A relational Information Science? #ASIST24HR

The second keynote in the Africa/Europe portion of ASIS&T 24 hour Global Conference (on  Tuesday) was from Isto Huvila (Department of ALM, Uppsala University), talking about A relational Information Science? For networking, sharing and learning.  These are notes I made at the time, and I certainly did not capture all his ideas. His slides are at https://www.istohuvila.se/content/keynote-relational-information-science-networking-sharing-and-learning. You will see he cites his own work at various points and his extensive publications list is here: https://www.istohuvila.se/publications

Huvila explained why he was querying the idea of Information Science (IS) being relational curently: after all, information practice was about relations with other people, and for example bibliometrics is about the relationship between authors and publications. However IS is also "very much about things" so that a product-oriented view may dominate. Also when thinking about relations, we may think of a limited range of relationships, or not think through what the relationships are and what they mean. 

He said that he was making a possible contrast between relationism and substantivism, although not probing that deeply here. He reminded us about Buckland's classic paper "Information as thing": and how we did still need to talk about information things and material things, but it was neccessary to also go beyond that to think about what these things do, and look at the relationship between things. Huvila went on to look at three specific relationalities that he is interested in and has explored. 

These were: (1) Relation(alitie)s to information - he mentioned aspects such as relevance and information literacy being related to information. He posited context as a bounded space, people being somewhere in this contextual landscape. Huvila reflected on the idea of the insider and outsider, and the connections between people through information. He gave the example from his research of archaeologists who are in bounded and often overlapping communities/contexts. He then talked more widely about people's life, the changes in contexts (e.g. with more remote connections, some people with less identification with extended familities, more attachement to work contexts) - with people becoming more of insiders or outsiders in different contexts, the context not just defined physically.

(2) Relationalities through information, for example people making & taking information.  He talked about people appropriating information to apply to their own situation - information from others or information that they already have. Huvila talked about how although information use and information impact is being studied more, it still does not get as much attention as information seeking.  

( 3) Relationalities with (information) infrastructures and technologies. The technologies may not immediately look information-related e.g. a toothbrush - he illustrated it with toothbrushes being used to clean archeological artefacts, helping to reveal information about the artefact. Another example was people using medical records.
Finally he talked a little about how networking, sharing and learning fitted in with his reflections on relationality. He concluded that he was not advocating throwing away Information Science as it has been, but that thinking and researching with more focus on relationalities would be a fruitful way forward.
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry petals, April 2022

Creating connections for enhancing collaborative and professional development #ASIST24HR

Yesterday at the ASIS&T 24 hour Global Conference I chaired and participated in a panel on collaboration: this was in my role as Chair of the European Chapter of the Association of Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) and my fellow-panellists were: Professor Imane Hilal: School of Information Sciences, Rabat, Morocco (Chair of ASIS&T Africa Chapter), Dr Grace Msoffe: University of Dodoma, Tanzania (Chair-Elect of ASIS&T Africa Chapter), Dr Sophie Rutter: Information School, University of Sheffield (Chair-Elect of ASIS&T European Chapter). Below are the slides we used, and there were also thoughtful contributions from the session participants. 

Creating connections for enhancing collaborative and professional development: opportunities and challenges from Sheila Webber

Inequalities in access to cultural institutions; searching archives; #OERs in Filipino maths teaching #ASIST24HR

This post reports on a session at the ASIS&T 24 hour Global Conference which had 3 short presentations.
Firstly there was Evaluation of Inequalities of Access in UK Online Digital Collections: A Systematic Review by David Brazier and Bruce Ryan, Edinburgh Napier University, UK (with Paul Gooding as a co-author). They talked about how the pandemic accelerated the movement of cultural heritage institutions online, but not all collections are digitised, and being digitised doesn't guarantee access. This raised the question of what research has been carried out about equality of access and evaluation of use of digital resources. They outlined their approach to their systematic review - the full strategy is at http://bit.ly/3JG6uOn.
They retrieved 86,000+ items and described how they focused on key interests by excluding and adding terms: this reduced it to 36 items. However they realised that they were missing some seminal items: including a citation search on these items enlarged the number to 60. They read the items posing key research questions.
The majority of items talked about lessons on the digitisation process and technology which e.g. revealed advice about project planning; the importance of metadata; the importance of sharing practice across sectors; use of crowdsourcing and information on use of open source software. In terms of lessons about access, issues included copyright challenges; the need for political will and funding; the need to consider users' motivation, sensemaking, what tech users have access to, and need for users' digital literacy.
Leading on from that, they talked about lessons on impact assessment: these included the need for community engagement, and the need to evaluate impact using different means e.g. webometrics and collaborative analysis. One of the conclusions was the need to engage with under-represented communities, and then "build factors of inclusion, diversity and access into impact evaluation". 

