About this event

CIM IDIMC conference celebrates ‘5-minute Madness’ and more

On the 12^th-13^th January 2016 the Centre for Information Management (CIM) hosted its 2^nd International Data and Information Management Conference (IDIMC). Following the success of CIM’s inaugural conference in 2014, ‘Making Connections’, this event focussed on ‘Exploring our digital shadow’, with attendees from a wide range of UK and international universities.  

The event was opened by Professor Stewart Robinson, Acting Dean of the School of Business and Economics. His keynote speech was on the topic of ‘Developing Research’ and focused on ‘What I wish I had known when I was younger’. Following this, the PhD students had the chance to present their research in a ‘5-minute madness competition’ with PhD student Frances Ryan from Edinburgh Napier University taking the prize.

The morning session was closed by Visiting Professor John Beckford from Beckford Consulting. He spoke about his research into ‘Information and Intelligent Organisation’, the title of his recent book.

 The afternoon session was focused around Early Career Researchers and the workshops included:

• ‘Writing Journal and Conference Papers’ run by Emeritus Professor Guy Fitzgerald and Professor Ray Dawson
• ‘Reflections on the ‘how’. Reconsidering research methods in Information Systems’ run by Professor Robert Galliers
• ‘Managing the Early Stages of your Academic Career’ run by Professor John Arnold
• ‘Writing a Funding Bid’ run by Professor Tom Jackson

Closing Day 1 was Visiting Academic Neil Stansfield, Head of the Knowledge, Innovations and Futures Enterprise, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. His talk was entitled ‘Warfare in the Information Age: the digital transformation of defence operations in the 21^st century’ which then lead onto questions about the nature of privacy in the digital age.

*Please note that Neil will be speaking on March 8th at the next CIM Distinguished Speaker Series event.

The second day was more focused on invited and contributed research papers and posters. Opening Day 2 was Danny Budzak, Senior Information Manager for the London Legacy Development Corporation, whose presentation was entitled ‘It’s alright in practice, but does it work in theory?’. This talk focused on the information management skills and tools necessary for his organisation throughout their major regeneration project in East London to build on the London 2012 Olympic legacy.

The presentations from the mornings’ session went as follows:

• ‘Factors that influence information behaviour from psychology and Information’ – Peggy Alexopoulou, Doctoral Student
• ‘A proposal for development of individual competencies’ – Renato de Oliveira Moraes, University Sao Paolo
• ‘Developing a model for investigation academic libraries as learning organisations’ – Saowapha Limwichitr and Judith Broady- Preston, Aberystwyth University

The plenary session was held by Andrew Jack from the Financial Times. His talk was entitled ‘Humans versus machines: the role of the editorial curation in journalism’. Following this was a lunch and poster session. Prior to the conference research posters were submitted and throughout the two days, delegates were asked to vote on them. The winner of the ‘Best Poster Presentation’ was Iris Buunk, a doctoral student from Edinburgh Napier University. Her poster was entitled ‘Easier, faster, better? How social media facilitate tacit knowledge sharing practices between employees within public sector organisations’.

The second session of the day followed the same lines as the first and the presentations were:

• ‘Aspectual Analysis as an alternative way of understanding the definitions of Big Data’ – Sina Joneidy, Salford Business School
• ‘Social networking sites and employment status: an investigation based on understanding society data’ – John Mowbray, Edinburgh Napier University
• ‘Personal online reputation: the development of an approach to investigate how personal reputation is evaluated and managed in online environments’ – Frances Ryan, Edinburgh Napier University
• ‘Unauthorised disclosure of organisational information through social media: a policy perspective’ – Dinithi Pallegedara, Deakin University, Australia

The closing keynote demonstrated the prominence of technology with a live skype call through to Christine Borgman from the University of California, Los Angeles. Christine spoke on ‘Dataverse in the Universe of Data’.

The conference ended with the presentations of ‘Best 5-Minute Madness Presentation’, ‘Best Poster Presentation’ and finally ‘Best Paper’. Papers were submitted and marked before the conference. This award was given to Frances Ryan from Edinburgh Napier University, who also won the ‘Best 5-Minute Madness Presentation’. 

The conference was a huge success. Delegate Kayode Odusanya, a PhD student in CIM, commented:

Attending the IDIMC 2016 conference was a fulfilling experience for me. It afforded unique networking and learning platforms with various academics and practitioners within the field of information management. Very glad I attended, as it has left me with useful insights and collaborative opportunities that will enhance my research.