Information School News

From Environment to Information, I took a step ahead towards achieving one of my goals. As an environmental engineer with years of experience, I have always valued the contribution of Information in advancing my domain. So, after researching different universities and courses in the UK, I ended up choosing to study MSc Information Management at the Information School (iSchool). The University of Sheffield is one of the top universities in the world. It is particularly recognized for having highly distinguished information courses. The course itself is a mix of theoretical and practical modules, both of which are research-oriented. I found myself especially drawn to the practical ones. For example, in User-Centred Design and Human Computer Interaction, I learned about the psychology of human behaviour and how it affects people’s perception of and interaction with different interfaces. In general, the assignments are typically research essays. They are not difficult but would require e...

Last September, I have joined the University of Sheffield, and specifically, the Information School as a student of MSc Information Management. I’m an international student but I have done my undergraduate studies in the UK, so luckily coming to Sheffield wasn’t as frightening as when I moved out from home for the first time. Moving to a new city by myself was still difficult, however I was able to settle down pretty easily. From what I have experienced so far, Sheffield is a very vibrant and multicultural city. I like that the University of Sheffield is a city university as previously I was studying at a campus university. I enjoy that the city centre is within a walking distance, and I can get a coffee or walk through shops in between my classes or just hang around Students Union. Moreover, Peak District is “just around the corner” and I can’t wait to go for a hike with friends since I haven’t had the time yet. The first semester at the Information School was, for me, very enjoyable ...

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...

Lecturer in Information Management Dr Jonathan Foster responds to the recent news story about the historic 'Right to be Forgotten' ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in favour of search engine giant Google. The Ruling by the European Court of Justice earlier this week raises two important issues. First the issue of how democratic societies strike a balance between the privacy rights of the individual on the one hand, and the public interest on the other. Second, the limits of legal jurisdiction and of institutional obligation. The ‘Right to be Forgotten’ - or ‘Right to Erasure’ as it is now known - is a provision under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This provision provides individuals with the right to request organisations, search engine operators for example, to remove specific personally-identifying information about them. A number of reasons can be given by the user to justify their request: that processing of the data is no longer nec...

作为谢菲尔德大学信息学院的学生大使，我本人的情况是在英国读过本科，但学的不是信息管理专业，没有上语言课。如果是没有在英国读过本科的人，上语言课可能是个比较好的选择，既能提高自己的英文能力，也能提前适应在英国读书的生活。 在开学之前会有一个写论文的小测试，就是需要写700字的文献综述，不占分数，老师会鼓励大家写这个文章， 能帮助大家了解自己写作中擅长以及需要提升的地方，以后写论文的时候可以避免低分的情况发生。同时学校也会给每个学生安排学术性写作以及数字技能的课程，教大家怎么写学术性写作以及如何使用学校的网站，怎么搜索书籍等等很实用的技巧。每个人都会有个人导师，有生活或者学业上的问题是可以跟导师约时间交流的。在谢菲尔德大学的学联是很出名的，大家可以在课余时间参与一些社团活动，充实一下自己的生活。 众所周知，信息管理是世界第二的专业，很多中国人都慕名而来。不少必修课都是大课，当然也有可以不少可供选择的选修课。课程的作业都是以不同的形式以不同比例来展现的，比如个人作业占百分之60和小组作业占总成绩的百分之40，有的必修课是需要机考的。在这些课程里, 建模的授课模式是我喜欢的，小班制，与中国教学不同的是上课之前需要看老师提前录制好的课程，课堂上主要是老师和学生的互动，老师会随机分组，并且分配任务，课上会有助教，帮助解答不会的问题。而且每节课都有回放，也不用担心听不懂或者错过课程。如果像我一样本科不是这个专业的学生，也不用担心建模很难，只需要跟着老师每节课把分配的任务做好就可以了。 除了课程以外，在谢菲有著名古老的电梯，漂亮的达西庄园，可爱的羊驼，有好吃的中餐，有方便的电车。谢菲的物价感人并且相对安全。 赵欣颜 (This blog is also available in English here )

As a student ambassador at the Information school, my personal situation is that I have studied my undergraduate degree in the UK, but I did not study Information Management before coming here. If you are a person who has not studied at undergraduate level in the UK, a language class may be a good choice, not only improve your English ability but also help you to adapt to studying in the UK. Before your course properly starts in the Information School, there will be a small test, where you need to write a 700-word literature review, which is not credit-bearing. The teachers will encourage you to write this essay, which will help you to find where you need to improve, to avoid low marks in next assignments. The School also arranges academic writing and digital skills courses for each student, teaching you how to write academic writing and how to use the School's website, how to search for books and so on. Every student has a personal tutor. If you have a personal or academic pro...

I was very honoured to have the opportunity to attend the 2018 CILIP conference in Brighton with a student bursary from the Information School at the University of Sheffield. The CILIP conference is one of the most important events for the library and information professionals in the UK. As an international student from China, this is not only an opportunity for engagement and communication with library and information professionals, but also a chance to learn more about the history and development of library and information management in the UK. During the conference, I found that the professionals’ discussions and speeches focused on the UK while also focusing on the worldwide library and information field. This made it easy for me to understand the discussions of the professionals. This was my first time attending the CILIP Conference. What excited me was not only the conference, but also the Information School’s exhibition stand. During the two-day conference, I not only discusse...

The latest edition of the Aslib Journal of Information Management is a special issue honouring Mark Hepworth, Emeritus Professor at Loughborough University and an alumnus of the Sheffield Information School, who died on 21 December 2016. For many years he pushed forward the boundaries in studies of people's information behaviour and experience. To honour Mark's contribution to library and information science, his friends, colleagues and students contributed articles to the issue, reflecting topics that characterised his career: health information, development studies and information behaviour. Mark studied an MSc in Information Studies at the Information School before moving into a career that took him from industry into academia. He worked at Datasolve Limited in customer support care before becoming Business Development Manager for the Pearson/Financial Times group. He was appointed Senior Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 1993 where he helped t...

CILIP’s Library and Information Research Group awards a student prize each year for an outstanding research-based project on any topic in the general area of library and information science (LIS). Submissions for the prize are typically a postgraduate dissertation or a final year undergraduate project, with each LIS department being allowed to nominate one piece of student work. The Information School’s nomination for this year’s prize was the MSc dissertation by Lynsey Taylor (nee Shenton), entitled “Perceptions of journal prestige in library and information science: a comparative analysis”. Her study involved a survey of academics in UK LIS departments to identify the journals that they thought were most valuable for their teaching and research activities. A comparison of the results with those of an analogous survey conducted previously in the USA showed some significant differences between the UK and USA perceptions of value; and an analysis of submissions to the Research ...