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News from the Department of Information Science (formerly SIM)

Archives for Kim Humes

SIM faculty awarded Dean’s Collaborative Grants

Dr. Philippe Mongeon (Assistant Professor) and Dr. Colin Conrad (Assistant Professor) were awarded Dean’s Collaborative Grants for the following projects:

The mental health crisis in academia: tracking mental health signals from academics’ tweets – Philippe Mongeon (SIM), Anika Cloutier (Rowe School of Business) and Colin Conrad (SIM)

Muzzled no more? Perceptions of Canadian environmental scientists’ abilities to communicate and conduct research without interference – Alana Westwood (SRES) and Philippe Mongeon (SIM)

Congrats to both!

Click here to learn more about SIM’s research.

Dr. Colin Conrad

Dr. Philippe Mongeon

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster Announces Cluster Building Vitality Project

Click here to read the full press release.

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster announced four projects today including the cluster-building project called Vitality. The Vitality Project is a transformative approach to address the shared data challenges of the ocean economy. This project will capitalize on Canada’s ocean data to deliver definitive commercial outcomes to the businesses involved by advancing ocean data analysis, management and visualization capabilities, and products.

With a total project value of more than $3.8 million, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster will provide funding in the amount of $1.5 million with the balance of funding coming from project partners. Vitality is led by Pisces Research Project Management Inc. together with project partners from across Canada including: Dalhousie University, Perennia Food and Agriculture Inc., Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy, University of Victoria, St. Lawrence Global Observatory, Tula Foundation and The Hakai Institute, Marine Renewables Canada, and COINAtlantic.

This project features SIM Associate Professor, Dr. Mike Smit. His quote from the release: “We’re still in the early days of a digital transformation that we didn’t invite but which we cannot avoid. Data plays an essential role in the Blue Economy, so the Vitality project is an essential investment in the people, infrastructure, and technology needed for Canada to remain internationally competitive.”

From Dr. Smit: The project is led by Pisces Research Project Management, Dalhousie is a partner along with a variety of players across Canada.  Our work is focused on data management and data training.  The total project is $3.8 million.

Title: Vitality: Leveraging CIOOS to Accelerate Industry
Opportunity: Canada’s Ocean Supercluster Accelerated Ocean Solutions Projects
Time frame: 2020-2022
Participants:
Lead: Pisces Research Project Management
3D Wave Design
Dalhousie University (Mike Smit, Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System – Atlantic)
Perennia Food and Agriculture
Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE)
University of Victoria (Brad Buckham, Pacific Regional Institute for Marine Energy Discovery)
St. Lawrence Global Observatory
Tula Foundation
Marine Renewables Canada

SIM Research Update [2020]

The School of Information Management’s faculty and students engage in research initiatives designed to answer significant questions in the field of information management. Our research falls into seven overlapping clusters. Click here to learn more about our research.

Here are some 2020 research highlights that showcase the breadth of our research impact:

Colin Conrad:

  • COVID definitely limited neuroscience-type research as two of the ongoing studies I had earlier this year ground to a halt due to safety concerns. Nonetheless, I had the pleasure of once again serving on the committee and co-authoring in-progress articles in the 2020 NeuroIS retreat:
    1. Conrad, C., Aziz, J., Smith, N. and Newman, A. (2020). What do users feel? Towards affective EEG correlates of cybersecurity notifications. Proceedings of the 2020 NeuroIS Retreat.
    2. Godfrey, D., Findlay, C., Mulchandani, D., Subramanilyer, R., Conrad, C., and Newman, A. (2020). Information systems applications for a tri-hybrid SSVEP, P300 and N170 brain-computer interface. Proceedings of the 2020 NeuroIS Retreat.
    3. Schlechtinger, M., Klesel, M., Oschinsky, F., Conrad, C. and Niehaves, B. (2020). Detecting mind wandering episodes in virtual realities using eye-tracking. Proceedings of the 2020 NeuroIS Retreat.
  • We also have one forth coming conference paper to be presented at the 2020 International Conference for Knowledge Management: Gone, P. and Conrad, C. (forthcoming). Comparing changes in attitudes towards COVID-19 expressed on social media: the case of USA and Canada. Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM).
  • I had the pleasure of serving in some supervisory capacity (masters theses, masters projects, masters papers and directed readings) for 20 students since January. These students have largely been from the MEC/MDI and MI programs, though some have been in neuroscience and computer science as well. Of these students, 12 have finished their degrees, 4 have been coauthors in some published work (all described above), and 3 have highly promising data that will likely lead to publications in the first half of 2021. It is a pleasure to play a part in bringing so much student work to fruition!
  • I have served as a reviewer for six conference papers (1 at the Americas Conference on Information Systems, 1 at International Conference on Information Systems and 3 at the NeuorIS Retreat). I also had the pleasure of reviewing a paper for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems as well as Information Technology & People.
  • Though both of the major grants that I applied to were declined, I had the pleasure of attracting a SSHRC Explore grant ($5000) for the project called What factors lead to gainful university online community experiences during COVID-19?

