2019 ASIS&T SIG-USE Symposium

2019 ASIS&T SIG-USE Symposium: Re-envisioning the Impact and Engagement of Information Behavior Research

Date: October 19, 2019 (Saturday)
Time: 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Location: M10 (Level 1), Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne, Australia

About the 2019 SIG-USE Symposium

The 19th Annual SIG-USE Research Symposium focuses on the impact and engagement of information behavior research. This symposium is an opportunity for researchers, students, faculty and information professionals who are interested in information behavior and practice research to discuss the impact of that work, particularly the translation of findings and discussions into professional practice in today’s “anyone, anywhere, anytime” information environment.

A productive and effective research field should make an impact, whether through social change, economic development, or technological innovation. In recent years, many scholars have voiced concerns that the field of information behavior (or practice) has not been making such an impact, and there have been recent calls for researchers in the field to consider new paths for making impact. Moreover, research should recognize and respond to its contemporary situation to make the world a better place. Our world is facing a number of challenges. To name but a few: environmental sustainability, privacy and security, extremism, and urban living. How can information behavior research engage with and respond to such challenges?

In this symposium, we will ask: as a research community, how do we make an impact? How can we? How should we? How are our findings making their way into practice and technology? How is our work contributing to other fields? Relatedly, we ask: how do we identify or demonstrate the impact we are making?

The symposium will facilitate information exchange among scholars and information professionals, provide a place for those new to information behavior and practice to engage critically with the field, and allow both scholars and practitioners to get feedback on preliminary and ongoing work. The symposium will feature a dynamic panel, full paper sessions and posters, as well as engaging breakout discussion sessions to explore different subthemes regarding impact and engagement.

Schedule

14:00–14:10 Welcome and overview
14:10–14:55 Panel
14:55–15:10 Responses to panel (large-group discussion)
15:10–15:30 Presentation from the winners of the 2018 Elfreda A. Chatman Research Proposal Award
15:30–16:00 Coffee break with posters
16:00–16:45 Paper presentations I
16:45–17:00 Breakout group discussions
17:00–17:30 Paper presentations II
17:30–17:45 Breakout group discussions
17:45–18:00 Award presentations and closing

Panel (14:10–14:55)

Heidi Julien, Baharat Mehra, and Ina Fourie will present and discuss issues of impact and engagement in information behavior research.

2018 Elfreda A. Chatman Research Proposal Award Winners (15:10–15:30)

Devon Greyson and Kaitlin Costello will present the results of their winning proposal, “Sympathy Sockpuppets: A Pilot Study on Non-Nefarious Online Community Infiltration”

Registration

	Early Bird (Through Aug 2)	Advance (Aug 3 to Oct 4)	After Oct 4
ASIS&T Members	$100	$125	$150
Non-Members	$120	$145	$170
Student Members	$60	$85	$110

All prices in U.S. Dollars.

The registration fee will cover Symposium costs and an afternoon break with snacks.

You can register for the Symposium while registering for the Annual Meeting. To register for the 2019 ASIS&T Annual Meeting and the SIG-USE Symposium, visit: https://www.asist.org/am19/registration

You may register for the SIG-USE Symposium even if your submission is not accepted, or if you did not submit anything.

Additional Details: Panel, Edited Book, and More

The accepted submissions will be made available online prior to the beginning of the conference to allow community members to provide feedback and generate questions on the contributions prior to the symposium. This platform will be open to all the IB international community, so that even those who cannot make it to this year’s annual meeting (SIG-USE members or otherwise) will have a chance to contribute to the discussions. These discussions will be used to seed breakout session discussions during the workshop itself.

In addition to paper and poster sessions, the Symposium will feature an invited panel who will discuss issues related to impact and engagement and invite attendees into conversation.

The symposium will conclude with the announcement of SIG-USE award recipients. Notably, the symposium will include a 15-minute presentation from the recipient of last year’s Elfreda A. Chatman Research Proposal Award.

We anticipate that the contributions to this symposium will become part of an edited book proposal. Contributions will include the full papers from the symposium, and we will invite the panelists and poster presenters to prepare substantive contributions.

Additionally, we will implement a system to capture the discussions and conversations that happen in the breakout sessions so that they don’t get lost, such as hashtags for social media or a designated scribe. These will be collected and published online after the symposium.

About SIG-USE

SIG-USE, the ASIS&T Special Interest Group for Information Needs, Seeking and Use, wishes to promote holistic, contextual studies of human information-related behavior and practices, and to consider how research findings can be applied to the provision of information services and to the design of information systems. SIG-USE members are concerned with people’s behavioral and cognitive activities, as well as their affective states, as they interact with information all along the information–communication chain. These concerns include, but are not limited to:

the generation and recognition of information needs
the seeking (and non-seeking) of information
the exploration of information sources available in a given context or situation
the retrieval of information from available information sources
the uses that are made (and not) of information
the sharing of information with others
the management of personal information

2019 Symposium Chairs

Please don’t hesitate to contact the Symposium Chairs with any questions you may have. We hope to see you in Melbourne!

Tim Gorichanaz, Drexel University – gorichanaz@drexel.edu
Waseem Afzal, Charles Sturt University – wafzal@csu.edu.au
Millicent Mabi, University of British Columbia – millicent.mabi@alumni.ubc.ca

2019 ASIS&T SIG-USE Symposium