Information School News

 The pharmaceutical industry, the Higher Education sector and the world of the arts may seem like three very disparate areas but, along with almost all arenas of modern life, all three are heavily entwined with technology. Machine learning, data mining and AI in particular are hot topics in the information and technology spheres right now, and each of the aforementioned sectors has their own way of interacting with it. The AHRC-funded project ‘Patterns in Practice’ - which is led by Senior Lecturer Dr Jo Bates from Sheffield’s Information School, working with Professor Helen Kennedy from the University’s Department of Sociological Studies and Dr Erinma Ochu, Associate Professor of Immersive Media at UWE Bristol, as well as Dr Itzelle Medina Perea and Dr Monika Fratczak working as postdoctoral researchers in the Information School - aims to explore how the beliefs, values and feelings of practitioners from the pharmaceutical, education and arts sectors shape how they engage with mac...

Dr Susan Oman Lecturer in Data, AI & Society Dr Susan Oman has had some of her research highlighted by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.    In partnership with Arts Council England, Dr Oman developed a new process to improve inequality measurement, including class background, in the UK cultural sector. Through funding from AHRC’s Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship scheme, Dr Oman’s research triggered the creation of a new network of arts and culture professionals working in publicly funded institutions which offers support in gathering and analysing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion related data. Read more here.

Professor of Information Services Management, Stephen Pinfield, along with his Co-Investigator, Professor David Bawden (of City University London), have been awarded £182,097 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the 'Open Access in Theory and Practice' project. The project will investigate the uses of theory in open access research and their relationship with practice. The project will recruit a full-time Research Associate to be based in Sheffield. "We are delighted to have received this funding from the AHRC”, says Stephen. “We believe our project will make an important contribution to current discussions about open access and also about the relationship between theory and practice – both really important issues with wide implications for the role that academic research can play in society." The project will start in the first quarter of 2018 and will last for 18 months.

Congratulations to Dr Stephen Pinfield and Professor Peter Willet , both of the Information School, who have secured funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the project “Open -access mega-journals and the future of scholarly communications". The project will be led by Dr Pinfield as Principal Investigator. Professor Willet, along with Claire Creaser and Jenny Fry of Loughborough University, will be Co-Investigators. The project will commence in November 2015 and run to October 2017. Find out more about the project here.      

Jo Bates and Robert Villa have both been successful applying to the AHRC's " Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities " Big Data projects call. Jo Bates - The Secret Life of a Weather Datum The Secret Life of a Weather Datum is a 15 month research project that will explore the socio-cultural values and practices shaping, and being shaped by, the production, collation, distribution and re-use of weather data produced by the UK’s Met Office. In order to achieve this aim, the project will be following the ‘journey’ of a single weather datum from its production into three cases of re-use: climate science, weather risk markets and citizen science projects. These cases will comprise of interviews, observations, digital ethnography and policy research. The final outcome of the project will be an interactive website and multimedia research data archive that will allow members of the public to explore this journey in more detail, thus contributing to the public ...