Over the past couple of days I have achieved something that I would never have agreed to attempt in ‘normal’ times: I attended two PhD examinations on two different continents, 19 hours apart*. Continue reading
Peter Cruickshank and Dr Bruce Ryan
My Centre for Social Informatics colleagues Dr Bruce Ryan and Peter Cruickshank have recently contributed to new paper on methods for studying workplace information literacy. The manuscript is now available as a pdf download from the Edinburgh Napier repository.
Entitled ‘Workplace information literacy: measures and methodological challenges’, the work on the paper was led by Professor Gunilla Widén of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics, Information Studies at Åbo Akademi University. The other co-authors are Gunilla’s former colleague Dr Farhan Ahmad (now at the University of Turku) and Dr Shahrokh Nikou, who works alongside Gunilla at Åbo. Continue reading
The Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology 2018 (ASIST 2018) takes place this week in Vancouver, Canada. Representing the Centre for Social Informatics at the conference is PhD student Lyndsey Middleton. Lyndsey took part in the conference doctoral colloquium on Sunday, and tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10:30 Vancouver time (18:30 in the UK) she will be presenting a full paper as a contribution to the main conference programme. Continue reading
Congratulations to Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Lyndsey Middleton on the acceptance of the paper that she recently submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology 2018 (ASIST 2018). This conference takes place in Vancouver, Canada, between November 10th and 14th 2018. Continue reading
The first 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, with the option to download it as a PDF.
In the paper entitled ‘Practices of community representatives in exploiting information channels for citizen democratic engagement‘ my co-authors Peter Cruickshank and Bruce Ryan and I explore how elected (yet unpaid) community councillors in Scotland exploit information channels for democratic engagement with the citizens that they represent. Continue reading
Lyndsey Jenkins
Many congratulations to Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Lyndsey Jenkins on the award of a John Campbell Trust travel bursary.
Lyndsey will use the bursary later this year to support a visit to Turku, Finland, where she will gather case study data for her ESRC-funded doctoral study on workplace learning and innovative work behaviours. Professor Gunilla Widén, and other members of the Information Studies group at Åbo Akademi University, will host Lyndsey’s visit. Lyndsey also intends to deliver a seminar presentation on her study while she is with Gunilla’s team.
The John Campbell Trust was established as an independent charitable trust through the bequest of the late Dr John Campbell. Campbell was an early member of the Institute of Information Scientists. The trust is administered by a body of Trustees under the chairmanship of Professor Adrienne Muir (Robert Gordon University). The purpose of the Trust is to further the education and development of information professionals through grants, scholarships, research or travel awards, to enhance the knowledge and experience of the information community as a whole.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) brings together distinguished individuals from the arts, business, science and technology and academia worlds to advance learning and knowledge in Scottish public life. The breadth of the Fellowship – which includes over 1600 individuals from the UK and abroad – enables the RSE to provide a wide range of leadership and expertise.
Each year the RSE undertakes a rigorous five-stage nomination and election process to appoint around 60 new Fellows. I was delighted to learn last week that I am one of those elected in 2017. Also elected in 2017 are Val McDermid, James Naughtie, Professor Iain Stewart and Kirsty Wark. HRH The Duke of Cambridge also joins the cohort as a Royal Honorary Fellow. Continue reading
Finland experienced a fresh covering of snow last week
I have examined quite a few PhDs over the course of my career, both in English and in French, but until last week I had not had the opportunity to participate in a doctoral defence at a Nordic university. Last week I travelled to Åbo Akademi University in the Finnish city of Turku to serve as the opponent at the PhD defence of a thesis (in English) entitled Social media and public libraries: exploring information activities of library professionals and users.
Hazel Hall 