Information School News

As I collected my lanyard and notebook at the start of the LILAC information literacy conference, I noticed a bee theme. From a display of origami bees crafted by delegates to the logo on the cover of our conference notebooks, bees reflected this year’s Manchester setting. They also reminded me of the value of library conferences. Like bees working together, the conference allowed library and information professionals from around the world to gather and share ideas around information literacy. The sessions that addressed library teaching with diverse learners stood out to me, as one of the reasons I wanted to attend LILAC was to keep working on the inclusivity of my teaching skills. One of these was a session on ‘Dyslexia, creativity and information-seeking: how can academic librarians acknowledge neurodiversity in their information literacy teaching practice?’ by Lynne Beveridge. This session helped us to understand some of the barriers undergraduates with dyslexia encounter in thei

92 per cent of research and its real-world impact at the University of Sheffield has been rated as world-leading or internationally excellent 91 per cent of the Information School's research is rated world-leading or internationally excellent Our impact submission was rated 7th nationally The REF results are used to inform the allocation of around £2 billion per year of public funding for research The University of Sheffield’s submission to the REF included 3,684 outputs, 114 impact case studies and 1,690 staff The framework assesses the quality of our research, as well as the impact of that research beyond academia, measuring the benefits of innovative collaboration with business, industry, the public sector and civil society organisations which help to translate groundbreaking ideas into real-world solutions The University of Sheffield is today (12 May 2022) celebrating its pioneering research which is addressing some of the biggest global challenges and making a real-world impac

I recently attended a VIP Preview Evening at Bletchley Park (BP) to launch their new exhibition called The Intelligence Factory. This also included a new temporary exhibition called The Art of Data. The new exhibition narrates how the activities at BP turned data into intelligence products that were then used for tactical and strategic decision making by the likes of Churchill. However, it is presented as a factory which not only includes the innovative technologies (e.g. Colossus for codebreaking), but also the organisation and management required to do this effectively. It also shows the need for good data and information management, analytics, visualization and storytelling etc and is a great blueprint for any analytics activities in modern day organisations. David Kenyon from BP came to present at the iSchool a couple of years back on the topic, which was his early thinking about an intelligence factory that eventually helped to this new exhibition. In the Art of Data exhibition th

We are thrilled to announce that we have retained our position as Number One in the World for Library and Information Management in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022.  Speaking about the achievement, Head of School Professor Val Gillet, said:  “To be ranked as Number One in the World again is a real honour for everybody at the Information School. This reaffirms that our School is home to excellent teaching informed by our world-leading research. These rankings reflect our outstanding reputation established over six decades, our excellent reputation among employers, the high quality of our research publications and the large number of citations our papers achieve, as well as the achievements of our students and graduates.  “We strive to provide the best research and teaching environment for both our staff and students and this ranking is testament to this.” The School currently has around 30 members of academic staff, 12 administrative and technical staff and around 60 re

 Postdoctoral researcher Dr Itzelle Medina-Perea has had a piece published in The Conversation. The article is entitled 'Do contact-tracing apps have a future?' and analyses the effectiveness of contact tracing apps used at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their future. The article can can be read here .

Starting a business is inherently challenging and risky. Entering a world of experienced competitors where you have no standing or reputation means that it’s always going to be an uphill battle to gain recognition and start to be financially viable. What often makes this even harder is that the systems and processes that support businesses are largely modelled around companies that have a track record, not those just starting out. “When a startup is in its early stages - the first five years or so - it’s very difficult to have financial indicators that are above zero to show their funders that they are productive and are experiencing growth”, says Dr Efpraxia Zamani, Senior Lecturer at the Information School and one of four co-investigators engaged in research to address this problem. Dr Efpraxia Zamani With Anastasia Griva (from the National University of Ireland Galway, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme), Dr Dimosthenis Kotsopoulos and Dr Angeliki Kara