November 2019 Seminar: Useful evidence: getting research evidence valued and used.

/in , , /by

Summary

At this meeting Jonathan Breckon of the Alliance for Useful Evidence explained the role of his organisation. It is a network, hosted by the UK’s innovation charity Nesta, the government’s vehicle for designing, testing and scaling new solutions to some identified problems. These organisations champion the smarter use of evidence in social policy and practice. They do this through advocacy, convening events, sharing ideas and resources, and supporting individuals and organisations through advice and training. The work is promoted through an open access network of more than 4,300 individuals from across government, universities, charities, businesses, and local authorities in the UK and internationally which we could all join for free. He then described the COM-B framework for encouraging research use, developed by researchers at UCL, and adopted by a range of foundations and government agencies in UK and overseas.

COM-B is a ‘behaviour system’ involving three essential conditions: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation and it forms the hub of a ‘behaviour change wheel’ (BCW), around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. It has been used in a number of applications, mainly health related. We looked at ways to improve hearing-aid use in adult auditory rehabilitation. He also presented the factors that influence medication-taking behaviour, a tobacco control strategy, and the NICE Obesity Guidelines.

We learned that research evidence is just one factor that can influence decision-making at a policy and practice level. Various interventions have been developed to enhance and support the use of research evidence by decision-makers. Jonathan explained that in order to decide which interventions are most effective, there had been a systematic review of research into research use, leading to these new methods for characterising and designing behaviour change intervention. He provided us with some practical tips on the best mechanisms for more generally getting research evidence valued and used. This then led into small group discussions where we were given time to consider what was relevant to our own organisations and how we could make use of these insights within their own work programmes.

Speakers

Jonathan Breckon has been the Director of The Alliance for Useful Evidence since it was created at Nesta in 2012. Formerly Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, he has had policy roles at the Royal Geographical Society, the British Academy, and Universities UK. He is a member of the Cabinet Office What Works Council and a Director of the Department for Education’s What Works for Children’s Social Care. His research and professional interests cover politics and psychology, particularly the relationship between evidence and policy-making. He is a Visiting Professor at Strathclyde University and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London’s Policy Institute. His research and professional interests cover politics and psychology, the relationship between evidence and policy-making, and the role of professional bodies, such as medical Royal Colleges, in applying evidence-based practice. When not at work, or being ordered around by two young children, he wastes time protecting his family’s veg garden from slugs or finding excuses to go sailing in the Solent.

Time and Venue

2pm on 21st November 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx100

Blog

There is no blog report for this seminar.

Study Suggestions

Nesta Website: https://www.nesta.org.uk/

July 2019 Seminar: Using content strategy to meet your business goals: content strategy at work

/in , , , /by

Summary

The seminar in July received very positive feedback. The two speakers were able to present their different perspectives on this practical topic with expertise and they coordinated together like the perfect double act! The audience learnt from first hand experience how to work through the four stages of Content Strategy development, and then had a chance to question the speakers so that the presentation could be directly linked to current real life examples. There was a final syndicate session that gave all present the opportunity to try their skills in a potential problem situation. Several of the audience members commented that what they had learnt from the session was immediately applicable to their own work situations and therefore would be in use by Monday morning!

Rahel Baillie and Kate Kenyon explained the role of content strategy in an organisation, and gave an in-depth view of the processes and tools used to transform existing content and knowledge into a profitable business asset. They addressed the question: what exactly is content strategy? And how is it useful to knowledge management. The two presenters had a wealth of experience in this field, gained from working with clients such as Facebook, Tesco, eBay, Cancer Research, Barclaycard, and various government agencies such as the City of Vancouver and the UK’s Department of International Trade.

In the first part of the session, Kate and Rahel looked at what content strategy is, and what it isn’t. They explored how content strategy as a discipline relates to knowledge management within an organisation. They went into detail on how efforts are focused on adding business value through content, and they explained the tools and processes content strategists use during the discovery process.

The second part of the session prided an opportunity to put these tools and processes into effect in a practical session aimed at creating a content strategy. Using a group of independent knowledge management specialists as the “client”, groups used techniques such as needs analysis, a content audit and content engineering to try and create a winning strategy and roadmap.

