While transcribing interviews for the ILDEM project, I was reminded of one of my MSc courseworks, about Scottish Local Authority websites. It wasn’t perfect but I think my conclusions were based on good evidence. They were
There is marked variation in LA website accessibilities, some having very few accessibility features. It seems no Scottish local government website is ‘perfectly’ accessible while a signicant number do not follow a national standard, the Scottish Navigation List. [1]
Here’s our third post about the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.
Here’s our third post about the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.
… or, rather, tales of my doings to showcase some of the fine work my Napier colleagues are doing.
Hat-tip to Lindsay Jenkins for this presentation.
I’m leaving Napier for 6 months at the end of tomorrow to pursue some personal interests. However, it’s very reassuring to know that I have some work to come back to. I’ll be working with Peter Cruickshank and Hazel Hall, investigating levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system in a project entitledInformation Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM). The award has been granted by the CILIP Information Literacy Group.
Hazel has blogged about the project’s aims and objectives, so it only remains for me to say that I’m looking forward to venturing into a slightly different research focus, while still working on aspects of Scotland’s hyperlocal democracy.
There may be some different research methods too, thus increasing my research skills, although the work will centre on understanding how people learn to use technology away from conventional education. In that sense, the work is likely to of interest to anyone concerned with helping people who struggle to make the best of their personal IT.
So I’ll be working with great colleagues, on interesting and practically useful things. What’s not to like?
Leah Lockhart, social media advisor and all-round good egg, has been blogging about fears and barriers in public services on LinkedIn. Here are her thoughts on fears people have about being abused online, fears around negotiating online identity, fears digital champions have about inertia generally but especially in hierarchical leadership and finally about fears around BYOD.
Thanks also to ‘Lelil’ for drawing me to Leah’s tale of how to use topical hashtags to draw extra traffic to community council Tweets.
Well worth a read for any CC member (or any other elected member or public servant) involved in digital engagement with their citizens, in my opinion.
We’ve published our report on the autumn digiCC workshops – you can find it on the national website for CCs at http://www.communitycouncils.scot/read-the-report-of-the-digital-engagement-workshops.html and in the library belonging to the KnowledgeHub group for CC members at https://khub.net/documents/10440977/0/2015+digiCC+workshops+report. (You’ll need to join the KnowledgeHub and then the CC members group to access that library.) Continue reading
I hope this blog given an idea of how fun and rewarding it is to work in Edinburgh Napier University‘s School of Computing. While most of my experience is within the Centre for Social Informatics, within that school, I studied for an MSc here first, being taught by staff from many centres. I count myself very lucky to have studied and worked in such a great place with encouraging, supportive people all around me.
The School is now offering four PhD places in some very diverse topics: find out more here. And find out more about the topics that would fit in the Centre for Social informatics here.
But hurry! The closing date for applications is 15 January 2016.
I love working in academia, not least because I often get to do new things. Perhaps the best example so far is the Workforce Mapping Project commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the Archives and Records Association (ARA). The headline results have now been published.
I got to work with Library and Information Science researchers Hazel Hall and Christine Irving, and Employment researchers Robert Raeside, Tao Chen and Matthew Dutton, giving me exposure to several new fields.
It’s always affirming to learn of fresh research into our field. So I was very excited to receive Katrin Prager‘s and Kirsty Holstead‘s Community Councils in Aberdeenshire: Achievements and Challenges.
Bruce's IT-ish world 