Congratulations to Alex Schauer, Alice Schofield and Dimitris Bibikas

...who have all now upgraded from MPhil to PhD following the successful review of their preliminary research results. Many congratulations to all!

Ana Vasconcelos and Andrew Cox delivered keynote addresses at the SLA-AGC Conference in Bahrain 12-14 May 2012

Drs. Andrew Cox and Ana Vasconcelos delivered keynote addresses at the SLA-AGC Conference in Manama, Bahrain, 12-14th March. Further details can be found at http://www.slaagc2012.org/index.php/agenda-a-speakers/keynote-speakers

Alexander Schauer attended 11th Students' Spring Symposium in Thessaloniki 18 May 2012

Alexander Schauer along with Emily Wood from ScHARR have been selected by the Symposium Committee to present their PhD research live in Thessaloniki at the 11th Students' Spring Symposium organised by CITY College. The title of the abstract was "A multi-cultural study on knowledge, individual, team, organisational and institutional factors affecting knowledge sharing willingness and eagerness in the IT services industry".

Elaborations of grounded theory and of arenas theory in information management research 24 May 2012

Dr Ana Cristina Vasconcelos, Ms Barbara Sen and Ms Ana Guedes Pereira Rosa, all from the Knowledge and Information Management Research Group, will be presenting grounded theory and arenas theory in information management research.

This will take place Thursday May 24th at 4pm, Lecture Room RC-204 in Regent Court with refreshments afterwards.

A Study of Knowledge Sharing and Construction in Virtual Product User Communitie

Xuguang Li, a PhD student at the Information School, has successfully given his upgrade presentation today. Many congratulations.


Li's research project focuses on knowledge construction in an online customer support community, otherwise known as a virtual product user community.  This type of virtual community is a producer sponsored customer aggregation existing on the Internet to share usage experience and to collaboratively find technical solutions to problems with specific brand products. It is an interest/knowledge focused virtual community that exists on asynchronous online discussion boards and is tightly connected with the sponsoring organization.  In order to explore collaborative knowledge building patterns within such groups, a qualitative content analysis framework is used, drawing on existing analytical models but also patterns emerging from data.  A prototypical model of a knowledge construction process in the virtual product user community was presented.

Developing Your Publishing Strategy - lunchtime seminar Wednesday 16th May 2012

Food For Thought, the lunchtime seminar series, presents

Developing Your Publishing Strategy

Wednesday May 16th, 12pm-1pm, Humanities Research Institute (lunch included)

Do you have questions about how, when and where to publish?

Do you want to find out more about the benefits of digital publishing?

Would you like to explore the role of new and alternative formats, such as academic blogging or self-publishing?

 Then Developing Your Publishing Strategy is for you.

The phrase "Publish or perish” is so often cited in academic circles that it has become a cliché; yet, undoubtedly, publishing your work is crucial.

Publishing is the primary means of getting the results of your research into the public domain, and if you want to pursue a career in academia, your publication record will be a critical measure of the effectiveness of your research.

No pressure, then!

Developing Your Publishing Strategy will give you the chance to hear Professor Cathy Shrank (from the University's School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics) talk about how leading academics develop and manage a successful publishing strategy, and how to ensure that your published work raises your academic profile and supports your professional ambitions.

Michael Pidd, the HRI Digital Manager, will also be there to talk about the opportunities presented by digital publishing and the ways in which you can use digital publishing to undertake as well as to disseminate your research.

You will have further opportunity to discuss these issues with Cathy and Michael, as well the other attendees, over an informal lunch and Q&A session.

Lunch will be provided, so please register here to attend.  If you have any queries, please do get in touch with me. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Food for Thought is a new lunchtime seminar series for researchers, organised by the Researcher Development Programme, in conjunction with academic colleagues. If you have an idea for a future seminar, please contact me at sarah.j.bell@sheffield.ac.uk

Best wishes,

Sarah

 

Sarah Bell

7th Annual South East European Doctoral Student Conference 24/25 Sep 2012 in Thessaloniki - Greece

Building on the success of the six previous Doctoral conferences which each attracted over 100 papers from countries all over the SE European region and beyond, we are pleased to announce the 7th Annual South East European Doctoral Student Conference which will be held 24^th and 25^th of September 2012 at CITY College an International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, Thessaloniki, Greece. The aim of the conference is to further facilitate the exchange of knowledge between young researchers and to consolidate the established network of scholars currently undertaking research in South East Europe. Doctoral students or young researchers in the areas of Business Administration, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing, Information & Communication Technologies, Psychology, Politics, Sociology as well as Education are invited to attend and present papers related to their doctoral research.


Knowledge Management is part of Research Track 1.


Further information can be found on http://www.seerc.org/dsc2012/index.html

Dr Stephen Pinfield on Open Agenda 9 May 2012

Dr Stephen Pinfield, CIO and Director of the Centre for Research Communications at the University of Nottingham will give a seminar on the Open Agenda this afternoon at 4 pm in Room 204 followed by tea/coffee and biscuits/cookies in the iSchool Common Room. Stephen will discuss strategies for providing Open Access to a range of organisational resources - scholarly publications, research data, educational resources and more.

This event also offers a timely opportunity to discuss the recent announcement of government plans to require open access to publicly funded research - see BBC News at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17921442 and The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/01/open-free-access-academic-research.

Interdisciplinary postgraduate conference at ICOSS 30 May 2012

You are invited to attend 'Representation and Participation', an interdisciplinary postgraduate conference, which will take place at ICOSS on Wednesday 30th May 2012 (registration from 9.15, conference starting at 10.00). The conference will showcase postgraduate research on a wide range of topics, and offers an opportunity to engage with fellow students from social science departments across Leeds, Sheffield and York. We are also pleased to announce the keynote speaker will be Professor Allison James from the Sociological Studies department at the University of Sheffield.

Attendance at the conference is free, but please email Jennifer Kettle (sop06jk@sheffield.ac.uk) by Monday 14th May to confirm your attendance. You will receive a timetable and details of the speakers nearer the time.

Kind regards,

Jennifer