Information School News

You are cordially invited to a panel discussion exploring issues around traditional knowledge, identity and sustainability in the context of chinampas agriculture, as practised in Xochimilco, Mexico City. The Information School, Room RC204 – 10th July - 12:00-13.30 “The Heart of the chinampas” – Carlos Sumano Arias , Chinampayolo (https://www.facebook.com/chinampayolo/) “Developing collaboration between the university and cooperatives in Mexico City” - Gibrán Rivera González, Instituto Politécnico Nacional “Reclaiming traditional knowledge for cultural sustainability”- Andrew Cox and Jorge Martins, Information School, University of Sheffield More than a thousand years ago, in the navel of the moon "Mexico", in a paradise of crystal clear waters, full of fish, birds and axolotes, men created the chinampas to live and feed themselves. The navel of the moon has become one of the largest cities in the world where channels, rivers, springs and chinampas are being re...

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly is invited speaker at the ESRC CASCADE-NET  Seminar “The role of Civil Society’s agency in governance and contingency planning: citizenship, participation and social learning” today. The seminar, organised by co-Investigator Dr. Martina McGuinness (Management School, University of Sheffield) is held in Inox Dine, Students’ Union Building, University of Sheffield. Dr Reilly's paper is entitled ‘Social media, citizen empowerment and crisis communication during the 2014 UK Floods’ and draws on his recently completed EC FP7 funded research project CascEff . The slides for my presentation can be found here

This week Dr Ángel Borrego is visiting the Information School. Ángel is a ​Senior Lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Barcelona. His research interests focus on scholarly communication and research evaluation. On Thursday he gives a research seminar at 12pm in room 231, entitled 'Scholars’ information behaviour in the electronic environment: attitudes towards searching, publishing and libraries'. You can read the abstract below: The seminar aims to summarise the results of several studies conducted during the past decade in order to understand the impact of the transition from print to electronic journals on scholars’ information behaviour. The studies have focused on the behaviour of the academics affiliated to the eight public universities that make up the Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia. The presentation combines the results obtained through the analysis of usage statistics provided by publishers, surveys and...

Alongside Sergej Lugovic from the Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, PhD student Wasim Ahmed helped run and deliver a 3-day Summer School on social media research in June, which took place in Vodice, Croatia. The summer school connected concepts of Information Theory in relation to social media research, and examined practical methods of obtaining and analysing data. Wasim delivered the keynote talk titled Theoretical and Practical Foundations of Social Media Research. The event was picked up by a number of local media outlets including Info Vodice , and 100posto . A representative from the local mayor’s office opened the event, and highlighted the benefits of the collaboration. The event was attended by delegates across UK, and European institutions as well as a by a number those from local universities. Wasim noted that the event had been a great success with positive feedback, and was amazed by the impact it had generated.

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly is giving an invited research seminar at the Faculty of Media & Communication at Bournemouth University on Wednesday 24th May, 4-5pm. The talk is entitled 'Social media and contentious parades in divided societies: Tweeting the 2014 and 2015 Ardoyne parade disputes.' The abstract for Paul's talk is below: To what extent do social media facilitate debate between Catholics and Protestants about contentious parades and protests in post-conflict Northern Ireland? Do these ‘affective publics’ tend to escalate or de-escalate the tensions caused by these events? This paper addsresses these issues through a qualitative study of how citizens used Twitter in response to contentious Orange Order parades in the Ardoyne district of North Belfast in 2014 and 2015. Twitter provided a platform for ‘affective publics’ who expressed a myriad of sentiments towards the Orange Order, in addition to the residents who opposed the loyalist parade passing the...