Bertrum MacDonald:

  • In a year when greater emphasis has been placed on open access to information, open science, and the role of social media in disseminating information (and misinformation), Bertrum MacDonald and members of the Environmental Information: Use and Influence (EIUI) research team have published two timely papers about their research on these issues:
    1. MacDonald, B. H., Cadman, R., Martin, C., Ryder-Burbidge, S., Soomai, S. S., Stewart, I., & Wells, P. G. (2020). Is the production and use of grey marine literature a model for open science? The Grey Journal, 16(2), 73–83.
    2. Martin, C., & MacDonald, B. H. (2020). Using interpersonal communication strategies to encourage science conversations on social media. PLOS ONE, 15(11), e0241972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241972
  • In addition, in research being conducted within an Ocean Frontier Institute research group, Bertrum has co-authored an essay with Dr. Patricia Manual of the Dalhousie School of Planning that highlights the importance of including local governments and communities in coastal and marine planning initiatives: Manuel, P., & MacDonald, B. H. (2020). Local governments and coastal communities are more than “stakeholders” in marine spatial planning. The Journal of Ocean Technology, 15(2), 128–129. https://www.thejot.net/article-preview/?show_article_preview=1172
  • Evidence-based decision making has been front and centre this year as the ravages of the pandemic continue to play out globally. This subject is the focus of the graduate course, Information in Public Policy and Decision Making, which students discussed each class in the Winter 2020 term. COVID-19 quickly became a massive case study for consideration as a blog post about the course notes.

Philippe Mongeon:

  • Presentations
    • Mapping the Canadian LIS research landscape (METRICS2020) *Presented by co-authors
    • On the relationship between journal fit and scientific impact (METRICS2020)
    • “For-profit publishers are parasites”, as part of the Perspectives on academic publishing panel (CAIS2020)
    • Do researchers cite what they tweet? (7:AM Altmetrics Conference)
    • Cartographie de la recherche en sciences de l’information au Canada (invited presentation in INFO 6700, OttawaU)
    • From Research Evaluation to Research Behaviour: Shifting the focus of bibliometrics (2020 International Library and Information Science Forum for Young Scholars)
    • The Global Production and Use of Open Access Research (16th Nordic Workshop on Bibliometrics and Research Policy) *Presented by co-authors
  • Grant applications
    • The mobilization of science in a global health crisis (SSHRC insight grant with co-pi Vincent Larivière)
    • Muzzled no more? Perceptions of Canadian environmental scientists’ abilities to communicate and conduct research without interference (Dean’s collaborative research grant with co-pi Alana Westwood)
    • The mental health crisis in academia: tracking mental health signals from academics’ tweets (Dean’s collaborative research grant with co-pi Anika Cloutier and Colin Conrad)
  • New projects involving SIM colleagues
    • Mapping Canadian LIS research, with Cora-Lynn Munroe Lynds, Marc-André Simard, Ratna Dhaliwal, Azka Gowda, Vinson Li, Yifan Liu, Emily McClean
    • Digging the archive, with Kendell Fitzgerald, Grace Bourret, Jordan Audas, and Ana Roeschley
    • Tackling social justice in LIS research, with Ratna Dhaliwal, Alison Brown, Amber Matthews and Jessalyn Hill
    • The visibility of shark research in the news and social media, with Tamanna Moharana, Kory Melnick, Rémi Toupin, Pallavi Gone, and Bertrum MacDonald
  • Other research-related activities

Louise Spiteri:

