Information School News

As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, a new exhibition will be displayed in Sheffield Winter Gardens from Monday 31 October to Friday 11 November exploring empathy and trust in a digital world. This powerful exhibition features images by the photographer Anton Want and findings from the 'Space for Sharing' project to illustrate how people share information online when they are in extreme circumstances, such as terminal illnesses and natural disasters. All are welcome. Festival of Social Sciences: festivalofsocialscience.group. shef.ac.uk/ More about the project can be found here: http://www.space4sharingstudy. org/ The 'A Shared Space and A Space for Sharing' project is one of several funded through the EMoTICON network, which is funded through the following cross-council programmes: - Partnership for Conflict, Crime and Security Research (led by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) - Connected Communities (led by the Arts & Humanities Research

There was a strong presence from the iSchool at the European Conference on Information Literacy , which took place in Prague, Czech Republic, October 10-13 2016. Sheila Webber presented a paper on Information Literacy, Threshold Concepts and Disciplinarity with Bill Johnston (University of Strathclyde, Scotland) and chaired and presented in a panel session Radical, Critical? Exploring discourse around information literacy , with fellow panelists Professor Annemaree Lloyd (Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden), Dr Ola Pilerot (Swedish School of Library and Information Science) and Bill Johnston (University of Strathclyde). In the Doctoral Forum, Evanthia Tramantza presented her ongoing PhD research into the information literacy of engineering students and Webber (who supervises both PhD students) presented on behalf of Syeda Hina Batool , whose completed PhD research is on information literacy of primary school children in Lahore, Pakistan

Dr Jorge Martins , Lecturer in Organisational Informatics at the Information School, will be leading on the Maker's Lives in Focus event in collaboration with Artist Patrick Murphy (Made North) . Makers’ Lives in Focus, part of Sheffield Design Week, addresses wider societal questions such as: How can creatives/designers and academics become more involved in developing ideas that put people and community at the heart of old industrial regions’ rejuvenation? What would a city look like that empowers artists, academics, firms and communities to work together in developing urban futures? The event will be held in Lecture Theatre 9, Arts Tower, 12:00 - 1:00 pm on Monday, 24 October 2016. The event is free and you can register here.

Professor Stephen Pinfield is speaking at the Association of STM Publishers conference Frankfurt, Tuesday 18 October 2016. Professor Pinfield's presentation ' Open Access mega journals and the future of scholarly publishing' will provide an update on the AHRC funded research project investigating mega-journals and the future of scholarly communication.  Further information on the STM Frankfurt Conference can be found here.

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.  

Wasim Ahmed delivered a talk on Social Network Analysis with NodeXL at an event organised by the New Social Media New Social Science (NSMNSS) network alongside the Social Research Association (SRA). The event was attended across sections with delegates from industry, academia, and government. Wasim’s talk also touched on how researchers could analyse social media data aggregately using NodeXL, in an offline setting, in order to upload the anonymity of social media users. Wasim has provided guidance to University research ethics committees across the UK, and Europe.     Organisations in attendance ranged from Pulsar, Which?, London Sport, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Home Office, and Surrey Police among others. The event was also attended by academics from over 10 institutions across the United Kingdom.    A copy of the slides from Wasim’s talk can be found here.  

Sally Sanger 21st October 2016 at 2pm, Information School, RC-231 Title:  Alcohol online support groups: the role of discussion forums in constructing users’ understanding of their illness/problem Abstract Problem drinking remains a major issue for UK and other societies, affecting individuals, families and communities. Face-to-face support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, can play a large role in helping individuals recover – yet their online counterparts are under-researched and under-used by the NHS. This study aims to analyse and explore the different ways in which online alcohol support groups can contribute to users’ acquisition and development  of beliefs about problem drinking – what it is, what causes it and how it should be dealt with. The research will analyse user postings in online forums and carry out in-depth semi-structured interviews with users to identify the range of methods (including use of story) employed to achieve these ends. As most researc

Christina Maria Founti   21st October 2016 at 10am, Information School, RC-231   Title: Incorporating prediction error estimates in the evaluation of QSAR models   Abstract: Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) modelling is a widely accepted, non-testing method for generating data in the chemical industries. Limitations of the method are well understood and often require skillful assessment of the accuracy and reliability of models. However, standard measures of model quality are only based on accuracy. This project investigates methods for QSAR model evaluation that account for reliability by incorporating measurement error in collected data and the estimated error of predictions. The literature review focuses on QSAR methods implementing physicochemical and topological features of molecules, supervised machine learning algorithms and main approaches for obtaining prediction error estimates. Benchmark results of a preliminary modelling experiment are reported and ass

Information School PhD student, Wasim Ahmed , recently delivered a talk to A-Level students at High Storrs School, Sheffield. The talk centred on what it was like to do a PhD, and provided a brief introduction to social media research.   Wasim also touched on the ethics of social media research, and the dangers of over-sharing.     A copy of the slides from Wasim’s talk can be found on SlideShare here .

Professor ​Stephen Pinfield will give his inaugural lecture, ‘Open Access in Theory and Practice' on the 9th November 2016, 5pm in the Diamond, Lecture Theatre ​5 (Basement), 32 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield S3 7RD.​   Open access is becoming an increasingly important part of the research communication environment. Governments, funders, institutions and others are coming to expect researchers to make their publications available in an open access form. This lecture will take a look at the latest developments in the field of open access, including ongoing policy development, changing business and funding models, differing disciplinary responses, increasing market complexity, and the shifting roles of different stakeholders (researchers, publishers, librarians, managers and the general public). It will also consider possible futures for open access in the context of the wider ‘Open Science’ movement. In particular, the role and the value of theory in enabling greater understanding of