Information School News

The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), formed in 1937, is a not for profit organisation for information professionals. The organisation is a sponsor of an annual conference and also a number of serial publications including the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). The organisation also supports a number of prestigious sub-divisions known as Special Interest Groups. Until now there was no Special Interest Group on social media (SIG SM) for ASIS&T. However, due to the significant growth of the field as can be evidenced from conferences, journals, and scholarly articles based specifically related to social media it was now time to formulate such a group. There was strong support for forming the group from ASIS&T members and the decision for the inception of the group was announced at the 80th annual meeting in Washington, DC. We are a group of diverse and interdisciplinary scholars from across the world. Our miss...

PhD student Wasim Ahmed, Professor Peter Bath, and Dr Gianluca Demartini have recently had a peer-reviewed book chapter published which looked at the ethical, legal, and methodological challenges of researching Twitter. The chapter is now open access, and the abstract and the link to download the chapter are provided below. Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the specific legal, ethical, and privacy issues that can arise when conducting research using Twitter data. Existing literature is reviewed to inform those who may be undertaking social media research. We also present a number of industry and academic case studies in order to highlight the challenges that may arise in research projects using social media data. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the process that was followed to gain ethics approval for a Ph.D. project using Twitter as a primary source of data. By outlining a number of Twitter-specific research case studies, the chapter will be a valuable res...

In 2017 the London School of Economics and Political Sciences Impact Blog received a total of 1,412,929 page views. PhD student Wasim Ahmed built on his 2015 post, which was also ranked among the top read, with a follow up post in 2017. The post was titled: Using Twitter as a data source: an overview of social media research tools (updated for 2017) . The post was ranked amongst most viewed in 2017 as well as being featured in the round up of top posts about communicating research with social media . In 2017 Wasim Ahmed represented the Information School at an expert panel at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) on the importance of promoting research beyond academia. Wasim Ahmed noted that engaging with blog led to increased page views, citations, and interest inside and outside academia related to Wasim’s PhD.

My name is Wasim Ahmed , and I am a doctoral student at the Information School. I recently attended the launch of the Information School research magazine Inform . This blog post highlights my key take-homes from the launch of the research magazine. Information is all around us and due to technological developments information is more readily available at speed. Our research at the Information School focuses on understanding the power of information and how it affects people, organisations, and society. The new research magazine Inform provides a cross-section of the research within the school, stories about our research, impact, recent successes, facts and figures, research culture and environment, and provides an overview of staff and students within the school. The event highlighted the international reputation of the department for world-class research. It was wonderful to see the range of multi-disciplinary areas of research which the school undertakes. The event a...

Doctoral student Wasim Ahmed recently visited Harvard University to meet Information School Alumnus Ann Hall who is the Director of Communication at The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.  Ann studied at the Information School from 1990 to 1991 graduating with an MSc in Information Studies, where she was a student with our current Head of School, Professor Peter Bath. Wasim noted that it was a great opportunity to look around the iconic Harvard Campus with a dinner at the famous Grendel’s Den at Harvard Square, and was very grateful for the visit.

Doctoral student Wasim Ahmed recently visited Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science and attended a talk by Dr Marc Smith from the Social Media Research Foundation . Wasim shared his experiences of working with industry and how academic tools could be used to gain insight into commercial datasets.

Doctoral student Wasim Ahmed delivered a keynote talk on social media research methods and software at Boston University College of Communication. The event, Making Social Media Data Matter , was run by Professor Jacob Groshek and included talks from world renowned experts who work between the intersection of media and academia. The event was very well attended from across academia, industry, and government and included members from organisations such as the United Nations. Wasim thanked his family for continued support and noted that the event was at the forefront of academic research methods and social media research tools. Wasim is supervised by Profesor Peter Bath , Dr Laura Sbaffi , and Dr Gianluica Demartini . Wasim is a doctoral student in the Health Informatics Research group

My name is Wasim Ahmed and I am a PhD student at the iSchool , where I also obtained my MSc in 2013. I recently completed a work placement at Manchester United within the analytics department on a social media research project. The collaboration was made possible due to a University of Sheffield scheme known as the Postgraduate Researcher Experience programme . I have been a life-long fan of the club, so I was really happy to have had this opportunity. I found the placement to be very beneficial for a number of reasons. This is because after spending a number of years working in an academic context, I had not fully considered the intelligence that could be extracted from social media platforms for commercial uses. My academic research, as a result of the internship, has improved and I will now consider potential uses of a research project, as well as the academic insight that can be gained. As a research student you will develop a number of skills that can be applied in a...

