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Week 2- Information and the Information Professional 

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Week 2- Information and the Information Professional 

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This week we were given the opportunity to meet with Prof. Tom Wilson. Whilst reading his work I took particular interest to information behaviour and information seeking as demonstrated in my class Padlet post which summarised how recent research focuses on individual experience with information thus uses a person orientated approach to understand this further. One of the issues with information seeking is the idea that in some cases, people settle for the most readily available and accessible sources of information. More efforts need to be made to be holistic in information seeking in order to understand topics fully before making informed opinions and decisions.

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Week 3: Information and communication in everyday life and leisure settings

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Week 3: Information and communication in everyday life and leisure settings

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This week we were accompanied by Ann Graf as a guest speaker. Ann focuses her research on information management of arts and cultural materials, with specific interest in graffiti. Our class discussion with Ann taught us about the individuals interested in the street art community who take and post pictures of graffiti online, thus documenting the work that will likely be painted over or removed. From this we were able to discuss the motivations of such artists as well as the motivations of those who to document such art from.
This week I took particular interest in Chatman's study- A theory of life in the round: A study of information poverty in a women's maximum security prison. The study placed focus on the idea that inmates seek a sense of comfort in the idea of all having a shared reality. This is due to the strict routine of prison life offering 'security' and 'protection'. Chatman discusses how a new inmate learns how to behave in prison my observing and understanding the social behaviours of others and thus conforming to the social norms. This concept is something I think can be applied to many real life social experiences.

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Week 4: Researching Approaches to Exploring Information and Communication Behaviours.

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Week 4: Researching Approaches to Exploring Information and Communication Behaviours.

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This week I took on the role of seminar leader along with Crystal. We initiated conversations regarding :
What are the best ways to investigate human behaviour?
What is observation as a research method? What are the types of observation?
The discussions were aided by the reading for this week which looked at research methods and had particular focus on observation. This week also allowed us to understand the non verbal queues of body language. Along with our reading we watched a video of a former FBI body language expert who spoke upon the importance and amount of information body language can reveal. As a class we were then able to talk in groups about potential body language and gestures that could be useful for us in our own unobtrusive research. This activity provided us an insight to the amount of information that can be observed from humans and the connotations such observations can have to emotions, motivations and decision making.

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Week 5- Blending Contexts- Social Technologies, Networking and Information Dissemination.  

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Week 5- Blending Contexts- Social Technologies, Networking and Information Dissemination.  

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This weeks reading really resonated with me. In particular I found Mull's article particularly interesting. The idea that such spontaneous interactions can have such an influence on the social acknowledgment on an individual was something that surprised me. After seeing what my fellow class mates had written in the class padlet it if obvious that other academics such as Granovetter also recognise these casual relationships; or as Granovetter refers to them, weak ties. This reading also points out the influence these weak ties have on our behaviour and the way we think and act. This idea suggests we should be open regarding who we talk to but also be cautious of who may have influence on us. This should also be incorporated to the ties we have with online platforms and where we are getting information, both consciously and subconsciously.

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Week 6- Information and Communication Where We Work

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Week 6- Information and Communication Where We Work

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This week we were lucky to be joined by Karen Fisher as a guest speaker. Karen was able to explain her framework of information grounds in relation to information seeking and information behaviour. The use of the term information grounds that was coined by Karen has provided the bases of many academic articles since and provided a useful framework for us to reference whilst completing our unobtrusive observation projects. We also spoke as a class about the readings we completed and had an interesting discussion regarding the pattern of the reason behind information seeking in many professions work which was safety. I read Lydna Barkers article about Vice police officers who had been working covertly to build cases against acts of prostitution. In order to build these cases the officers had to pose as prostitutes to gain first hand information. The officers give detail on the necessity to seek information in order to stay safe whilst working in the field, this includes knowing and also picking us on signals from colleges tat suggest danger. Without knowing the correct signals or protocol for such information, officers can put themselves and their team at risk.

