Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM) project: findings

Information Literacy group logoPeter Cruickshank, Dr Bruce Ryan and I recently completed the Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM) project. This work set out to investigate levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system. It was supported by a grant from the CILIP Information Literacy Group.

We explored how community councillors develop the skills required to inform and engage with the citizens that they represent, and how libraries support this work. In doing so have extended further two established research streams within the Centre for Social Informatics: (1) Cruickshank and Ryan’s work on digital engagement in local democracy (such as our DigiCC workshops), and (2) mine with Christine Irving on information literacy and life-long learning. This work also builds upon our group’s track record in library and information science research. Continue reading

Applications invited for ESRC Scottish Graduate School of Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership studentship competition 2017

Esrc_logoThe Science, Technology, Innovation, Information and Communication Studies pathway of the ESRC Scottish Graduate School of Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (SGSSS-DTP) is currently inviting applications for this year’s studentship competition.

Academic staff at each of the pathway member institutions – including those within my group at Edinburgh Napier University – would be pleased to hear from eligible candidates who would like to apply for a PhD place under this scheme. Continue reading

Generation X, personal reputation, and social media: new publication in Information Research

Information Research header

Managing and evaluating personal reputations on the basis of information shared on social media: a Generation X perspective‘ has been published this week in Information Research. I co-authored this paper with Centre for Social Informatics PhD student Frances Ryan, and colleagues Peter Cruickshank and Alistair Lawson. Continue reading

Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement: project update #IL-DEM

Information Literacy group logoThe Centre for Social Informatics is currently undertaking a project entitled Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM).  Supported by a grant from the CILIP Information Literacy Group, our work investigates levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system.

Specifically Peter Cruickshank, Dr Bruce Ryan and I are exploring how community councillors develop the skills required to inform and engage with the citizens that they represent, and how libraries support this work. In doing so we’re extending two established research streams within the Centre for Social Informatics: Cruickshank and Ryan’s work on digital engagement in local democracy (such as our DigiCC workshops), and mine with Christine Irving on information literacy and life-long learning. This work also builds upon our group’s track record in library and information science research. Continue reading

Watching the workers: keynote presentation at #siguse16 #asist2016

ASIST 2016 logoToday 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:

The title of my presentation is ‘Watching the workers: researching information behaviours in, and for, workplaces‘. The slides are available on SlideShare and below.

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Centre for Social Informatics at #ASIST2016, Copenhagen

ASIST logoNext 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

ISIC 2016: contributions from the Centre for Social Informatics #ISIC2016

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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

Centre for Social Informatics success at the Edinburgh Napier University research conference 2016 #NapRes16

Iris Buunk, Laura Muir, Marwa Salayma, Tom Kane, John Mowbray & Frances Ryan

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