Information School News

Stephen Pinfield , Professor of Information Services Management, has been published in the Times Higher Education online. His article 'Mega-journals: the future, a stepping stone to it or a leap into the abyss?' discusses the future of the open access mega-journal. The full article can be accessed on the Times Higher Education online website here . Professor Pinfield is currently the principal investigator on an AHRC-funded project investigating mega-journals and the future of scholarly communication. Further details on the open access mega journals and the future of scholarly communication project can be found here.  

Congratulations to Dr Andrew Cox whose journal article "Research Data Management as a “wicked problem”” has been selected as the Outstanding Paper in the 2016 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. The article was published in Library Review 2015 Vol 64 4 E and was selected for the award by the journal’s editorial team.  The article is being made freely available for one year at http://www.emeraldinsigh t.com/page/samples/lr and is based on Andrew's Wicked Ways in RDM project. It was co-authored by all the project participants.

Dr Paul Reilly from the Information School will be presenting two papers at the IAMRC conference , Leicester, 27-31 July 2016. On 30 July 2016 Paul will present Participatory Media and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland: Lessons from the 2014 Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast Memory, Commemoration and Communication: Looking Back, Looking Forward, International Association of Media and Communication Research, Leicester, UK, 27-31 July.  On 31 July 2016 he will present Affective publics and the 2015 Channel Tunnel Fire. Atanasova, D and Reilly, P. (2016). Affective publics and the 2015 Channel Tunnel Fire, Memory, Commemoration and Communication: Looking Back, Looking Forward. International Association of Media and Communication Research, Leicester, UK, 27-31 July.

An article entitled ‘Using Design Thinking to engage autistic students in participatory design of an online toolkit to help with transition into higher education' has been co-authored by Information School student Penny Andrews was recently published in White Rose Research Online.   Abstract  Purpose of this paper: The paper reflects on engaging young autistic people in the participatory design of the Autism&Uni online toolkit. The purpose of the toolkit is to provide autistic students with information and strategies for dealing with the challenges they may encounter when entering higher education. The study adds to existing research on participatory design by considering the specific needs and contributions of autistic people who are of average or higher intelligence, academically competent and generally articulate, a group that has received limited attention hitherto. Design/methodology/approach: The research used a 5-step Design Thinking approach and ...

An article entitled ‘Back to School: a Student Insight into LIS Qualifications, the LIS Sector and What it can Offer to New Professionals’ by Information School student Josephine Bailey was recently published in the Legal Information Management journal.  Josephine’s article offers a student’s perspective of LIS qualifications and the current challenges for professionals. Further information on the article can be found here.

An article entitled ‘Ethical Challenges of Using Twitter as a Data Source’ by PhD student  Wasim Ahmed   was recently published by the Multimedia Information & Technology (MmIT) journal. In its 40th year of publication the MmIT has over 3,000 subscribers world-wide, with readership comprised of librarians, teachers, academics, and media and ICT specialists.

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 .

Dr Paul Reilly and Dr Jo Bates were interviewed by University of Sheffield student Jonathan S Pickles for The National Student. The article 'The far right and false imagery' article examines on how far-right groups have doctored images of celebrities to spread fear about refugees in Europe. The full article can be read here

On 29 January 206 the Council of the European University Association (EUA) approved the “ Roadmap on Open Access to Research Publications ”. The Roadmap aims to assist universities in the transition to Open Access (OA) and is the first in a series of initiatives that EUA plans to develop to address the implications of Open Science for European universities. The Roadmap has been drafted in close collaboration with EUA’s Expert Group on Science 2.0/Open Science , a group of 20 experts from 19 countries designated by their respective national rectors’ conferences (NRCs), including the Information School's Professor Stephen Pinfield . The Roadmap on Open Access to Research Publications focuses primarily on the following areas: •    Fostering structured dialogue among all stakeholders; •    Promoting and supporting the adoption of OA policies, infrastructures and initiatives by European universities; •    Encouraging the development ...

Wasim Ahmed , a second year PhD student at the Information School, and member of the Health Informatics Research Group, has recently been featured in the   thirteenth edition of the White Rose Social Sciences DTC newsletter; “DTC Matters ”.The feature highlighted Wasim’s post on Twitter tools posted in July 2015, which received 13 thousand views and was ranked as the fourth most read all year.The post also highlighted the media attention surrounding a follow up post Amplified messages: How hashtag activism and Twitter diplomacy converged at #ThisIsACoup – and won which was cross posted on Democratic Audit UK , LSE European Politics and Policy , LSE British Politics & Policy , and is now indexed within Google News Search results.

