Information School News

The 18th International Symposium for Health Information Management Research (ISHIMR) is being held this year in Kalmar at Linnaeus University. Scientists from all over the world gather to discuss e-health. The overall conference theme for ISHIMR 2020 is "Using digital information for better patient health, care and well-being". The deadline for the submission of poster and paper abstracts has now passed but you can register to attend by clicking here . The deadline for registration is 31st August. The conference is free to attend. We welcome submissions relating to research and development on the conference theme in its broadest sense. The topics of interest for the conference include, but are not restricted to: • Strategies for the Management of Health Data and Information • Health Knowledge Management Strategies • Health Informatics Systems • Clinical Decision Support Systems • Tracking Activities and Health • Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Healt...

New Book Review: "The Deep Learning Revolution"  Our IT Manager and PhD Student, Paul Fenn, has had a book review published   by the ICS Journal online and will be in print format in the next issue. The Deep Learning Revolution is a guide to the past, present and future of deep learning. Sejnowski gives a very personal account of the key advances in Deep Learning during the past 40 years, with a specific focus on the community of researchers responsible for these innovations. The book is split into three sections: Part I, Intelligence Reimagined; Part II, Many Ways to Learn; Part III, Technological and Scientific Impact. A useful timeline of important events is included at the beginning of each section for the reader. You can read the review here.

New Paper: Integrating FATE/Critical Data Studies into Data Science Curricula: Where are we going and how do we get there? A number of Information School academics have published a new paper for the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. The paper (published by Dr Jo Bates, Dr David Cameron, Dr Alessandro Checco, Professor Paul Clough, Dr Frank Hopfgartner, Dr Suvodeep Mazumdar, Dr Laura Sbaffi, Dr Peter Stordy, and Dr Antonio de la Vega de León) reflects on the ethical and practical aspects of teaching critical data science to inform future data practices & make them fair.  Abstract:  There have been multiple calls for integrating topics related to fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics (FATE) and social justice into Data Science curricula, but little exploration of how this might work in practice. This paper presents the findings of a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) engaged in by a MSc Data Science teaching team b...

Services for Student Well-Being in Academic Libraries: Three Challenges   Our Director of Research and Senior Lecturer, Dr Andrew Cox, has published a new article alongside Dr Liz Brewster at Lancaster University. There has been a wave of interest in UK academic libraries in developing services to support student well-being. This paper identifies three fundamental and interrelated issues that need to be addressed to make such initiatives effective and sustainable. Firstly, well-being has to be defined and the impacts of interventions must be measured in appropriate ways. Secondly, there is a need to identify the true nature of the underlying social problem around well-being. Thirdly, relevant approaches to the issue need to be located within the professional knowledge base of librarianship. To read the article, click here.

European Union Librarians on the Move? An Exploration of Potential Impacts of Brexit on Workforce Diversity. Our Director of Research and Senior Lecturer, Dr Andrew Cox, has published a new article alongside Josefine Blunk and Melanie Benson Marshall.  The study investigated whether the academic library sector in the United Kingdom (UK) could be in danger of experiencing a decline in workforce diversity following the Brexit vote. A web survey was distributed to academic libraries and library information science (LIS) departments across the UK. Follow-up e-mail interviews were conducted with twelve individuals. Participants were very worried about effects of Brexit on their right to reside in the UK. Two years after the referendum they still felt a high degree of uncertainty about their future. Most participants wanted to stay in the UK. While about a third considered leaving due to Brexit, 21% were undecided and 14% had made concrete plans to leave. However, the reasons for ...

Studying at the University of Sheffield Jamie is from Hong Kong and is studying MA Librarianship February 2019, I was still in my undergraduate studies. February 2020, I am halfway through the Librarianship programme at the University of Sheffield, getting ready for the next semester. Everything happened so quickly. Sometimes I feel like I am still the Linguistics student who analysed word particles, corrected people’s grammar, made the same grammar mistakes myself and got away by saying that language is descriptive, not prescriptive. But sometimes it also feels like that was a long time ago. I am now a Librarianship student. I love it and my teachers and coursemates never fail to remind me that I am one of them. Everyone in the course is passionate about libraries in one way or another. It feels magical that you get to talk about the gorgeous architecture of a library, the cuteness in the children’s section, the bold selections in materials, the cutting edge technology and th...

New Article: Entitled ‘PSNIRA vs. peaceful protesters? YouTube, ‘sousveillance’ and the policing of the union flag protests' by Dr Paul Reilly Dr Paul Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Social Media & Digital Society, has a new article in the journal First Monday out today. Entitled ‘PSNIRA vs. peaceful protesters? YouTube, ‘sousveillance’ and the policing of the union flag protests,’ it explores how Youtubers responded to footage of alleged police brutality during the union flag protests in Northern Ireland between December 2012 and March 2013. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 1,586 comments posted under 36 ‘sousveillance’ videos, Dr Reilly argues that responses to these videos were shaped by competing narratives on the legitimacy of police actions during the flag protests. This footage focussed attention on the anti-social behaviour of the protesters rather than the alleged police brutality referred to in the video descriptions. The paper concludes by considering the proble...