Funded Social Informatics PhD opportunities at Edinburgh Napier University: apply by 15th January 2023

If you would like to study for a PhD from October 2023, the Social Informatics Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University is currently advertising the following projects:

  1. Behaviour change for cybersecurity: Increasing awareness and reducing susceptibility – supervised by Dr JP Vargheese
  2. A new model for information literacies of community representatives – supervised by Dr Peter Cruickshank
  3. Online safety and digital literacy – supervised by Dr David Haynes
  4. Organisational learning and agile coaching – supervised by Dr Pritam Chita and Dr Peter Cruickshank
  5. Policy changes for inclusion of disabled students in HE – supervised by Dr Debbie Meharg
  6. Privacy and identity in the metaverse – supervised by Dr David Haynes
  7. Trust, risk and digital identity for digitally-unsure citizens – supervised by Dr Peter Cruickshank

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Dr Peter Cruickshank leads new collaboration with Trubshaw Cumberlege

Trubshaw logoMy Centre for Social Informatics colleague Dr Peter Cruickshank has recently won Interface funding to initiate a new research collaboration. The project partner is Trubshaw Cumberlege, a consulting firm that ‘helps forward thinking companies maximise profits by addressing social challenges at their doorsteps’.

The purpose of the project is to prototype a software-as-a service (SaaS) platform for the automation of risk assessment and management, and associated security alerts. The practical work involves the implementation of a prototype machine learning platform, and the development of underlying infrastructure. Our colleague Dr Dimitra Gkatzia, and PhD student Aleksander Bielinski will be working alongside Peter to deliver the project.

Risks of disclosing personal information online: new paper by Dr David Haynes (Napier) and Dr Lyn Robinson (City)

Congratulations to my Centre for Social Informatics colleague Dr David Haynes and his co-author Dr Lyn Robinson of City University on the ‘online first’ publication of their paper ‘Delphi study of risk to individuals who disclose personal information online’. In their paper, the authors identify four priority areas for research into personal online risk: (1) personalisation versus privacy; (2) responsibility for privacy on social networks; (3) measuring privacy risk, and (4) perceptions of powerlessness and resulting apathy. Continue reading

Two new papers by Dr David Haynes

ISKO 2020 conference proceedings coverCongratulations to my Centre for Social Informatics colleague Dr David Haynes: last week two of David‘s recent papers were published.

The first is the award-winning ISKO paperUnderstanding personal online risk to individuals via ontology development’, which I wrote about on 14th July 2020. The final version is now available from the publisher in the proceedings of the Sixteenth international 2020 ISKO conference entitled ‘Knowledge organization at the Interface. Continue reading

Dr David Haynes wins best paper award at ISKO 2020

ISKO: International Society for Knowledge OrganizationCongratulations to our Centre for Social Informatics colleague Dr David Haynes on winning the 2020 International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) best paper award.

ISKO is a scholarly organisation concerned with the theory and practice of knowledge organisation. Its membership is drawn from a range of disciplines including information science, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. Continue reading

The nature of risk in the privacy calculus: a risk ontology presented by Dr David Haynes

Dr David Haynes

Dr David Haynes presents his research

Colleagues in the Centre for Social Informatics are delighted that Dr David Haynes – currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at City University – will be joining us as a new lecturer in the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University in January 2020.

In preparation for his move to Scotland, David has spent the past few days with us in Edinburgh. As part of this visit, on Friday 30th August David delivered a research seminar on the research that he is undertaking for his postdoctoral fellowship. His project concerns the nature of online risk from the perspective of individuals. Continue reading