  • Over the past year, I have engaged in a new area of research, namely the information behaviours of members of online zero waste communities. I’ve incorporated different disciplines into my research, including consumer behaviour, social theory, economic theory, and environmental theory. In the first stage of this research plan, I conducted a thematic analysis of over 2,000 posts across five popular zero waste Instagram communities. This research has been featured in the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Information Science, as will be published soon in the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Science. The next phase of this search is underway and will examine in more depth a number of matters that were revealed in the thematic analysis, including environmental racism and eco-feminism.
  • I am working with a multi-disciplinary and international team on a project that seeks to address the value gap problem arising in the creative industries by taking a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to explore the potential implementation of blockchain-based solutions capable of enabling neutral trusted exchanges in otherwise highly politicised environment of copyright. Team members from Dalhousie University, University of Copenhagen, Erasmus University, Bocconi University, University of Plymouth, and Warsaw University represent a variety of disciplines, including copyright law, computer science, political science, economics, and information management. We have applied for a New Frontiers in Research Fund and are awaiting the results.
  • I am working on a SSHRC Partnership Grant that explores trauma and violence informed outreach with women affected by violence. This project features researchers from the University of British Columbia, as well as Dalhousie University (Scott Comber, Greg Hebb, and Sandra Toze). The Dalhousie team will be working with local organizations that provide outreach services to victims of domestic violence.

Sandra Toze:

  • Over the past six months I have been working to complete some ongoing research projects, and to initiate some new ones. I have a paper related to our work with Digital Skills in the Federal Government, Smart Technologies, Digital Competencies and Workforce Development: An Examination of the Government of Canada’s Current and Future Capacities which is currently being reviewed. The final report from that study Building Digital Capacity: Report On The Training Needs Analysis is available in DalSpace: http://hdl.handle.net/10222/76333
  • I am excited to be working as part of the Halifax team, led by Dr. Scott Comber and including  Dr. Louise Spiteri, Dr. Greg Hebb, and Dr. Liz Wilson on a SSHRC Partnership Grant – Scaling Up Trauma and Violence Informed Outreach with Women Affected by Violence. The Dalhousie team is exploring objectives within this project related to tailoring the example from Vancouver to the local context, how to best evaluate the success, as well as how to increase and measure engagement with women and services.
  • The fall I was successful in receiving a SSHRC Explore grant for Exploring Business-to-Business Information Sharing in Two Nova Scotian Industries. The proposed research seeks to understand information sharing habits of competing businesses within two rural-tourism industries in Nova Scotia: the wine industry and the artisanal cheese industry. I look forward to completing this research over the next year.
  • I have submitted a proposal to extend the pilot study by Dr. Louis Beaubien, Dr. Colin Conrad Janet Music and myself – that examined Evaluating simplified web interfaces of risk models for clinical use related to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The aim of the proposed research is to address the critical need for better testing, diagnosis and education related to COPD in Nova Scotia, to reduce the burden, and positively affect health care and the patient experience. The goal is to determine how better information sharing among COPD clinicians and patients can create a more cost effective, efficient, and effective way to manage COPD assessment, diagnosis and treatment.

(IM Public Lecture) Killer Info: Big Data, the Fallacy of Homicide Stats, and Disrupting the Murder Industry (Dr. Michael Arntfield)

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are free of charge and open to all, unless otherwise stated.

All 2020-2021 lectures will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the full schedule. Lecture will be recorded and posted on our YouTube channel.

Co-sponsored by the Schulich School of Law (Dalhousie University)

Dr. Michael Arntfield
Western University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020
6:00pm
Microsoft Teams (click link at above date/time to join)*

*When you click the event link, a window will open asking you to download the Teams app if you don’t already have it. You can ignore this. Just move that box and click the option to open in browser. Note: Safari is not recommended due to issues with video and audio. Please use Firefox or Chrome, if possible.

Abstract: In the summer of 2018, the Chief Coroner in Ontario announced an overdue inquiry into so-called “concealed homicides”, or murders that had been improperly categorized, coded, and never properly investigated by police, and which have since ended up in the proverbial dustbins of history. While this was the first such admission of the fallacy of homicide data in Canada, an audit in the United States conducted by the Murder Accountability Project (murderdata.org) had already confirmed that as many as nearly 3000 murders in any given year have been mislead by police every year for at least the last twenty years, with some states having as many as 50% of all murders miscategorized as either suicides or accidents that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention later confirmed were actually criminal homicides.

