Information School News

My name is Emily Nunn and I am just starting my third year as a PhD student in the Information School. Over the summer, I completed a one-month placement at the British Library, conducting a piece of research for them on open access to scholarly research outside academia. Financial support for the placement was part of my PhD funding from the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), who provide great opportunities for research students to undertake placements with external organisations. I found the placement through social media (which is why I would recommend that PhD students give Twitter a try). Torsten Reimer, the Head of Research Services at the British Library, contacted me after seeing information about my doctoral research, and we worked out a placement that would be beneficial to both of us. The British Library are currently working on exciting new projects to develop their support for open access. As a national library, they have a responsibility to pro...

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...