Speakers

Rahel Baillie has a strong track record of delivering end-to-end content systems in the context of digital strategy projects, often in environments with complex content delivery requirements: the professional who delivers the hard truths and sometimes difficult prescriptions that help organisations leverage their content as a business asset. To achieve this means analysing business problems to see where content is preventing organisations from meeting their business goals, defining content offerings, and then developing systems that integrate various types of content in to a coherent strategy to optimise its production and delivery in a way that allows it to be used to meet the goals of the organisation. See her full profile here: linkedin.com/in/rahelannebailie

Kate Kenyon is a senior content strategist with 15 years of experience solving all the gnarly problems that come with large-scale digital content management. Originally trained as a journalist at the BBC in 2005, she moved from creating content into the much harder challenge of managing it, and has been working in this area ever since. She has worked across the full spectrum of content strategy from writing to governance. Kate has a particular interest in the more technical aspects of content strategy: modelling content into scalable structures, particularly for voice assistants and multiplatform, as well as API definition. Her work has allowed her to work with a wide range of clients including Facebook, eBay, Tesco, Expedia, HSBC, Cancer Research UK, JustGiving, eHarmony and Mumsnet.

Time and Venue

2pm on 25th July 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

What exactly is content strategy? And how is it useful to knowledge management professionals? This seminar will clarify the role of content strategy in an organisation, and give an in-depth view of the processes and tools used to transform existing content and knowledge into a profitable business asset. Presenters will bring a wealth of experience, gained from working with clients such as Facebook, Tesco, eBay, Cancer Research, Barclaycard, and various government agencies such as the City of Vancouver and the UK’s Department of International Trade. In the first part of the session, Kate and Rahel will begin with a look at what content strategy is, and what it isn’t. They will explore how content strategy as a discipline relates to knowledge management within an organisation. They will go into detail on how efforts are focused on adding business value through content, and explain the tools and processes content strategists use during the discovery process. The second part of the session will be a chance to put these tools and processes into effect in a practical session aimed at creating a content strategy. Using a group of independent knowledge management specialists as the “client”, we will use techniques such as needs analysis, a content audit and content engineering to create a winning strategy and roadmap.
Seminar Objectives:
• To understand what is meant by content strategy
• To determine how useful it is to knowledge management professionals
• To begin to understand how to develop a content strategy

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx99

Blog

See our blog report: Content strategy

Study Suggestions

None available

May 2019 Seminar: Information Literacy: Current Ideas and Developments plus NetIKX AGM

/in , , , , /by

Summary

This session provided an opportunity to discuss current ideas and developments relating to information literacy (IL). Last year, CILIP completely overhauled its definition of IL. Unlike the previous version, which was heavily focused on academic skills, the 2018 definition places IL firmly in a broad societal context that no longer resides just within higher education. It states that ‘IL is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgments about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society’.

In the first part of the session, Stéphane Goldstein – who, along with the other presenter, Geoff Walton, contributed to the drafting of the definition – explained why it is so important for IL to be situated in different life-course contexts; how the definition addresses this; how IL has become particularly pertinent in light of concerns about misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’; how it relates to public policy issues and government priorities; and how it dovetails and overlaps with other literacies – digital, media, political – that all contribute to addressing these concerns.

The second part of the session consisted of a reflection, introduced by Geoff Walton, on two case studies examining how young people differ in the ways that they make judgements about information (both psychologically and physiologically) and what can be done to improve their approach. The first looked at how young people make judgements about information and the second gave an overview of a teaching and learning event that enables them to improve their abilities.

In a recent experiment with 18–24 year olds, it was found that those who are good at making well-calibrated judgements about information (we call them high information discerners) are more curious, tend to use multiple sources to verify information, are more likely to be sceptical about information on search engines such as Google, do not regard the first results page as the most trustworthy information and are cognisant of the importance of authority – for example is a web page on medical advice written by a qualified medic or not? Conversely, low information discerners are significantly less likely to be aware of these issues and are generally dismissive of the content put in front of them. These differences are statistically significant.

It was also found that:
1. When presented with mis-information and put under mild stress, higher discerning individuals viewed the situation as more of a challenge, rather than a threat to their well-being.
2. When presented with mis-information, those with higher information discernment levels experienced more favourable (i.e. adaptive and healthy), physiological outcomes. Specifically, individuals with high discernment responded to stress with a more efficient blood flow, equating to a healthier heart response.
3. When given mis-information, higher information discerning individuals responded with more positive emotions before and after the stressful task, in comparison to lower information discerning individuals.
4. High information discerners tend to show high concentration levels and low information discerners exhibit low concentration.