Yet, these contradictory records have never been properly reconciled, corrected, and the cases properly investigated, and the offenders for the most part remain at large and unidentified. The rate jumps to nearly 80% on average when tabulating murders committed on Native American lands. These same data, like the case that prompted the inquiry in Ontario, are believed to contain large clusters of serial killers given the often sophisticated counter-measures seen in many cases, and which led to critical misinterpretations by primary investigators as a result of crime scene staging and/or elaborate concealment efforts.

With both Canada and the United States using the same homicide records management system, the truth is that solved rates (known as “clearance rates”) are at best an approximation of the actual number of homicides accurately identified and solved by police–a rate, it should be noted, that reached a historic low in 2016 without factoring in this margin of error of nearly 12% in terms of murders overlooked and never even screened-in for investigation. The annual murder rate per capital in each country therefore also in no way reflects actual occurrences of homicide. Bearing this reality in mind amid a timely discussion on police funding and accountability, this seminar will discuss how homicide investigation as a tertiary service sector industry is, like other industries, ripe for disruption, and will discuss the role of data scientists, advocates, and innovators in transitioning homicide investigation and scholarship toward a new standard of appropriate rigour.

Bio: Dr. Michael Arntfield is a professor, criminologist and homicide scholar at Western University where he founded the university’s Cold Case Society unsolved crimes think tank, a data-driven victims’ initiative that earned him Western’s last Humanitarian of the Year Award. He is also co-director of the Murder Accountability Project in Washington DC, the world’s largest homicide database that uses a proprietary algorithm to identify previously undetected patterns in serial homicide among nearly a million murders dating back forty years. The author of over a dozen books on criminal investigation and a former police detective, he also currently appears as the resident expert on the network series Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery and Mummy Mysteries on Discovery Travel.

michaelarntfield.com / murderdata.org / TED Talk

SIM Alumna Appointed Dalhousie Indigenous Services Librarian

Shared from the Dalhousie Libraries blog

Congrats to Samantha Adema (MLIS ’19) on being appointed the new Indigenous Services Librarian at Dalhousie Libraries. She started in this role on September 1st.

From Dal Libraries: Sam (L’nu/Mi’kmaw) is a member of Sipekne’katik First Nation. She has a Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) from Dalhousie (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Mary’s, where she majored in history and classics and spent time at the Basentello Valley Archaeological Field School in Italy.

Sam is a familiar face to many of us in the Dalhousie Libraries because she worked as an intern in the Sexton Library while she did her master’s degree. She has also worked at Halifax Public Libraries as both a community assistant and a library assistant. At HPL, Sam’s primary responsibilities included building relationships with community members; building an inclusive, welcoming atmosphere; and providing services to library users such as one-on-one technology instruction and assistance with reference and research questions.

Sam has done research projects about unemployment among Nova Scotia’s Indigenous youth and the potential for the public library to forge additional community partnerships to better serve the urban Indigenous population in North-End Halifax. She worked with community members and staff at the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre and staff at the Museum of Natural History to show how community-led principles had a positive effect in boosting Indigenous attendance and involvement with the museum.

As Dalhousie’s Indigenous Services Librarian, Sam is currently working remotely due to current on-campus restrictions related to COVID-19, but she is available to answer research questions via email and is available for remote consultations via Microsoft Teams for more in-depth research questions. When we return to campus, Sam will be based out of the Killam Memorial Library, but she is available to work with people from all campuses.

Sam works closely with faculty, researchers, staff, and students to support learning and research on Indigenous topics in all disciplines. She will also coordinate reference support, programming, and other services to users of Dalhousie’s National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation Hub in the MacRae Library.

“Indigenous Services is a priority within the Dalhousie Libraries and we are thrilled to have Samantha join our team. These services are for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, staff, and faculty but also for the local Indigenous communities,” said Elaine MacInnis, Associate University Librarian Services and Head, MacRae Library.

 

SIM student featured in National Post & The Star

MI student, Shannon Faires, is a research associate with the Dalhousie Agri-Food Analytics Lab. She is quoted in two recent articles in the National Post and The Star, respectively. Both articles discuss a survey the Lab conducted with Canadians about local food. Excerpts are shared below.

From the National Post (read the full article here)

We may see the value in buying local food, but that doesn’t mean we will open up our wallets: report

Contradictions cloud our relationship with local food, a new report from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL) suggests. While four in five Canadians say they’re ready to pay more for “locally grown” fruit and vegetables, few put weight on point of origin in their decision-making.

“We talk a good talk, but what goes on in grocery stores is very different,” says Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy, and senior director of the AAL.

