Information School News

Dr Elisa Serafinelli has joined the Information School as a Research Associate . She specialises in mobile visualities and the social communication of photography, and will work with Work Package leader Dr Paul Reilly and part-time Research Assistant Rebecca Stevenson on the EU Horizon 2020 project 'IMPROVER.' Elisa will have primary responsibility for the Sheffield team's study of how social media can be used to build resilience in disaster-affected communities. We would like to welcome her to the Information School and look forward to working with her on this project

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...

The Information School is pleased to welcome Dr Xin Zhao who joined today as International Teaching Associate.  Xin (also known as "Skye") will be taking a leading role in supporting home and international students including academic, language, pastoral and careers support.

Pamela McKinney and Dr Stephen Pinfield provided a feature article ( Career support for LIS students ) for the popular monthly discussion group that takes place on Twitter, #uklibchat . The lively Twitter discussion took place on March 3rd: the hashtag is obviously #uklibchat, and their twitter stream is here https://twitter.com/uklibchat

Dr Alex Peng of the Information School will be attending the 2014 Mobile World Congress  in Barcelona between 24 and 27 February. The Congress is set to be attended by leaders from the IT field including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Ginni Rometty of IBM. At the Congress, Alex will announce the results of the Smart Cities Index Project with the GSMA.   

Information School members Andrew D. Madden, Nigel Ford, Genevieve Gorrell, Barry Eaglestone, Peter Holdridge have been commended at the Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence 2013 . Their paper Metacognition and web credibility , for the Electronic Library , was rated as Highly Commended.

Jonathan Foster is currently in India from the 10-16th March, visiting universities and educational agencies to raise awareness of PGT courses; and to talk with students who are looking to apply to our PGT courses here at Sheffield. The whistlestop tour is taking in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai; and it's proving to be a diverse, ordered, sometimes bamboozling place!

Dr Farida Vis will give a talk at TEDxHuddersfield this Friday, 8th March, entitled "Everyday growing cultures: connecting communities through data", which you can watch online .

The iSchool's Prof Peter Bath will give a lecture at the 24 Hour Inspire event, which is taking place from 28th February to 1st March, in the Hicks Building here at the University of Sheffield. The event is held in memory of Physics & Astronomy lecturer Dr Tim Richardson, and is in support of the charity he created, Inspiration for Life . Entry to each lecture is £1, or £5 for the full programme, and proceeds go to the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity and local hospices. Prof Bath's lecture is entitled "Health Informatics", and takes place at 8am on Friday 1st March. See the 24 Hour Inspire programme for more information.

Dr Alex Peng Information School Lecturer Dr Alex Peng has won the University's  SURE 2012 Academic Supervisor of the Year . He received his award at this year's SURE Showcase yesterday. Alex's student Marcus Walton was also one of only three students nominated for the SURE 2012 Student Researcher of the Year.

With the growing popularity of digital maps, School Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Clough has conducted research into the issue of digital maps, paper maps and users' preferences, with some surprising results. Paul discusses his research over at Readwrite: Why Digital Maps Aren't Ready To Replace Paper

The Times Higher Education Supplement interviewed Dr Farida Vis about her research into social media. Farida spoke about the use of social media to share information about major events such as Hurricane Katrina and the London riots. THE:  Changing landscape of the social-media deluge

Congratulations to the School's Director of Undergraduate Programmes, Peter Bath, who has been awarded a Personal Chair. As of 1st January 2013, Peter is Professor of Health Informatics.

The Call for papers has recently appeared for the 6th Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics .  This major international meeting, which is again being co-sponsored by the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society and by  the Chemical Structure Association Trust, will be held at The Edge, University of Sheffield, 22nd-24th July 2013.

Dr Peter Bath has been appointed Deputy Chair of the University Research Ethics Committee (UREC) . Peter is currently the Senate representative for the Faculty of Social Sciences and has been on the UREC since 2007. The UREC reports to Senate and its tasks include promoting an awareness and understanding of research ethical issues throughout the University, advising on any ethical matters in research within the University. One of Peter's early roles as Deputy Chair is to look into the feasibility of an online system for the research ethics application process.

Dr Stephen Pinfield will be speaking at the Research Libraries UK Conference 2012 , at St James' Park, Newcastle. The conference runs from Wed 14 to Fri 16 November , and Stephen will be speaking on Thu 15 November, on "Skills for the Library and Information Professional of the Future".

The Information School's Dr Farida Vis, along with two colleagues from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation, is featured in the Guardian Datablog today, discussing " How many fake Sandy pictures were really shared on social media? " The article includes a gallery of the 50 most tweeted Sandy images , both real and fake .

Despite the threat of superstorm Sandy , Dr Andrew Cox travelled to Baltimore at the end of October, to participate in the 75th Annual Meeting of ASIS&T , where he participated in a panel on social media and presented a paper for the Social Informatics symposium.

Two representatives of the School spoke at Internet Research 13 at the University of Salford, 18-21 October. Dr Andrew Cox participated in a panel discussion on "Weaving handicrafts into the Web: crafting cultures and online communities", while Dr Farida Vis presented on "What do data visualisations want?".

Dr Farida Vis is an invited speaker at The ‘Big Data’ Debate at The British Academy for the humanities and social sciences. Part of the 2012 ESRC Festival of Social Science, the debate will feature speakers discussing such topics as: What opportunities does 'Big Data' offer to the social sciences? What challenges are there, what skills, training and resources are needed? What are the wider implications for public scrutiny and debate?  The debate is chaired by Guardian commentator and former BBC Social Affairs Editor Polly Toynbee, and takes place on Monday 5th November.