Information School News

Research Seminar: Back to better? post-pandemic challenges for research cultures, policies and prioritisation. Professor James Wilsdon ** Please note that you will be sent a web address for this seminar on June 29th** Book your place here. Among the myriad disruptions and uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic, now rippling across all aspects of our social and institutional lives, within research systems, the crisis has triggered some rapid innovations in funding, peer review, dissemination and communication. What evidence and insights can we draw from these responses to help in strengthening research systems and cultures over the longer term? Can we identify wider lessons for processes of research prioritisation; for the use of rapid or flexible funding mechanisms (e.g. https://fastgrants.org/ & the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator); for wider process innovations (e.g. in collaboration, review and open research); and for longer-term changes to research practices (e.g. more digita...

Professor Jean Burgess, Director of the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) at Queensland University of Technology, Australia Thursday 29 September 2016, 4.30pm – 5.45pm, Lecture Theatre 2, The Diamond (followed by drinks reception)   Contemporary digital media and communication scholars use methods that both critically interrogate the digital media technologies or platforms that mediate cultural participation and public communication and are grounded in the digital traces that such activities leave behind. Because of this dual focus on sociotechnical critique and digital methods, the sociocultural aspects and technologies of both media and methods have significantly and productively transformed each other. But there remain significant challenges, not least among which are the difficulties of studying public communication and cultural participation across platforms and the challenges of engaging with the ways that ephemeral and proprietary digital media platforms ...

On Wednesday 17th February Dr Elaine Toms of the Information School who will be discussing  Adapting Technology for Effective Knowledge Work: Where does/should the Human Stop and the Machine Start Dr Tom's research focuses on understanding why information systems fail users and designing systems for optimum human use. This involves understanding how people work and use information and how people use existing systems to accomplish their work, it also includes evaluating novel tools that facilitate access to and use of information. As a result her research lies at the intersection of human computer interaction, information retrieval and the representation and presentation of information. Elaine’s current research includes improving search systems to support real-life work tasks (rather than bags of words), new approaches to evaluating search systems, understanding serendipity and how systems can deliver on serendipity and the relationship between human curiosity ...

Join us on Tuesday 9 June for a data science seminar on "data science in government, the OR profession and Department for Education” by Madeleine Greenhalgh, Head of Data Science at the Cabinet Office, Richard Allison and Jonathan Edwards. Large and complex data is increasingly becoming more readily and cheaply available, as is the technology to collect and analyse that data. Government already holds data which is being analysed by talented analysts, but we believe that applying data science techniques to this data and using insight from new and complex data sets can allow government to improve how we create policy and deliver services. Madeleine Greenhalgh works in the central data science team in government and will describe how we are taking a practical approach to testing data science techniques as well as embedding these skills within government as a whole, particularly in the analytical professions. Richard Allison is a member of the Operational Research profession and...

On Tuesday 2 June Information School PhD student Jess Elmore will present a research seminar on 'an exploration of the information literacy experiences of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners.' ESOL learners are people who have come to the UK for work, to join family or to claim asylum, who are learning English as part of adult basic skills provision. There has to date been little exploration of their information literacy experiences. This seminar presents the first stages of doctoral research which investigates the relationship between ESOL learning and information literacy. The research will be a qualitative longitudinal case study of three community ESOL classes. The seminar will discuss the planned multi-method participatory approach and the analytical and methodological findings from the completed pilot study. The seminar takes place at 2pm in RC-231, Regent Court. All are welcome and there is no need to book.

Information School PhD student Shuyang Li will present a research seminar on Tuesday 24 February on 'Critical Knowledge Sharing Skills of Project Managers in the Chinese Construction Industry: A Case Study'. Appropriate knowledge sharing is key for modern organisations to retain competitive advantage. In the construction industry, successful delivery of a project requires project managers from three individual groups (namely the investor, design institute and contracted construction company), to develop and apply appropriate knowledge sharing skills to share their knowledge effectively. In this context, this study aims to identify the knowledge sharing skills required by construction project managers in their professional practices. The outcome is expected to be a contextually-grounded, comprehensive framework of project managers’ knowledge sharing skills, enhanced with a systematic analysis of potential enablers and barriers. This research will contribute to the theoretical ...

