Dear All,

 

I’m delighted to announce that the following PhD studentship is being offered by Northumbria University:

Using social media to capture young peoples’ information behaviour (advert reference EE/DRFCEIS7/53689)

Social media are a popular communication channel amongst young people. This research seeks to harness this popularity to investigate how young people use online conversation to produce, communicate, negotiate and exchange information about their experiences. It will focus on how these social media conversations shape young people’s reactions to their peers’ thoughts and feelings. The challenge is, how can these conversations be gathered and analysed on a sufficiently large scale to detect meaningful trends to inform educational policy and practice? Using a case study centring on the changing educational landscape the research will capture big data to gather intelligence via an online platform. The research project will aim to create a sense of ownership amongst young people by adopting a more appropriate methodological process in the learners’ digital natural habitat. The research also will capture information exchange and map online discourse as well as explore ethical issues surrounding this type of data collection. Unlike most big data datasets this study will develop new adaptive methodologies for working with large qualitative data.

 

More details can be found at the following website:

 

http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=53689

 

Deadline for applications is: 7^th April

Start date: 1^st October 2014

 

I will be the lead supervisor.

 

Please contact me if you wish to find out more.

 

Best wishes,

 

Geoff

 

Dr Geoff Walton,

Lecturer Information Sciences,

Faculty of Engineering and Environment,

Northumbria University,

Room 038,

Pandon Building,

Camden St.,

Newcastle upon Tyne,

NE1 8ST

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 191 243 7144

Email: [log in to unmask]

Skype: geoff.walton2012

My Academia.edu page