An award and an appointment at ASIST in Australia #asist2019 #asist19

Last week many members of the worldwide Information Science community gathered in Melbourne, Australia for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST). I was sorry not to be there myself. This was due to my teaching commitments this semester, in particular my final year undergraduate Knowledge Management module.

Abebe Rorissa, Brian Detlor, #asist2019, #asist19, Hazel Hall, Clarivate, teacher, award

Dr Abebe Rorissa presents Dr Brian Detlor with Hazel’s ‘Outstanding Information Science Teacher’ award (Photo credit: Becky Willson)

Despite my lack of physical presence at the conference, I kept an eye on the hash-tagged tweets from the event (#asist2019; #asist19). I was particularly interested in the Twitter stream around breakfast time (in the UK) on Tuesday 22nd October when the delegates in Melbourne were sitting down for the conference dinner and awards ceremony. This was because Visiting Professor to the Centre for Social Informatics Dr Brian Detlor had kindly agreed to step up to the stage to accept the 2019 Clarivate Analytics Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award on my behalf.

The award was presented by Abebe Rorissa of the University of Albany – thank you! I should also thank Rebekah (Becky) Willson of McGill University for taking photographs during the presentation. Continue reading

Inclusivity in the delivery of teaching: from agendas to actions #TFConf17

Teaching-Fellows

The theme of Edinburgh Napier University’s 2017 Teaching Fellows Conference, (#TFConf17) is innovations in teaching and supporting student learning. I am participating in the event today as the opening keynote speaker.  My presentation slides entitled Inclusivity in the delivery of teaching: from agendas to actions are available on SlideShare and below. Continue reading

The academic year and the academic’s year (or “how I spent my summer vacation”)

An unwelcome question

Fringe ticketsAt a party recently another guest kindly asked me how I felt about “returning to work in the autumn” after my “long summer vacation”. I held my breath for a few seconds, then carefully replied that my annual leave entitlement is 27 days plus 14 fixed/public holidays. (This may be fewer than his – I didn’t ask). To get the conversation back on track, I then enthused about my fabulous two-week holiday in the far north west of Scotland in August, and the events that I managed to catch during the Edinburgh Festival and the Fringe. In response he told me about his own summer break. We were both able to enjoy this pleasant, yet insignificant, conversation ending on a happy discussion of the best British summer weather in years.

Continue reading