Do (did/would) you love your PhD? Last week a number of Edinburgh Napier University PhD students celebrated Valentine’s Day by explaining why they are passionate about their doctoral research. Amongst them was one of the students that I supervise: John Mowbray. Continue reading
Tag Archives: John Mowbray
How long does it take to write a PhD thesis?
My short answer is 68 days, but please read the detail below…

Bold resolutions: “Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com
As a PhD supervisor I have often been asked ‘How long do you think it will take me to write up my thesis?’ My answer always begins ‘It depends…’ We then continue the conversation with an audit of material already drafted that may contribute (in edited format) to the final thesis. These include the initial literature review from the first year transfer report, and posters, conference papers and journal articles presented and/or published from the on-going work. Continue reading
Watching the workers: keynote presentation at #siguse16 #asist2016
Today I’m giving the opening keynote presentation in Copenhagen at the SIG USE Information Behavior in Workplaces. This is one of a series of workshops taking place as part of the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST2016). It has been organised by the SIG/USE Symposium Chairs:
- David Allen, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
- Katriina Byström, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway
- Nicole A. Cooke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Luanne Freund , University of British Columbia, Canada
The title of my presentation is ‘Watching the workers: researching information behaviours in, and for, workplaces‘. The slides are available on SlideShare and below.
Centre for Social Informatics at #ASIST2016, Copenhagen
Next week I will be attending the 2016 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) Annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the evening of Tuesday 18th October there will be a University reception at the conference. I have created a flyer to distribute at this event with Frances Ryan (one of my PhD students, whose participation at the conference is supported by the John Campbell Trust). The flyer provides details about the Centre for Social Informatics (CSI) at Edinburgh Napier University. Continue reading
Information Seeking in Context 2016 #isic2016: reviews

A postcard and some presents, featuring (l to r) Lyndsey Jenkins, Iris Buunk, Frances Ryan, and John Mowbray
The research students from the Centre for Social Informatics who participated at Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2016 from 20th to 23rd September returned to the office this week.
As well as enthusiastic tales of the Croatia and the conference itself, Iris Buunk, Lyndsey Jenkins, John Mowbray, and Frances Ryan also brought back to Edinburgh some rather delicious goodies and a fun selfie postcard of the four of them enjoying the sunshine on the Adriatic.
All four students have now reviewed the conference and associated doctoral workshop on their blogs. To find out more, please see:
- That was ISIC by Iris Buunk
- Participation in the ISIC conference by Lyndsey Jenkins
- Post ISIC: some conference thoughts by John Mowbray
- ISIC 2016: Zadar by Frances Ryan
ISIC 2016: contributions from the Centre for Social Informatics #ISIC2016
Four PhD students from the Centre for Social Informatics – Iris Buunk, Lyndsey Jenkins, John Mowbray, and Frances Ryan – are in Zadar, Croatia this week for Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2016. Today they are taking part in the pre-conference doctoral workshop. Tomorrow they will join the conference itself, which continues until Friday. You can follow both the doctoral workshop and conference on Twitter hashtag #isic2016. Continue reading
Looking forward to Information Seeking in Context 2016 (#ISIC2016)
Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2016 takes place in Zadar, Croatia 20-23 September 2016. The programme for the conference is now available. Four research students from the Centre for Social Informatics will be making contributions at this event. They are Iris Buunk, Lyndsey Jenkins, John Mowbray, and Frances Ryan. Continue reading
Contribution to #CoLIS9, Uppsala, Sweden
Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS) is a series of international conferences that provides a broad forum for the exploration and exchange of ideas in the field of Library and Information Science, Information Studies, and related disciplines. The ninth conference, which opens today and runs until Wednesday 29th June, has been organised by the Department of ALM, Uppsala University and the Division of ALM, Lund University and takes place in Uppsala, Sweden. If you would like to follow the conference remotely over the next three days, the Twitter hashtag is #CoLIS9. Continue reading
Centre for Social Informatics success at the Edinburgh Napier University research conference 2016 #NapRes16

CSI colleagues Iris Buunk, Dr Laura Muir, Marwa Salayma (Centre for Distributed Computing, Networking and Security), Dr Tom Kane, John Mowbray, Lyndsey Jenkins, & Frances Ryan
The Centre for Social Informatics had a very successful day at Edinburgh Napier University’s 2016 Research Conference last Wednesday. We presented our work in three of the sessions: Continue reading
Social media for academic profile: a presentation to HATII at the University of Glasgow
Last Tuesday I was a guest of colleagues at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow. They invited me over to give a presentation on social media for academic profile building along the lines of previous talks that I have given on the subject. It was Dr Ian Anderson who suggested me as a speaker having attended a training session on this theme that I ran at iDocQ in 2014. Continue reading