These results have health and well-being implications as well as raising educational and societal concerns. Happily, a number of tools have been devised to help young people improve their information discernment capabilities. Geoff shared these with participants. This was followed by a discussion of their merits and the implications of the various findings.

Speakers

Stephane Goldstein is Executive Director of InformAll (www.informall.org.uk) , a research and policy consultancy that specialises in information and digital literacy and which he founded in 2015. He is the Advocacy and Outreach Officer on CILIP’s Information Literacy Group, and a member of its Knowledge & Information Management Group. Stéphane is an established researcher and research manager, having published reports and articles on information literacy and other themes relating to the information and data environment. He has produced material for organisations in the information world including CILIP, SCONUL and Knowledge Exchange. He set up InformAll with the aim of helping to develop evidence-based awareness of the importance and relevance of information literacy, having previously worked at the Research Information Network, where he undertook and supported projects addressing not just information literacy, but also open access, open science, the role of libraries in supporting research and research data management.

Dr Geoff Walton is Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Languages, Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University and described as one of the top ‘internationally eminent scholars and researchers’ in information literacy. He is Programme Leader for the MA Library & Information Management. Geoff is Chair of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Information Literacy and an Information Literacy Group (ILG) committee member. He is currently writing up the CILIP ILG funded project ‘Information discernment and psychophysiological well-being in response to misinformed stigmatization’. Geoff has also recently completed a British Academy funded project with Dr Ali Pickard and the late Professor Mark Hepworth. He was a librarian (in the voluntary, public and academic sectors) for 23 years before taking up a Senior Lecturer role at Northumbria University. In 2010, Geoff received the SLA Information Professional Europe Award sponsored by Dow Jones. Geoff’s main research interests are: information literacy, information behaviour, Technology Enhanced Learning, health literacy, data literacy and public libraries. He has published six books and many peer reviewed papers.

Time and Venue

2pm on 30th May 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

Last year, CILIP completely overhauled its definition of IL and this meeting will be an opportunity to learn about the changes. See the CILIP press release and the report).

Part one will look at this in light of concerns about misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’; how it relates to public policy issues and government priorities; and how it dovetails and overlaps with other literacies – digital, media, political – that all contribute to addressing these concerns.

The second part of the session will look at two case studies that questioned young people about the ways that they make judgments about information and what can be done to improve their approach. The study raised important concerns. Happily, the session will show a number of tools to help young people improve their information discernment capabilities. There will be an opportunity to discuss their merits and what are the implications of our various findings for our workplaces and the information professional’s role.

Our AGM will take place at the end of the meeting.

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx98

Blog

See our blog report: Information Literacy

Study Suggestions

The Information Literacy Website, brought to you by the CILIP Information Literacy Group is called: infolit.org.uk where you can find more information including the CILIP press release and the report itself.

Geoff Walton’s publications list can be found at: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=UwsIXpUAAAAJ&hl=en

March 2019 Seminar: Open Data

/in , , , /by

Summary

At this meeting David Penfold gave an introduction to the applications and implications of Open Data and the related topic of Linked Data. As more and more data is generated daily, and even by the minute, how that data is used and what information can be obtained from it becomes more and more significant. An important aspect of this is Open Data and the related topic of Linked Data. This meeting looked at these topics and reviewed how the use of Open and Linked Data can make access to information and how it is used much more powerful.

The meeting mainly consisted of a general (fairly non-technical) introduction to the subject from David Penfold, who gave examples of how open data is used by organisations such as Network Rail. He showed excerpts from presentations from Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt and concluded with a consideration of the ethics of Open Data and the implications of AI.

Speaker

Dr David Penfold is vice-chairman of NetIKX and has worked for many years in publishing, with a particular emphasis on content, structured documents and information management within a publishing context. He has previously been Chair of the British Computer Society Electronic Publishing Specialist Group and a Senior Lecturer at the London College of Communication (Deputy Course Director of the MA in Publishing). He is currently Convenor of the terminology Working Group of the ISO Technical Committee on Graphic Technology and a founder member of the recently formed IK SpringBoard, which is working on methods of implementation of the revised CILIP/KPMG report on Information as an Asset.

Time and Venue

2pm on 20th March 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

None

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx97

Blog

A report has been posted on the NetIKX blog

Study Suggestions

Have a look at the website for the Open Data Institute https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=open+data+institute

January 2019 Seminar: Making and sharing knowledge in communities: can wikis and related tools help?

