Information School News

Lecturer in Information Management Dr Jonathan Foster responds to the recent news story about the historic 'Right to be Forgotten' ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in favour of search engine giant Google. The Ruling by the European Court of Justice earlier this week raises two important issues. First the issue of how democratic societies strike a balance between the privacy rights of the individual on the one hand, and the public interest on the other. Second, the limits of legal jurisdiction and of institutional obligation. The ‘Right to be Forgotten’ - or ‘Right to Erasure’ as it is now known - is a provision under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This provision provides individuals with the right to request organisations, search engine operators for example, to remove specific personally-identifying information about them. A number of reasons can be given by the user to justify their request: that processing of the data is no longer nec...

Dr Jonathan Foster, Lecturer in Information Management and Programme Coordinator for the MSc Information Management, recently received his Teaching and Excellence in the Social Sciences (TESS) award from the University's Faceulty of Social Sciences. 'It was wonderful experience to receive the TESS award, in recognition of the Deliberation Day that we hold annually during Induction Week', says Dr Foster. 'The aim of the event is provide an enabling context for new students - many of whom are international - to experience a setting where dialogue and the revision of views - rather than their dogmatic reception - becomes a distinct possibility.' Dr Foster received his award, along with other colleagues from across the Faculty, at a reception in the ICOSS building at the University. During his acceptance speech he elaborated more on the influences he drew from for the Deliberation Day event. 'I believe that a democratic approach to learning and teaching is ne...

Small-scale and localised innovation is increasingly seen as an important part of the activites of marginal producers in the Global South. Yet, given that such innovation is often difficult to identify and measure, it has rarely been explored as part of evidence-based policy. A recently post on the Sheffield Institute of International Development (SIID) blog by Information School Lecturer Dr Chris Foster looks to explore how we might start to quantify and build evidence-based research on such activities. It is based on research undertaken with Kenyan horticulture farmers. This blog accompanies a recently released paper on this topic written by Chris alongside ODI economist Aarti Krishnan.

Last week saw the release of the UNCTAD Information Economy Report for 2017. This is a flagship report that is distributed amongst policy makers globally and often sets the agenda for policy around ICT and digital in developing countries. This years' focus is on ‘Digitalization, Trade and Development’.                        Information School lecturer Christopher Foster has been closely involved in this years report, contributing to chapters which explore the practical and policy implications of digitalisation in small firms. This work, which draws on his research examines the current state of digitalisation within small exporting firms and some of the potential gains and challenges related to digital exclusion, platforms and automation. His background paper on the topic " Digitalisation and Trade: What Hope for Lower Income Countries? " is now available. The wider Information Economy Report provides an extensive outlin...

David Walsh, a part-time PhD student at the Information School (also works as a Senior Lecturer at Edge Hill University) has won second prize for Best Paper at the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2017 (TPDL'17)  in Thessaloniki, Greece. David's paper explored categories of visitor to the National Liverpool Museums website via a large-scale museum user survey in which data on a wide range of user characteristics was collected to provide well founded definitions for the user group's motivations, tasks, engagement, and domain knowledge. The results highlighted that the general public and non-professional users make up the majority of users and allow us to clearly define these two groups. David is supervised by Paul Clough and Jonathan Foster from Sheffield and Mark Hall from Edge Hill. Walsh D., Hall M., Clough P., Foster J. (2017) The Ghost in the Museum Website: Investigating the General Public’s Interactions with Museum Websites....

Information School lecturer Chris Foster recently published a new post on the SPERI comment blog entitled " The balancing act of Brexit and digital trade " As the UK leaves the EU it risks a potential ‘digital cliff-edge’. How it navigates its way through global tensions around digital trade rules will orientate the shape of the economy for years to come. This post is part of his ongoing research looking at cross-border data flows and the political economy of digital trade.

Dr Jonathan Foster and Teresa Smith of the Information School will be visiting India between 5 and 11 June 2016. They will visit four cities across India and will be meeting prospective students to discuss the School's range of courses and to allow them to find out why the Information School is the perfect choice for their postgraduate study. Delhi - 5 to 6 June. On 6 June there will be an opportunity for prospective students to meet Jonathan and Teresa at Edwise International between 11:00am and 1:00pm and at IPC between 2:00pm and 3:30pm. Hyderabad - 7 June Jonathan and Teresa are available to meet prospective students at Edwise International between 11:00am and 1:00pm . Mumbai - 8 to 9  June Prospective students will be able to meet Jonathan and Teresa between 11:00am and 1:00pm at Trivedi Educational Consultants  and from 2:00pm to 4:00pm at Edwise International. Chennai - 10 - 11 June There will be an opportunity for prospective students to discuss the ...

A recent blog post has been published on the LSE International Development blog written by Dr Christopher Foster (The Information School) and Dr Shamel Azmeh (LSE). The post entitled 'New Trade Conflicts and the Race for Technological Leadership in the Digital Economy' considers how laws, technologies and trading rules shape the Internet. It discusses the emergence 'digital industrial policy' in middle income countries and consequently how new trade deals such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are attempting to reshape digital information flows and digital data. The full post can be viewed on the LSE blog here . This post accompanies the release of an LSE working paper "The TPP and the digital trade agenda: Digital industrial policy and Silicon Valley’s influence on new trade agreements”, by Shamel Azmeh & Christopher Foster which can be found here .

