Information School News

The Information School has been well represented at this year's ISHIMR 2015 conference . This year's conference is taking place in York between 25 and 26 June, and focuses on the theme of "Health Informatics for Enhancing Health and Well-Being".  ISHIMR 2015 has been jointly organised by the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St. John University and the Information School, University of Sheffield. A number of staff and students have presented at the conference: PhD students Tom Poulter, Eliza Mazlan, Wasim Ahmed, Catherine Ebenezer, Jean Stevenson, Adelina Basholli and Tomi Dimitrovski MSc Health Informatics alumni Paul Warner Professor Peter Bath and Dr Julie Ellis, who are presenting a poster on the ESRC-funded 'A Shared Space and a Space for Sharing' project  More information is available on the ISHIMR 2015 website .

The Information School would like to congratulate the following members of staff on their recent achievements: Andrew Cox is now a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy . Sheila Webber has been invited to join the Steering Committee for the European Chapter of Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL) . GAPMIL is a UNESCO initiative to promote international cooperation to ensure all citizens have access to media and information competencies. Stephen Pinfield has been asked to join the new Expert Group on Science 2.0/ Open Science set up by the European University Association (EUA) . Stephen was nominated for this role by UUK following their sponsoring of his recent research project on open access, conducted with Professor Peter Bath. The Expert Group on Science 2.0/Open Science will build on and extend previous EUA’s work in the area of open access, namely the creation of a task force on open access in 2012, composed of experts repre...

Dr Jonathan Foster of the Information School will be visiting India between 28 June and 6 July 2015. His visit will cover three cities across India: Chennai - 28 June to 1 July Delhi - 2 July to 5 July Mumbai - 6 July During his time in India Jonathan will be visiting and speaking at Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan College of Engineering and Technology in Chennai, VIT University Chennai, Anna University in Chennai and NM University in Mumbai.  He will also be meeting prospective Information School students to discuss the Information School's range of courses and to allow them to find out why the Information School at the University of Sheffield is the perfect choice for their postgraduate study. To find out more about Jonathan's visit or to arrange to meet him during his time in India, please contact Rachel Hayes, Marketing and External Relations Officer, by emailing rachel.hayes@sheffield.ac.uk .

On 25 June, Dr Stephen Pinfield will speak at the LIBER Conference 2015 in London. He will deliver a paper entitled '6.3 'Open' Initiatives in Higher Education Institutions: Towards an Integrated Strategy' with Sheila Corrall from the University of Pittsburgh, and previously the Information School at the University of Sheffield. Open approaches in higher education have evolved from open source software, open access to research, and open courseware, to initiatives concerned with infrastructure and process. Open science typifies this broader conception, but can be interpreted differently by stakeholders. Open developments are gaining impetus from bottom-up movements and top-down forces, but practitioner tactics and institutional policies rarely consider openness holistically, aspiring to similar goals without seeing the benefits of a coordinated strategy. This research aims to describe what an integrated open strategy for a university could look like, addressing bo...

The Faculty of Social Sciences Digital Society Network is pleased to invite you to 'Data Power: A Digital Society Network Event' featuring talks by Mark Andrejevic and José van Dijck. The event takes place on Tuesday 23 June, 09:30 – 11:15, in Cutlers’ Hall, Church Street, S1 1HG.  This is a free event, but please register here and bring a printed copy of your registration to get in to the event.   Mark Andrejevic (Pomona College, USA) Big Data Disconnects Drawing upon ongoing interviews, this presentation explores a series of disconnects between how people think about the ways in which their data is being put to work and the discourses of data mining and predictive analytics. In particular it explores the disconnect between individual conceptions of the value of data and commercial practices of aggregation and sorting; on differing conceptions of the relevance of particular forms of data to different types of decision making; and on the disconnection between expectat...

Sheila Webber is attending the EAHIL + ICAHIS + ICLC 2015 Workshop in Edinburgh this week, delivering invited workshops on phenomenography (with Bill Johnston, Strathclyde University) and on running a journal club (with Marshall Dozier, Edinburgh University and President of EAHIL - European Association for Health Information and Libraries). Sheila also acted as a mentor in a session giving feedback on research projects.

On Thursday 2 and Friday 3 July, the Information School will be at the CILIP Conference 2015 in Liverpool.  We'll be on stand number 31 throughout the Conference and will be available to discuss our wide range of postgraduate qualifications and research opportunities.  Make sure you come and see us if you are attending the Conference! The Conference brings together professionals from across the library, information and knowledge world for two days of inspiration, debate, sharing knowledge and networking. CILIP has put together a wonderfully diverse programme of speakers and sessions, as well as giving delegates the chance to find out about the latest products and services from a range of exhibiting companies within the exhibition hall. Setting the scene for debate around liberty and personal freedoms within the emerging information environment, Shami Chakrabarti, Cory Doctorow and R.David Lankes are to head up a diverse set of keynote speakers. Chakrabarti will draw on...

On 22 May Patrick Meier visited the University of Sheffield and gave a talk on Digital Humanitarians which was hosted by the Visual Social Media Lab , the Digital Society Network and the Sheffield Institute for International Development .   Patrick’s talk focused on the use of big data and social media during humanitarian crises including the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes of recent years.  He discussed a number of key issues surrounding digital humanitarians, which is emerging as an area of cross disciplinary research.  One particularly important and topical issue is that of image verification, which resonates with an area of the Visual Social Media Lab’s work.   In society today many images get shared on social media, but why do false images get shared and how does this cause rumours to spread?  Patrick argues there is a need for impact evaluations and secondary research into images on social media – a topic which students may potentially be interes...

Join us on Tuesday 9 June for a data science seminar on "data science in government, the OR profession and Department for Education” by Madeleine Greenhalgh, Head of Data Science at the Cabinet Office, Richard Allison and Jonathan Edwards. Large and complex data is increasingly becoming more readily and cheaply available, as is the technology to collect and analyse that data. Government already holds data which is being analysed by talented analysts, but we believe that applying data science techniques to this data and using insight from new and complex data sets can allow government to improve how we create policy and deliver services. Madeleine Greenhalgh works in the central data science team in government and will describe how we are taking a practical approach to testing data science techniques as well as embedding these skills within government as a whole, particularly in the analytical professions. Richard Allison is a member of the Operational Research profession and...

On Tuesday 2 June Information School PhD student Jess Elmore will present a research seminar on 'an exploration of the information literacy experiences of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners.' ESOL learners are people who have come to the UK for work, to join family or to claim asylum, who are learning English as part of adult basic skills provision. There has to date been little exploration of their information literacy experiences. This seminar presents the first stages of doctoral research which investigates the relationship between ESOL learning and information literacy. The research will be a qualitative longitudinal case study of three community ESOL classes. The seminar will discuss the planned multi-method participatory approach and the analytical and methodological findings from the completed pilot study. The seminar takes place at 2pm in RC-231, Regent Court. All are welcome and there is no need to book.