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.

PhD student Wasim Ahmed has been featured in the European Student Chapter of Associate for Information Science and Technology which is now in its 10th edition. Wasim reflected on the 2017 edition of the conference which took place in Wuhan, China and raised awareness of the 2018 conference which takes place in Sheffield March 2018. The link to the full newsletter can be found here . The call for papers for the conference is now open and can be found here .

Doctoral student Wasim Ahmed and Professor Peter Bath , pictured below, from the Health Informatics Research Group, recently delivered a talk at a CERN workshop in Geneva . The talk was based on the industry and academic perspectives on social media research ethics, and the also talk highlighted the approach that has been undertaken by the University of Sheffield.  Wasim Ahmed , pictured below, also presented a poster on his PhD research during the CERN workshop. Wasim’s poster was based on his PhD research which is examining how people talk about infectious disease outbreaks such as Swine Flu and Ebola on Twitter. Wasim also touched on the benefits of engaging with research blogs such as the LSE Impact blog .

The ‘Assessing the Value of Blogs and Social Media to Research Communication and Impact’ panel was held at LSE on Wednesday 14 June at 5.00pm. The panel featured doctoral student Wasim Ahmed , from the Information School. The event was very well attended with over 70 delegates. Wasim noted that engaging with social media and blogs has the potential to generate more interest in academic work. Picture as the panel was underway. Credit: Carlos Arrébola Other panellists for the sessions included Kieran Booluck (Editor, LSE Impact blog); Chris Gilson (Editor, LSEUSAPP blog); Kathy Christian (Altmetric); Professor Daniel Miller (UCL ‘Why We Post’); Cheryl Brumley (The Economist); and Sierra Williams (Peer J). The panel was chaired by Amy Mollett (LSE Social Media Manager).

Doctoral candidate Wasim Ahmed , in collaboration with Chrysi Dagoula from the Journalism Department hosted an event at the Information School on Tuesday the 30th of May on the theoretical and practical aspects of social media research. The event was attended by delegates from across the UK ranging from PhD students, post-doctoral researchers as well as a number of senior academics. Dr Andrew Cox congratulates co-organiser Wasim Ahmed for successfully running the event  Dr Andrew Cox , Senior Lecturer, introduced the event and highlighted its interdisciplinary nature and thanked the Faculty for funding the event. The event also featured a talk by Sally Sanger whose PhD looks at alcohol online support groups. Event organisers would like to thank Xiaomei An for taking pictures of the event throughout the day.

Wasim Ahmed , a Doctoral Candidate at the Information School, delivered a talk on communicating science through social media in collaboration with the University of Sheffield. Wasim shared his experiences on how he reached readers in over 136 countries and how he received over 250 thousand page hits across a number of channels within the first two years of his PhD. Wasim noted that the event had an extremely good turnout for a Saturday afternoon, and noted that the atmosphere of the Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom was very lively and friendly. Wasim would like to thank the organisers and especially Margarita Segovia Roldan and Jacobo Elies Gomez pictured below left and right respectively of Wasim below.

Last week, members of the Information School attended the 2017 iConference in Wuhan, China. One of our PhD students, Wasim Ahmed, gives his highlights below, along with some of his photos from the trip. --- My highlights from my trip included me presenting a poster on my pilot study from my PhD, and which received good interest from delegates, particularly concerning the methodology that was used. A number of very useful connections were made from across the world, and there was a lot of interest in the 2018 edition of the iConference which will take place in Sheffield  hosted in collaboration with Northumbria University.   I also enjoyed visiting the Yellow Crane Tower, Hubei Provincial Museum, the East Lake, Wuhan, and the Yangtze River. Wuhan is a beautiful city, and the people are very friendly. I read online that the people in Wuhan are unusually nice, and I have to say that this is very true and I felt very welcome in the city. I...