Join us on Monday 2 March when Graduate Intern Naomi Colhoun will present a seminar on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) design. The presentation will share the results of an MSc dissertation study completed in September 2014. Based on the University of Birmingham's "Good Brain, Bad Brain: Drug Origins" FutureLearn MOOC, this exploratory research employed learning analytics techniques to investigate the extent to which observed learner participation in the course reflected the pedagogical aims of the course designers.  The potential usefulness of learning analytics in informing MOOC design was evaluated, as was the effectiveness of the analysis techniques themselves. The mixed methods approach combined automated thematic text analysis, social network analysis and descriptive statistical analysis with the 'teacher voice'™ often missing from MOOC literature. Framing the study are the deeper debates around both MOOC pedagogy and learning analytics. The sem...

On Thursday 29 January, PhD student Lucyantie Mazalan will present a research seminar on The Effect of Dimensionality on the Effectiveness of Nearest Neighbour Searching Methods in Chemoinformatics Applications. Nearest neighbour search in chemoinformatics application aims to identify the closest molecule to the query molecule. This involves measurements using different molecular similarity coefficients to the highly dimensional molecular descriptors. However, the performance of nearest neighbour search has been found to decrease as the dimensionality increases. One reason is because, as the dimensionality increases, the ratio of the distance from the query point to the nearest and farthest neighbour approaches unity. This study will investigate a range of different similarity coefficients on different molecular dimensionality. The results of this analysis will be used to assess the effect of the dimensionality on the effectiveness of nearest neighbour searching methods in chemoinf...

On 9th December 2014 the Centre for Information Literacy Research held a successful research methods event on the iSchool's Second Life island, Infolit iSchool . Sheila Webber, together with Marshall Dozier (University of Edinburgh), presented on Social ethical digital: issues in 3D worlds research , Evelyn McIlhinney (Glasgow Caledonian University) presented on Undertaking qualitative health research in virtual worlds , and this was followed by a discussion. This free event was attended by an international audience including the virtual ethnographer Professor Tom Boellstorff (University of California) and Professor Diane Nahl (University of Hawaii). The photo shows Sheila and Marshall presenting, in the custom-designed venue.

On Tuesday 9 December 2014 Professor John Sandars from the Academic Unit of Medical Education at the University of Sheffield will deliver a seminar at the Information School. The seminar, entitled 'self-regulated learning - an insight into helping to learn',  will explore the importance of self-regulated learning for effective learning and how this process can be identified to help learners to become more effective learners. The approaches include micro-analysis and calibration workbooks. The potential of collaboration to further this research focus will be explored. All are welcome to attend the seminar and booking is not required.  It will take place at 13:00 in Lecture Room RC204 in the Information School, with refreshments provided beforehand at 12:30 in the iSpace. 

On Tuesday 18 November Dr Jonathan Foster of the Information School will present a seminar on ‘digital archiving as information production: using experts and learners in the design of subject access’.  This seminar will present a framework that characterizes digital archiving as a form of information production.  The framework is then applied within the context of designing a digital archive for an electronic artwork called Rider Spoke.  The talk will discuss: How students from the Information School at the University of Sheffield were invited to tag video content from the archive, and to develop terms and a vocabulary How a subsequent content analysis on these tags was conducted, and a subject language developed.  The resulting subject scheme for the artwork with seven facets, sub-facets, and examples is then presented.  The seminar will take place at 13:00 in lecture room RC-204 with refreshments beforehand at 12:30 in the Information Schoo...

The Information School is hosting two seminars on open data on Tuesday 4 November 2014. The first seminar, ‘Open data: global policies and grassroots practice’ , will be delivered by Tim Davies at 13:00.  Open data had rapidly become a global phenomena, driven both top-down policy transfer, and bottom-up demands for greater access to vital information.  Drawing on research from the Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC) project, which has supported case-study research into open data use and impacts in 12 countries across the global South, this presentation will explore how far the models for open government data that are promoted through global institutions are aligned with the needs and realities of different communities around the world.  By moving beyond a 'narrow model' of open data, focused on datasets, portals and apps, a richer picture of both the potential and the pitfalls of particular approaches to opening up data can be uncovered.  Tim Davies is...