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...

Dr Paul Reilly of the Information School has co-authored a report which recommends modelling to study large-scale evacuation at music festivals. The report entitled Modelling large-scale evacuation of music festivals will be published in Case Studies in Fire Safety in May 2016 and is available via Open Access here .

A blog post from the Information School's Dr Jo Bates has been published on the LSE Impact blog. Jo's post entitled 'Towards a critical data science - the complicated relationship between data and the democratic project' discusses the use of data science by politicians and policy makers to capture, analyse and respond to the public mood. The post considers how this development may impact on the democratic process and the full post can be viewed on the LSE blog here. Further discussion on the use of data management in US electoral campaigning can also be found in an article by Senior Lecturer Dr Gianluca Demartini at the Information School. Gianluca's article entitled 'Clinton-Sanders data breach spat goes to the heart of modern campaigning' was recently published in The Conversation.

The Iconic Image on Social Media: A Rapid Research Response to the Death of Aylan Kurdi* by the Visual Social Media Lab , @VisSocMedLab, based in the iSchool and directed by Dr Farida Vis, has been quoted in Altimeter's Top Digital Trends for 2016 .  Altimeter highlights how the image of Alan Kurdi (originally misidentified as Aylan), a Syrian child of Kurdish origin, reached 20 million screens around the world and conveyed the impact of the refugee crisis in a way that words could never do. The Altimeter report also predicts this emerging 'discipline of interpreting and responding to the visual web' as a key trend for 2016. The Iconic Image on Social Media report has received international media coverage since it's publication in December 2015, including on BBC Radio 5,  Buzzfeed ,  The Daily Mail ,  The Guardian ,  The Independent ,  Quartz ,  The Next Web ,  Corriere della Sera ,   Yorkshire Post.  More informatio...

Amplified messages: How hashtag activism and Twitter diplomacy converged at #ThisIsACoup – and won, authored by PhD student Wasim Ahmed has been published in the LSE Impact blog. The post is among the most read this week , and has drawn retweets from the mainstream media , and from local community run organisations such as @HelpSheffield . Wasim noted that the LSE impact is a fantastic platform to share blog posts, one of his previous posts has received over 13 thousand hits.

Dr Gianluca Demartini , Senior Lecturer in Data Science at the Information School has been published in The Conversation. Gianluca's article entitled ' Clinton-Sanders data breach spat goes to the heart of modern campaigning ' highlights the significance of data management in US electoral campaigning. How voter data is utilised to better understand the electorate and help campaigners craft their speeches as well as facilitating more targeted advertising and seeking prospective donors is explained. In addition, Gianluca highlights potential problems in using big data but explains how the use of this data may benefit the voter.

An article co-authored by Dr Dimitrinka Atanasova, Information School and Dr Giuseppe Veltri, University of Leicester, has been published in Public Understanding of Science. Their article ‘ Climate change onTwitter: Content, media ecology and information sharing behaviour’ studied  the content, use of sources and information sharing in over 60,000 tweets using automatic thematic analysis, semantic network analysis and text classification.  Findings about a major role still being played by traditional media come amid increasing media coverage of the United Nations climate conference COP21 taking place in Paris from 30 November until 11 December 2015.

An article by Professor Paul Clough of the Information School has been published in today's edition of India's Deccan Herald newspaper. Paul's article 'Data Scientists are need of the hour' explains the growing field of Data Science and the organisational need for people who have the skills to manage, analyse, interpret and communicate data, in order to extract insight and value.

Dr Farida Vis , Director, Visual Social Media Lab and Research Fellow at the Information School is working on a rapid research response focused on the images of three-year old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi after his body was found on Bodrum beach in Turkey, 2 September 2015. The report, which will be launched on the 11 th of November, involves 15 short contributions from leading researchers and practitioners. The report examines the iconic photographs, taken by Turkish journalist Nilüfer Demir to draw further attention to the Syrian refugee crisis. It examines four main areas: 1.      How social media responded to the image and the ways in which it spread from mainstream media to social media platforms. 2.      The impact of the image in terms of political and personal responses and short and longer-term political effects. 3.      The impact of the image on social media from a historical perspective consid...

Dr Paul Reilly , Information School and Filippo Trevisan, American Unversity, have been published in Information, Communication & Society.   Their article ‘Researching protest on Facebook: developing an ethical stance for the study of the Northern Irish flag protest pages’ can be found here