/in , , /by

Summary

At this meeting Andy Mabbett, a hugely experienced Wikipedia editor, gave an introduction to the background of Wikipedia and discussed many of the issues that it raises.
Accumulating, organising and sharing knowledge is never easy; this is the problem Knowledge Management sought to address. Today we hope networked electronic platforms can facilitate the process. They are never enough in themselves, because the issues are essentially human, to do with attitudes, social dynamics and work culture — but good tools certainly help.

In past seminars, NetIKX has looked at MS Sharepoint, but that is proprietary and commercial, and it doesn’t work for wider communities of practice and interest. In this seminar, we looked at a range of alternatives, some of them free of charge and/or open source, together with the social dynamics that make them succeed or fail.
First we looked at the wiki model. The case study was Wikipedia — famous, but poorly understood. Andy Mabbett presented this. Andy is a hugely experienced Wikipedia editor, who inspires respect and affection around the world for his ability to explain how Wikipedia works, and for training novices contributing content – including as a ‘Wikipedian In Residence’ encouraging scientific and cultural organisations to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia.

A few stats: Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can in theory edit, has now survived 18 years, existing on donations and volunteering. It has accumulated over 40 million articles in 301 languages, and about 500 million visitors a month. The English edition has nearly 5.8 million articles. There are about 300,000 active contributors, of whom 4,000 make over a hundred edits annually.

Under the wider banner of ‘Wikimedia’, there are sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiversity, which hosts free learning materials, Wikidata, which is developing a large knowledge base, and the Wikimedia Commons, which holds copyright-free photos, audio and other multimedia resources.

And yet, as the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia admits, “Wikipedia has been criticized for exhibiting systemic bias, for presenting a mixture of ‘truths, half truths, and some falsehoods’, and for being subject to manipulation and spin in controversial topics.” This isn’t so surprising, because humans are involved. It’s a community that has had to struggle with issues of authority and quality control, partiality and sundry other pathologies. Andy provided insight into these problems, and explained how the Wikipedia community organises itself to define, defend and implement its values.

No NetIKX seminar would be complete without syndicate sessions, conducted in parallel table groups. For the second half of the afternoon, each group was presented in turn with tales from two further case studies of knowledge sharing using different platforms and operating under different rules. These endeavours might have used email lists, Google Docs, another kind of wiki software, or some other kind of groupware. There were tales of triumph, but of tribulation too.

At the end of the afternoon polling thoughts helped to identify key factors that may point the way towards building better ways of sharing knowledge.

Speakers

Andy Mabbett has been a Wikipedia editor (as User:Pigsonthewing) since 2003 and involved with Wikidata since its inception in 2012. He has given presentations about Wikimedia projects on five continents, and has a great deal of experience working with organisations that wish to engage with Wikipedia and its sister projects. With a background in programming and managing websites for local government, Andy has been ‘Wikimedian in Residence’ at ORCID; TED; the Royal Society of Chemistry; The Physiological Society; the History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group; and various museums, galleries and archives. He is also the author of three books on the rock band Pink Floyd.

Our case-study witnesses

Sara Culpin is currently Head of Information & Knowledge at CRU International, where she has implemented a successful information and knowledge strategy on a shoestring budget. Since graduating from Loughborough University, she has spent over 25 years in information and knowledge roles at Aon, AT Kearney, PwC, and Deloitte. She is passionate about getting colleagues to share their knowledge across their organisations, while ensuring that their senior managers see the business value. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-culpin-2a1b051

Dr Richard Millwood has a background in school maths education, with a history of applying computers to education, and is Director of Core Education UK. As a researcher in the School of Computer Science & Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, he is developing a community of practice for computer science teachers in Ireland and creating workshops for families to develop creative use of computers together. In the 1990s Richard worked with Professor Stephen Heppell to create Ultralab, the learning technology research centre at Anglia Polytechnic University, acting as head 2005–2007. He researched innovation in online higher education in the Institute for Educational Cybernetics at the University of Bolton until 2013, gaining a PhD by Practice in ‘The Design of Learner-centred, Technology-enhanced Education’.

Time and Venue

2pm on 24th January 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

None

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx96

Blog

See our blog report: Wikipedia & knowledge sharing

Study Suggestions

Andy Mabbett, experienced Wikipedian

Andy Mabbett is an experienced editor of Wikipedia with more than a million edits to his name. Here’s a link to a ‘Wikijabber’ audio interview with Andy by Sebastian Wallroth (Sept 2017)
https://wikijabber.com/wikijabber-0005-with-pigsonthewing/