Eight current members of the School's Chemoinformatics Research Group are participating in the 9th International Conference on Chemical Structures in The Netherlands June 5-9th - the major conferences in the field in 2011. 9th International Conference on Chemical Structures Sheffield has a very strong presence at the meeting. The group is contributing two oral presentations: Richard Sherhod (Mining of emerging structural patterns for http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifidentification of toxicophores) and Ben Allen (De novo design of synthetically feasible compounds using reaction vectors and evolutionary multiobjective optimisation); three poster presentations: Hua Xiang, Sonny Gan and Jorge Valencia; and Val Gillet is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. In addition, there are three oral presentations by our ex-PhD students (Sarah Aaron, Dave Wood and George Papadatos) and three posters (Richard Martin, Maciej Haranczyk, Nathan Brown).

The Department hosts the Fifth Joint Sheffield Conference on Chemoinformatics from 13th to 15th July 2010, in the University's Octagon Centre. More details can be found here: http://cisrg.shef.ac.uk/shef2010/ The conference will showcase the research of the Department alongside presentations from the field's leading researchers from across the world.

Speaker: Nashrawan Taha A Study of the Evolution of Networks among International Students in Formal Learning Communities Wednesday, 9th September, 13.00 RC204 Social network analysis (SNA) has been used to study the pattern of interaction among learners in different online and offline communities. However, there is still not much research that focuses on the study of the evolution of the social network in a face to face formal learning context. By combining the use of SNA and qualitative data, this research aims to study the social network evolution of international students and the factors that shaped these changes in a face to face formal learning context. Combining social network analysis and qualitative methods, helps to provide a fuller picture of the network and obtain better quality and more accurate data. This research also explores the role of Web 2.0 in general, and Social Bookmarking technology in particular, in studying the social network relations.

MA Librarianship student, Jodie Walker , has won a fully-funded residential place to attend this year's CILIP Umbrella Conference at the University of Hertfordshire on 14-15 July. Jodie's attendance is being funded by the Yorkshire & Humberside section of the CILIP University, College & Research Group. The competition was open to both students and professionals who had not previously attended Umbrella.

Stephen Adams, of Magister Ltd will be speaking in the department on Thursday the 8th of January at 1pm in room 204. His talk will address some of the common misunderstandings about the role of published patent information and its place in the wider intellectual property system. The documents are commonly viewed as “difficult” or “obscure”, yet they are amongst the most widely available technical publications in the world, and subject to a high degree of bibliographic control and standardisation. The task of the professional patent searcher is to understand the complex mix of science, law and information retrieval skills which enables the industrial user to make sense of the documents and to exploit their contents effectively.

Paul Clough has been invited to speak at a workshop entitled “Inspiration, Innovation, or Infringement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Piracy and Copyright” to be held at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University on Tuesday 1st July. Paul will be talking on his PhD topic: text reuse in journalism. More details of the event can be found here: http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/news/article.php?section=26&article=582

Val Gillet , John Holliday and Peter Willett , along with nine members of the Chemoinformatics Research Group, attended the 8th International Conference on Chemical Structures in Noordwijkerhout, Holland (May 31st-5th June 2008). This three-yearly meeting is the premier conference on research on computer methods for chemical structure handling. The group presented a paper - Hina Patel speaking on "Knowledge-based de novo design using reaction vectors" - and seven posters, and the conference was also attended by ten ex-members of the group who are still working in the field.

The Department will have a strong presence at LILAC 2008 , the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference, a major event in the information literacy calendar attracting an international audience, which this year is being held in Liverpool (Monday 17-Wednesday 19 March). Prof Sheila Corrall will be presenting a paper on ‘ Librarians as Teachers: the Pedagogical Knowledge and Development Needs of Subject Librarians ’ which discusses the findings of an investigation conducted by former MA Librarianship student Laura Cox , who was awarded the Eduserv Prize for the best Information Literacy dissertation in 2007 and is now working at the University of Technology Sydney. Prof Corrall is also presenting a poster on her own research on Developing an Evaluation Framework for Information Literacy Strategies and in addition she is co-presenting another poster on the work of the CILASS Information Literacy Network, a University interdisciplinary special interest group which she chairs on ...