The newest edition of the 'African Technopolitan', a magazine about science, technology and development in Africa, includes an article written by Dr Christopher Foste r (iSchool) alongside Mark Graham (OII, Oxford). The piece entitled ' Geographies of Information Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa ' draws on previous empirical research to reflect on what new internet connectivity in the region means for inclusion in the ‘network society.’ The article suggests that connectivity certainly isn’t a sufficient condition for inclusion and equity. Connectivity, rather, tends to be an amplifier: one that often reinforces rather than reduces inequality. We therefore need to move towards deeper critical socio-economic interrogations of the barriers or structures that limit activity and reproduce digital inequality. The categorisations developed in the paper offer an empirically-driven and systematic way to understand these barriers in more detail. Graham, M., and Foster, C. 2016...

There have been several changes to staffing within the School during 2015. Firstly, we are delighted to welcome the following new staff. Dr Christopher Foster has joined as Lecturer in ICT and Innovation. Chris was previously a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, and his work focuses on the impact of digital technologies and information flows on innovation within organisations. With a background in engineering, IT innovation and R&D, Chris will mainly be contributing to teaching on the Information Systems and Information Management degrees. Dr Paul Reilly is Senior Lecturer in Social Media and Digital Society and joins us from his previous posiiton as Deputy Director of Research, Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester. Paul has a particular interests in the study of online political communication and how social media is used to promote better community relations in divided societies, and he is the author of...

Whilst innovation is frequently associated with disruptive activities of entrepreneurs and firms, in the last few years we have seen a growing interest in how innovation can be ‘inclusive’, with a particular focus on innovations in developing countries. We’re beginning to build a picture about ‘inclusive innovation’, but what we don’t know much about is the policy that supports this ‘inclusive innovation’. What can governments do to encourage the emergence and growth of inclusive innovation? In a new working paper published by Dr Christopher Foster (iSchool) and Richard Heeks (University of Manchester) we look to answer this question. The paper is inspired by earlier work on the mobile phone sector in Kenya, which revealed that policy was integral in successfully pushing expansion to low income groups. In this paper we analyse inclusive innovation in a wider set of sectors to build more general advice for policy makers. A short summary of paper can be found here and t...

Dr Jonathan Foster  of the Information School recently visited India to speak at several universities in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi and to meet prospective Information School students to discuss the department's range of courses. The following article on course opportunities at the Information School was written by Dr Foster and appeared in the August issue of India's Careers360 magazine:

Dr Jonathan Foster of the Information School recently visited India to speak at several universities in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi and to meet prospective Information School students to discuss the department's range of courses.  As a result of this visit, the Information School's MSc Data Science course has received coverage in The Times of India newspaper. The article was based on an interview Dr Foster gave in Delhi and can be read below:

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 .

Dr Jonathan Foster of the Information School is the University of Sheffield partner on a Worldwide University Network (WUN) Project on 'Data Diplomacy: Political and Social Dimensions of Data Collection and Sharing'. The project is led by the University of Rochester and is part of a WUN Global Challenge on Understanding Cultures and Global Health.  The University of Auckland, University of Bristol, and the University of Western Australia are also involved in the project. Data Diplomacy is an emerging construct that integrates concepts from data science, technology, and computing, with social science, international relations, and diplomatic negotiation.  In some cases it offers a new diplomatic tool that facilitates global relationships. Equally, questions surrounding burgeoning data creation and data sharing provide areas of tension in this new space for example issues related to privacy, security, free expression, and regulation - as well as variances particular to nation...

On Tuesday 18 November Dr Jonathan Foster of the Information School will present a seminar on ‘digital archiving as information production: using experts and learners in the design of subject access’.  This seminar will present a framework that characterizes digital archiving as a form of information production.  The framework is then applied within the context of designing a digital archive for an electronic artwork called Rider Spoke.  The talk will discuss: How students from the Information School at the University of Sheffield were invited to tag video content from the archive, and to develop terms and a vocabulary How a subsequent content analysis on these tags was conducted, and a subject language developed.  The resulting subject scheme for the artwork with seven facets, sub-facets, and examples is then presented.  The seminar will take place at 13:00 in lecture room RC-204 with refreshments beforehand at 12:30 in the Information Schoo...

The Information School's Dr Jonathan Foster has been awarded a £2,000 research stimulation grant from Research and Innovation Services to develop a research proposal for the Marie Curie ITN.  The objective of this is to establish a training network for PhD students in information governance. This began as an initiative in the Information School's Knowledge Management and Information Retrieval research groups.

Jonathan Foster is currently in Nigeria 10-15 June visiting educational institutions and other agencies to raise awareness of our PGT courses; to talk with current and prospective offer holders, and to previous Alumni of the Sheffield Information School. Interviews on the morning drive time shows of the Lagos-based Inspiration FM and Beat FM radio stations that target Lagos and the surrounding metropolis have been part of the schedule of events! You can see pictures of the trip at the Facebook page of the University of Sheffield Regional office for West Africa .

As part of his recent visit to India , Jonathan Foster gave an interview to CIOL, in which he discussed the characteristics of a digital economy. You can read the full article at CIOL .

As part of his current visit to India , Dr Jonathan Foster spoke to the Daily News and Analysis about careers in Information Management. Click the image to the right to view the Bangalore DNA front page for March 12, featuring the article.