Information School News

Information School PhD student Wasim Ahmed has published an article based on a conference paper looking at the benefits of Twitter in teaching. The post  has been ranked among the most popular posts this week . Both the conference paper and blog post have been co-authored with Sergej Lugovic , Senior Lecturer at the Zagreb University of Applied Sciences. The LSE blog post can be read here . .

Professor Jean Burgess, Director of the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) at Queensland University of Technology, Australia Thursday 29 September 2016, 4.30pm – 5.45pm, Lecture Theatre 2, The Diamond (followed by drinks reception)   Contemporary digital media and communication scholars use methods that both critically interrogate the digital media technologies or platforms that mediate cultural participation and public communication and are grounded in the digital traces that such activities leave behind. Because of this dual focus on sociotechnical critique and digital methods, the sociocultural aspects and technologies of both media and methods have significantly and productively transformed each other. But there remain significant challenges, not least among which are the difficulties of studying public communication and cultural participation across platforms and the challenges of engaging with the ways that ephemeral and proprietary digital media platforms ...

Congratulations to Rose Hubbard who has been awarded a Professional Studies Bursary from BIALL (British and Irish Association of Law Librarians) to study on the MA Library and Information Services Management course.   Further information on BIALL bursaries can be found on the BIALL website .

You are warmly invited to attend this Saturday's Festival of the Mind event concerned with highlighting the experiences of people with serious health conditions and the support and friendship that can be found in online forums.   Our aims are to: Raise awareness of the benefits and risks of online forums for people with serious health conditions   To bring to life the human stories of people experiencing serious health conditions who develop friendships in the virtual world   To explore how trust and empathy develops within the online world      The play explores the experiences of women living with breast cancer in a unique on-off performance.   The script is based on the findings of research that analysed threads on the Breast Cancer Care online forum and interviews with forum users.   This event is a collaboration between the Space for Sharing research project and the Dead Earnest theatre company. There will be an informal ...

You are warmly invited to attend this Festival of the Mind event concerned with highlighting the experiences of people with serious health conditions and the support and friendship that can be found in online forums.   Our aims are to: Raise awareness of the benefits and risks of online forums for people with serious health conditions   To bring to life the human stories of people experiencing serious health conditions who develop friendships in the virtual world   To explore how trust and empathy develops within the online world      The play explores the experiences of women living with breast cancer in a unique on-off performance.   The script is based on the findings of research that analysed threads on the Breast Cancer Care online forum and interviews with forum users.   This event is a collaboration between the Space for Sharing research project and the Dead Earnest theatre company. There will be an ...

Dr Briony Birdi has been awarded a Faculty 'Teaching Excellence in Social Sciences' award for Outstanding Practice in Learning and Teaching. Briony will be presented with her certificate by Professor Gill Valentine on 18th October 2016 at an awards event in the Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences, University of Sheffield.  Congratulations to Briony.

Professor Stephen Pinfield of the Information School has been interviewed by Library Journal. The interview is part of the publications series on Open Access and includes the following questions: ·        What are the forces that brought open access this far? ·        How is open access being implemented in different ways globally? ·        What are the viable alternatives to green and gold models? ·        Do different discipline-based approaches to open access present a challenge? ·        Do subject or institution repositories make open access materials harder to find? ·        What is the future of the version of record? The interview can be accessed on the Library Journal website   here.

Educational computer games and their impact on mathematics anxiety in University students Marc Bonne Friday 16th September, 12 noon, RC-231, Information School, Regents Court Abstract Educational computer games have been shown to increase motivation to learn mathematics in university students, however little is known on how they impact on mathematics anxiety, a phenomenon known to reduce motivation to learn and hinder performance in solving mathematics problems. This study aims to compare mathematics anxiety levels in University students before and after playing an online mathematics game. A literature review was carried out identifying the known causes, symptoms and strategies used to reduce mathematics anxiety. A systematic literature review was also developed comparing existing mathematics anxiety scales used in previous research, with one selected to use in the study. Finally, a pre-pilot exploratory usability study was performed to determine which ...

Congratulations to Information School PhD student Titima Thumbumrung who recently won a merit award for her paper at the 2016 European Conference on Knowledge Management (ECKM 2016). This is in addition to winning the best poster prize at the European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studie s ( ECRM 2016) in June 2016.

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.

It is almost 26 years ago that I sat in a lecture theatre in the University’s Medical School with about 70 other new students and we were welcomed to the then Department of Information Studies by the Head of Department, Professor Tom Wilson. Tom spoke about library and information science and how the courses we were embarking upon would be the start of our careers in the information profession. I never imagined, sitting there listening to Tom that, over a quarter of a century later, my career would lead to my becoming Head of the Information School and it feels strange that I will, in a couple of weeks time, be standing up in front of a new cohort of students to welcome them to Sheffield and the School. Although I did not realize it at the time, my journey to becoming Head of School really started that day in September 1990. Following my MSc, I studied for my PhD, under the supervision of Peter Willett. I then worked, first as Research Fellow, then as Lecturer, in Information Scie...

Congratulations to Dr Jo Bates , Dr Andrew Cox , Dr Angela Lin and Dr Paul Reilly at the Information School have been appointed as editors for the international Online Information Review journal.