The second presentation was Investigating the use of Open Education Resources (OERs) in Filipino in the Context of Emergency Remote Learning by Khristin Fabian, Perth College UHI, UK; Ray Abacan, Enderun Colleges, Philippines and Peter Esperanza, Barstow Community College, USA. They explained how teachers in the Philippines were, as in many other countries, forced online during the pandemic. The speakers presented some facts about the country, including that 120+ languages are spoken, and the PISA survey shows that 94% of those tested for maths speak a language at home other than the test language. Lessons in maths are often taught in English, which is a barrier to family supporting learning, and requires teachers to teach with 2 langauges.
Esperanza had started a multilingual Youtube channel supporting maths: Number Bender. This enabled some research (using these videos as OERs) into the questions "Does the use of supplemental video resources in Filipino enable higher math achievements" and "How are OERs being used by teachers?" Research involved 208+463 students and 25 teachers, divided into a group of students using materials in English, and ones using materials in Filipino.
The research involved a pre and post test, student survey and teacher interviews. Overall the results of the pre and post tests did not show learning gains: but this is highly likely to be influenced by the pandemic situation, with teachers not able to deliver all the teaching etc. There was, however, a difference between the Filipino and English language scores - the Filipino group did show a slight improvement.
The teachers, on the other hand, found the resources very useful (rating it 4.75 out of 5). They found it useful to have students view the videos before online sessions, and also as a tool for reviewing content. This was done by distributing the videos on flash drive, rather than requiring students to stream them online. Issues included curricular alignment (resources not mapping to the whole curriculum) and the need for more worked examples. The students' responses to the survey also showed that they also felt very positive about the videos. 

The final presentation in this session was Supporting Diverse User Groups of Archives for Open Dialogue in Digital Humanities by Pia Borlund, Nils Pharo, and Ying-Hsang Liu, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. They introduced the Polyvocal Interpretation of Contested Colonial Heritage project. It "explores how archival material created in a colonial mindset can be re-appropriated and re-interpreted to become an effective source for decolonization and the basis for a future inclusive society." Teams in 5 countries are involved, and data is being collected through interviews and questionnaires. The Oslo team (who presented) are addressing questions about how people search archives, their information needs and strategies, and why they succeed or fail in searching. They reported on the questionnaire data collected so far. A pop up questionnaire in French, English and Dutch resulted in 46 responses. Most were from the UK, France or the Netherlands. Findings included that the larger number had at least some knowledge of the collection and gave insights into their search strategy (unfortnately I deleted my saved screenshots by mistake, so I will add some actual detail when I can access the slides!)

Information Behavior as Research Lens for Life #ASIST24HR

I'm attending, and later presenting at, the ASIS&T 24 hour Global Conference. The last section of the conference is for African and European time zones. I'm afraid I did not get up in time for the absolute beginning of this part (which started at 6am my time) but I joined in time for a keynote Information Behavior as Research Lens for Life: Our Challenges, Joys, and Opportunities from Ina Fourie, University of Pretoria, South Africa. This was a rich and complex talk, and I may be misinterpreting, and also did not capture all the ideas. However, hopefully this gives a flavour of Fourie's ideas. 

Fourie started by talking about the scope and importance of information behaviour (IB). She identified IB as exploring all facets of life, and with increased attention to issues such as temporality. Fourie reflected on how it was difficult to read all one should (that could be related to IB) and to bring different aspects together. She urged information behaviour researchers to get together to explore the meaning of information behaviour and its relationship with information literacy, information practice etc. Fourie advocated for deeper collaboration on IB research, and stressed its importance in making a difference to people's lives.
She defined a research lens as being about what you can do and want to see, paying attention to what previous researchers have discovered, using the available tools and methods, and reflecting carefully on what perspective you will take, and which research questions you will explore. Fourie urged us to think about all the different emotions that each person goes through every day, the different challenges and opportunities.
She used the example of her own previous day with its interwoven mixture of personal things to organise, work responsibilities and practical issues of managing her health and presence. Fourie emphasised the affective elements in the experience. She noted that "Contemporary society [is] more intense, more driven, more complex and intermingled" - with the pandemic having at this stage increased pressures (e.g. to be more driven, more efficient) and at the same times "increasing overbearing pressure" with more anxieties about health, employment etc.
She felt it was this complexity that researchers needed to explore. Information Behaviour research can contribute in making a difference in a lot of ways - e.g. through influencing systems and product design, through action research, in the areas of information and digital literacy. She argued for deeper immersion in the specific research context we are researching, with new contexts (such as streaming social media) emerging.
She also urged researchers to explore and reflect more about who is involved in the research and how research can create safe spaces. Fourie identified the timing of data collection as being a delicate issue, as exploring people's IB in the midst of intense experience can be intrusive, but may also provide insights which would be useful to others. Social networking and IT had brought new values and challenges. Fourie saw one goal as helping others to see IB as a lens on their lives, to make a difference to their quality of life.
Fourie suggested that one way of exploring this new landscape was to include the researcher themselves more prominently, for example, using analytic and collaborative autoethnography and that can be a starting point to connect with others. Each IB researcher needs to reflect on their own personality, beliefs, experience etc. and what that means for their identity as a researcher. Fourie's ideas for developing as an IB researcher included: "reading beyond the borders", exploring multiple methods, researching yourself, and working collaboratively, and creating a third space for research (which included being collaborative, sharing, participate, exploring creatively).