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Week 7- Information and Communication in Unique Contexts

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Week 7- Information and Communication in Unique Contexts

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This weeks seminar was one of my favourites. The seminar leaders created a very interactive and engaging discussion and the topic was one that was very relevant in 2022 regarding information behaviour and crisis. This week I read Hagar's article on trust and information seeking with direct reference to the foot and mouth disease that occurred in the UK during the early 2000s. During this time a number of information and communication problems occurred, primarily from the government to farmers. In this crisis situation faced by UK farmers, the level of perceived trust was found to be a large factor that determined the sources they used to seek information. Hangar highlighted 3 main causes of information uncertainty from the government: Lack of information. Slow dissemination of information. Ambiguous information. Because of the lack of perceived degree of social trustworthiness, farmers placed more trust in gaining information from the small circles of local farmers and local radio stations during this crisis. During the seminar we also discussed a video about the air ambulance and the importance of information needed to execute their job. The staff working for the air ambulance get shocking and sometimes ambiguous information about the crisis at hand. Their ability to react calmly and without an emotionally charged reaction is a good example of how individuals are able to monitor emotion when dealing with crisis information.

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This week we were tasked with visiting an information centre in order to try and understand their mission and objectives. I was back home in England for reading week so I chose to visit Milestones Living History Museum In Hampshire. I had visited this museum lots as a child so it was interesting to return as an adult and have a better understanding on the communication methods used.  The communication methods all had the purpose to inform and teach. The museums mission was to educate the public on the history of Hampshire and the different roles it had had in different historical events. The museum has recreated may different scenes through the museum in which you walk through I order for  it to feel like you have entered that time period. This use of infrastructure was a very effective in the mission to inform. However this museum focused on doing this through visual methods over traditional communication methods such as writing. I think this visual method was a good communication method particularly to the large population of children that visit the museum. At a young age, visual stimulants can often be more effective educational tools to teach.

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Week 9: Managing Workplace Information and Communication

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Week 9: Managing Workplace Information and Communication

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This week’s discussion leads on from our readings, my choice of reading this week was Ford. Ford emphasises how models are used to help us understand the phenomenon and aid our predictions in relation to such events. These models remain active and although they are formed a particular point in time or from a particular perspective, they can be developed and elaborated on with later perspectives and views. Welborn’s article about Pons and Fleischmann work within cold fusion demonstrates just how important other researchers are regarding peer reviewing work to ensure validity and reliability. These were both interesting articles that lead us to talk about whether fast sources of information should always be the most reliable.

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Week 10: Translating Observed Patterns of Behaviour into Models

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Week 10: Translating Observed Patterns of Behaviour into Models

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This week we were tasked with making our own model of information behaviour in a certain context of our choice. I used revised Ellis’ model to base my framework off and used it to create a model for the information seeking behaviours of ordering a coffee. This shows the process of seeking a coffee and the possible outcomes that can happen. After we shared our models with the class, we discussed the importance of looping back. The models work best if there is a way to loop back and start the information seeking again. This was something I had incorporated into my model when there was the possibility that a coffee wasn’t available, and the customer would essentially be ‘back to square one’.

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Week 11: The Evolving Area of Human Interactions & Our Professional Commitment.

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Week 11: The Evolving Area of Human Interactions & Our Professional Commitment.

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The discussions this week focused a lot on the role of top-down information exchange. This concept comes from learning via more knowledgeable others to develop and understanding of expected behaviours. This is something I have experienced in my personal life regarding learning from my parents and in my work life when learning from colleagues and managers. Another evolving area of human interaction comes with the development of communication technology. Specifically, the growth of social media particularly in the last 10 years. The availability to share and access information has meant that individuals can actively become more knowledgeable faster. The ways in which individuals learn and communicate across many roles and jobs is constantly evolving and allows for smoother more efficient ways to work.

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I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and the way that we learnt in an open and discussion lead manner. I think my engagement with discussions was a lot better after week 4 in which I was the seminar leader, and also after I had my 1-to-1. I enjoyed hearing about other peoples experiences in order to relate learning material to and making links to our everyday life in order to make sense of theories. I think I could have done a better job at using key terminology in my discussions in class as my main contributions were relating material back to experiences I have had rather than starting a new discussion regarding a theory. I think this also held me back when speaking with guest speakers as I felt i should have had more sophisticated comments to make when speaking to experts of certain fields. I feel as though my seminar leading week went well as i was the only student to be leader that week. However I could have placed more emphasis on getting class members involved rather than doing a-lot of talking myself. The concept of having a seminar leader was one that i had not experienced in other modules and i found it to be very useful and engaging to do myself and to have done by my peers.