Blog: My Year as an Information Management Student

by Jie Dai

Last year, I made my best decision to choose to study at The University of Sheffield as an MSc student in Information Management. In the year I have not only extended my academic vision and gained many technical skills, but stored a wonderful memory in Sheffield as well.

Firstly, I have to say I believe that Information School is worthy of its ranking (World 2nd best). All the teaching staff in the School are experts in the academic field, using their understanding and experience, trying to illustrate complex concepts in a way that’s easy to understand. Some of them are very strict on students’ reading quantity, which means in your spare time, you need to read a lot and try to take a critical view on several topics. Others are patient in teaching trainees how to operate on programs. They go out of their way to meet the students’ requirements and make timely adjustments based on the feedback from students. I really appreciate that.

The modules in the Information School have a wide range of theoretical and practical elements. The choice of optional modules is quite wide, from database design to business intelligence. It can suit students from different backgrounds and interests. If you want to learn some program coding skills, the technical team will also be there to help. As for myself, I enjoyed the Python program and Visualization best among all of the modules. Peter and Deep are knowledgeable and teach us in great detail. There is no possibility for me to miss anything that I do not understand in the lectures.

What’s more, the staff at the Information School also helped me a lot. Being a student rep and student ambassador, it seems that I am always coming up with students’ requests and ideas. However, the staff kept patient all the time and tried their best to connect students and professors. The usefulness of a personal tutor should be mentioned here as well. They are always replying to emails quickly and discussing with you on anything you’re concerned about.

The city of Sheffield is peaceful and harmonious, which suits the learning environment. If you are a hiking fan, you can even try to walk to the Peak District in a single weekday. Chatsworth House is so fantastic that you should never miss that. It may change into different styles and decorations according to different festivals. By the way, the view from the peak is quite fantastic - you will thank me after your journey.

(Chatsworth House at dusk)

Because of the recent changes due to the worldwide virus, it’s quite a pity not being able to have more chances to visit more places. Nowadays, I miss the department building and Wednesday meetings. I miss Dr Peter’s cunning ideas in the Database Course. I also miss the opportunity to play basketball with a range of international students in Goodwin each Sunday. Although the university and department tried their best to make our study comfortable, it’s hard to avoid missing the beautiful life studying in modern classrooms. If you have the chance of coming to study in Information School in Sheffield, I highly recommend you coming and see what you can find here. You will never regret the choice you’ve made studying here! Jie Dai Msc Information Management student

Raspberry Pi Weather Project now live

A project to create a raspberry pi weather station is currently live in the Information School. The Sheffield Pi weather station has been created by Romilly Close, undergraduate Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Sheffield. The project was funded by the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme and is being supervised by Dr Jo Bates, Paula Goodale and Fred Sonnenwald from the Information School. Information about the Sheffield Pi station and how to create your own can be found on the project website . You can also see live data from the Sheffield Pi station on Plot.ly , and further information can also be found on the Met Office Weather Observations Website . This work compliments the School’s existing project entitled ‘The Secret Life of a Weather Datum’ which explores socio-cultural influences on weather data. This project is funded under the AHRC’s Digital Transformations Big Data call. It aims to pilot a new approach to im

Our Chemoinformatics Group wins Jason Farradane Award

The Information School's Chemoinformatics Research Group has been awarded the 2012 UKeiG Jason Farradane Award , in recognition of its outstanding 40 year contribution to the information field. The prize is awarded to the three current members of the group, Professor Val Gillet , Dr John Holliday and Professor Peter Willett . The judges recognised the Group's status as one of the world's leading centres of chemoinformatics research, a major contributor to the field of information science, and an exemplar in raising the profile of the information profession. The School has a long association with the Farradane prize. Its second recipient was long time member of staff Professor Mike Lynch in 1980.

Professor Mike Thelwall gives inaugural lecture

Professor of Data Science Mike Thelwall recently gave his inaugural lecture at the University of Sheffield, entitled How helpful are AI and bibliometrics for assessing the quality of academic research? The lecture, delivered in the University's Diamond building, was introduced by Head of the Information School Professor Briony Birdi. It covered Mike's research into whether Artificial Intelligence can inform - or replace - expert peer review in the journal article publication process and what this could look like, as well as to what extent bibliometrics and citation statistics can play a role in assessing the quality of a piece of research. Mike also discussed whether tools like ChatGPT can accurately detect research quality. The inaugural lecture was well attended by colleagues from around the University.

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