This afternoon I will be delivering a presentation as part of the colloquia series of the iSchool and Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the University of Toronto. Continue reading
Today I’m presenting a research paper entitled ‘Creating a UK-wide network of LIS researchers’ at the library research symposium hosted by McMaster University in Canada. My invitation to speak at this event provides the first opportunity to present the initial findings from the DREaM Again project, which was completed in summer 2015. Continue reading
Today my colleagues Peter Cruickshank and Dr Bruce Ryan are hosting a workshop on digital engagement for community councillors at the Merchiston campus of Edinburgh Napier University. Peter and Bruce will draw on the findings of recent projects completed within the Centre for Social Informatics, such as the Research Councils UK Digital Economy Programme funded Hyperlocal government engagement online project, and the 2012 and 2014 surveys of Community Council Internet use, to share good practice on the development of Internet presences for community councils.
The Centre for Social Informatics has been awarded a new research grant by the Communities and Culture Network+.
My colleagues Peter Cruickshank and Dr Bruce Ryan have won funding for a study into hyperlocal government-citizen engagement. They will investigate the efforts of three neighbouring Scottish community councils in improving engagement with their citizens in both online and offline conversations. This work follows on from recent and ongoing investigations into the use of online communication by community councils: (1) a project to visualise community council locations; (2) a study of public online presences of community councils.
My co-author: Dr Louise Cooke of Loughborough University
Last year Dr Louise Cooke of Loughborough University and I worked on a research project that explored the applicability of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to Library and Information Science research. The novelty of this work was in its assessment of the value of SNA in the context of the development of researcher networks. The findings from our empirical work, which we wrote up for publication as a research paper, indicate the potential of a methodology that could be used as a replicable framework for further development of networks in other contexts.
The manuscript of our paper was accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation (JDoc) in December 2012. JDoc is one of the top international information science journals and regularly achieves the highest citation ratings in ISI for comparable titles.
This afternoon I gave an invited presentation to staff at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). The RCAHMS is Scotland’s national collection of buildings, archaeology and industry. I’d been invited to contribute to the Commission’s research seminar series not for my knowledge of history, but to share my experience of using social media to support community development. My specific remit was to distil key lessons from the AHRC-funded Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project completed in 2012, the main aim of which was to develop a formal UK-wide network of Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers. My full presentation is available on SlideShare.
Last week my colleague Alistair Duff made two broadcasts related to our research centre’s AHRC-funded InGSoC project.
Last month I blogged that the Centre for Social Informatics had been successful in winning a grant from the AHRC to be led by my colleague Dr Alistair Duff, and that soon we would be advertising two positions associated with this new project to start in May 2013 or soon after. The details of the first of these – a three year fully-funded PhD studentship in census informatics, ethics and policy – are now available.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded a grant of £200,000 to the Centre for Social Informatics for a project entitled Informing the Good Society (InGSoc) to be led by my colleague Dr Alistair Duff. Over three years Alistair and the team will address three main areas: (1) population-census informatics and ethics; (2) the future of columns and electronic “punditry”; and (3) the socio-philosophical foundations of information policy. The project aims to make contributions to our understanding of the social importance of information, and to assist in the development of sound policies.
Summer 2012 was a very busy time as I brought three projects hosted within the my research centre to a close: (1) the implementation of the Library and Information Science Research Coalition in July; (2) RiLIES2, also in July; and (3) the Developing Research Excellence and Methods project in August.
Hazel Hall 