Their survey of 10,266 Canadians in early October showed that while 79.5 per cent are open to paying more for locally grown produce, only one in four (25 per cent) actively seek it out while grocery shopping. The researchers describe this discrepancy between attitude and behaviour as “the local food paradox.”

“When a lot of people buy food at the grocery store, they’re not looking for where the food was grown. They’re looking for what food is cheapest,” says AAL research associate Shannon Faires. “People may value local food more, and think it’s worth more money, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re looking for it.”

From The Star (read the full article here)

Canadians are hungry for locally grown food, but high costs curb our appetite for it, study finds

Four in five Canadians say they’re willing to pay a premium for local food, yet only a quarter of them are making a priority of buying it. So what’s stopping them?

Ironically, the cost.

“We’ve been promoting the hell out of local foods across the country,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a Dalhousie professor in food distribution and policy. “So are these programs working? Well, yes and no.”

A new study led by Charlebois for Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab with research firm Caddle asked 10,266 Canadians about local food: how they define it, whether they would pay extra for it, whether they actively seek it out, and more.

Faires said while people say they’re willing to pay extra for local food even if it’s grown in a controlled environment like a greenhouse, that kind of food is still more expensive because of the high costs involved to grow produce year-round north of the border.

That’s why Faires and Charlebois would like to see more investment in Canadian-grown food year-round to increase the country’s food autonomy — and to decrease the price of local food.

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You’re Invited to an MI Open House (Nov 5th)

We hope you can join us, and/or share with anyone you think may be interested!

SIM is more than a school; it’s a community. Our small class sizes, accessible professors, and location in one of the world’s friendliest cities ensure you have all the support you need to succeed. Learn more about us, and how our Master of Information (MI) degree can broaden your career options by joining us for our next MI Open House, taking place virtually Thursday, November 5th, 2020 from 1:00-2:30pm (Atlantic Standard Time) on Microsoft Teams.

NS LGBT Seniors Archive Launches October 15th

Submitted by Lydia Hunsberger (MLIS ’20 and Research Assistant, NS LGBT Archives Project):

The Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors Archive is a community archive initiative led by Dr. Jacqueline Gahagan and funded by the Nova Scotia Department of Seniors Age-Friendly Communities Grant and Dalhousie University Libraries. The purpose of this archive is to build connections among older LGBT adults and the broader community and aims to raise awareness and appreciation of the various social, economic, and artistic contributions from members of our older LGBT communities across Nova Scotia.

The official launch is scheduled for October 15, 4 – 5 pm. You can find the link to our virtual launch event here. Please contact jgahagan@dal.ca for more details.

This province-wide project will provide a platform to both increase social interaction and community involvement among older populations and will also create a living legacy through the collaborative development of a publicly accessible and searchable archive for use by community members, seniors, older and younger generations of LGBT populations, researchers and students, among others. The Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors Archives works in conjunction with a Community Advisory Committee (CAC), comprised of community members and stakeholders that work with the archives team as volunteers to provide recommendations and vision for the project, connect the archives team with new donors, and assist with collection of materials and oral histories.

The Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors Archive houses a variety of materials from organizations such as Lesbian and Gay Rights Nova Scotia, Gay and Lesbian Association of Nova Scotia, Mister Atlantic Canada Leather, Safe Harbour Church, and Church Members Assembled to Respond to AIDS, among many more.

October: A celebration of Canadian libraries + Mi’kmaq history

Happy October! There are lots of reasons to celebrate this month:

October is Canadian Library Month: Launched in 2006 by the Canadian Library Association (CLA), Canadian Library Month (CLM) provides “an opportunity for Canadians not familiar with their local library to come down and experience all the services available to them.”1 CLM serves as a way to establish new relationships between the libraries and local communities while at the same time developing existing relationships. The 2020 theme is “One card, one million possibilities.” Click here to learn more.

 

 

Source: https://twitter.com/DalhousieU/status/1311418299910152193/photo/1

October is Mi’kmaq History Month: In 1993, Premier John Savage and Mi’kmaw Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy

declared October as the official month to recognize and celebrate Mi’kmaw culture and heritage. This time of year, known as Wikewiku’s among the Mi’kmaq, offers all of us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the historic presence of the Mi’kmaq, the L’nuk, whose unceded territory we live on and who have lived here for over 14,000 years. At Dalhousie, we work, study and live on traditional and unceded Mi’kmaq territory. Click here to learn more.

 

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