available on OnlineFirst

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Hazel Hall

The fifth of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. In this article the paper co-authors – Frances Ryan, Peter Cruickshank, myself and Alistair Lawson – report on some of the main findings of Frances’ doctoral study on personal reputation building and management in online environments with specific reference to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Continue reading →

Applications and applicability of Social Cognitive Theory in information science research: paper available on OnlineFirst

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Hazel Hall

Lyndsey Middleton (née Jenkins)

The fourth of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. The article is entitled ‘Applications and applicability of Social Cognitive Theory in information science research’. Its content is concerned with the origins and key concepts of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and its value to Information Science research. Particular reference is made to SCT and its applicability to, and applications in, studies of information-seeking behaviour and use, and knowledge sharing.

This work is related to the ESRC/Skills Development Scotland doctoral study of Lyndsey Middleton (née Jenkins). It extends content that Lyndsey presented as a conference paper at Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 in June last year (slides available on SlideShare). The full manuscript of the article is also available to download from the Edinburgh Napier repository. Continue reading →

UK public library roles and value: paper available on OnlineFirst

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Hazel Hall

The third of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. The article is entitled ‘UK public library roles and value: a focus group analysis‘. Part-time PhD student, and award-winning practitioner-researcher, Le o Appleton is the first author of this article. Continue reading →

Job search information behaviours: an ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers: paper available on OnlineFirst

Posted on May 10, 2018 by Hazel Hall

John Mowbray

The second of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. The article is entitled ‘Job search information behaviours: an ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers‘.

Through the analysis of a set of egocentric networks of young job-seekers, my co-authors John Mowbray, Professor Robert Raeside, Pete Robertson and I reveal the key informational role of network contacts in job-seeking as one that extends beyond the simple diffusion of information about employment opportunities.

In the article we develop some of the findings from John Mowbray‘s ESRC/Skills Development Scotland funded doctoral study that were presented as a conference paper at Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 in June last year (slides; liveblog). The full manuscript of the article is also available to download from the Edinburgh Napier repository. Continue reading →

Hazel Hall

Professor of Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier University

Tag Archives: doctorate