University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, The School of Information Studies (SOIS) Application Deadline: 10 May 2024 The School of Information Studies (SOIS), the iSchool at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), invites applications for a Lecturer position in Information Science & Technology. This is a 9-month instructional academic staff position (Teaching Faculty II) to teach both face-to-face and online courses at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. This position offers a competitive salary and full benefits. Optional summer teaching for additional compensation may be available. This appointment will be on a yearly renewable contract, based on satisfactory performance and SOIS instructional needs. The standard teaching load will be four classes per semester. It is expected that the incumbent must be able to start by Fall 2024.

University of Amsterdam Application Deadline: 15 May 2024 The University of Amsterdam seeks an ambitious PhD student with a background in artificial intelligence, natural language processing and information retrieval. The focus will be on large language models (LLMs) for information access. The PhD position is part of four PhD vacancies as part of digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence, Cultural Heritage (HAICu) project, a large national science agenda project funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. HAICu deploys artificial intelligence (AI) to make digital heritage collections more accessible, and the extraordinary challenges of cultural heritage provide a unique opportunity to push the boundaries of AI. The PhD position is fully funded and successful candidates will be employed by the University of Amsterdam for four years (full-time, with all employment benefits) and are expected to complete a PhD thesis within this period.

The organizers of iConference 2024 are pleased to announce the finalists for this year’s Best Poster Award. Five finalists have been selected representing the most outstanding of the many submissions received. The posters of these finalists will be presented along with all other accepted submissions at iConference 2024 - Wisdom, Well-being, Win-win - our 19th iConference in the annual series taking place hybrid: online with the Virtual Academic Program (April 15 - 18, 2024) and onsite with Academic Program in Changchun, China (April 22 - 26, 2024). The iConference 2024 is hosted by Jilin University, China, and University of Tsukuba, Japan. The Award winners will be announced at the iConference 2024 Keynote April 15, 2024. Best Poster Award Finalists (300 USD) ID 137 Shaping the community identity of digital humanities: A global investigation on scholar composition of digital humanities centers by Z. Hu, J. Liu and L. Pei ID 236 Assessing User Needs and Expectations of Informal Care Partners of People with Dementia for Digital Memory Book Applications by M. S. Park, C. Oh, Y. Lee, J. Bong, and H. S. Lee ID 268 Learning About Life in the US: A Pilot Study on the Information Behavior of Nigerian Diasporans by Y. Ajibola, J. Kociubuk, and C. Jackson ID 368 Mapping Areas in Need of Immigrant-Focused Crisis Support by L. Hong, A. Roeschley and Y. Du ID 445 Doc on the Tok: How BIPOC College Students Perceive Healthcare Professionals’ Social Media Content by K. N. Fletcher, M. Kazmi, A. Aljundi, J. Ingram, H. Thomas, K. Booth, and O. Haimson The Best Full, Short and Chinese Research Paper Awards finalists have been announced earlier this week here.

The iSchools Organisation is happy to announce that two new members joined the iSchools on the Basic Level: Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, School of Management Science and Engineering (China) and University of Brest, Alliance Universitaire de Bretagne (AUB) (France). Zaiwu Gong and Liana Ermakova will represent their new iSchools regionally and internationally. Welcome to the iSchools community! Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST) is on the list of China’s First-class universities and disciplines worldwide. The School of Management Science and Engineering boasts a highly-internationalized faculty team and has been committed to promoting extensive international education cooperation. With a harmonious discipline system of atmospheric science, information science, environmental science, and management science, the school has established a solid foundation for collaboration with other iSchools. At the present, NUIST has established cooperative relationships with over 50 prestigious universities and colleges from 15 countries and regions, including Yale University in the US, the University of Manchester and the University of Reading in the UK. NUIST has been enrolling international students since 1990 and currently has more than 1,500 international students. Zaiwu Gong will represent this new iSchool regionally and internationally. University of Brest (UBO) is the largest university in the Alliance Universitaire de Bretagne (AUB): Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO) / Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS) / Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Brest (ENIB). The initiative to join the iSchools came from the emerging group on digital humanities, artificial intelligence, natural language processing and information retrieval in the Brittany region in France. The University of Brest offers more than 250 degree programmes in the fields of science, humanities, technology, medicine and law, to 23,000 students, among which 9% are international (representing 100 nationalities). More than 150 PhD theses are defended each year. Based on 34 research laboratories and conducted by 1300 researchers, research at UBO is organised into four research axes: Sea, Social sciences and Humanities, Digital Sciences and Mathematics, Health and agro-material. UBO promotes interdisciplinary exchanges and the emergence of innovative research projects. Examples of recent new PhD theses range from AI, to humor study and automatic scientific text simplification. Liana Ermakova will represent this new iSchool regionally and internationally. The iSchools organization was founded almost two decades ago. The iSchools educate thought-leaders of the future, and their researchers focus on enhancing the lives of people, the productivity of companies, the innovation cycles of industries, the design of technologies, the policies that govern technology and information use, information services to communities, and much more. The iSchools Organisation currently consists of 132 iSchools worldwide.

The organizers of iConference 2024 are pleased to announce the finalists for this year’s Best Papers Awards. Five finalists in each category have been selected representing the most outstanding of the many submissions received. This year’s finalists demonstrate breadth of quality information research being conducted at iSchools and other institutions worldwide. The work of these finalists will be presented along with all other accepted submissions at iConference 2024 - Wisdom, Well-being, Win-win - our 19th iConference in the annual series taking place hybrid: online with the Virtual Academic Program (April 15 - 18, 2024) and onsite with Academic Program in Changchun, China (April 22 - 26, 2024). The iConference 2024 is hosted by Jilin University, China, and University of Tsukuba, Japan. The Award winners will be announced at the iConference 2024 Keynote April 15, 2024. Best Full Research Paper Award Finalists (1.000 USD) ID 132 "If I Like BLANK, What Else Will I Like?”: Analyzing a Human Recommendation Community on Reddit by T. B. M. Cao and T. Bogers ID 353 Towards a Better Understanding of Cyber Awareness Amongst Migrant Communities in Australia by M. Anwar, M. Saha, G. Oliver, M. Ibrahim and C. Rudolph ID 376 To Impress an Algorithm: Minoritized Applicants' Perception of Fairness in AI Hiring Systems by A. Girona and L. Yarger ID 403 Community Members' Perspective on Public Libraries as Places to Overcome Social Divisions: A Case Study in Oslo by T. Igarashi, J. Johnston and M. Koizumi ID 415 What Motivates You to Use VR Exergames to Substitute for Real Sports? An Empirical Study Based on Technology Readiness and Technology Acceptance Model by H. Sun and Q. Ke Best Short Research Paper Award Finalists (500 USD) ID 127 “Words Are Not Just Words; They Carry Experiences Within Them”: Navigating Personal Information Management in Multilingual Contexts by L. Alon and M. Krtalić ID 133 AIGC-Enabled Interdisciplinary Science Measurement by J. Liu, X. Wang, D. Wang, L. Pei ID 181 Investigation of Chinese authors for English Predatory journals by Q. Tan, X. Yuan and Z. Li ID 346 Data Curation Competencies, Skill sets, and Tools Analysis by A. Murillo, A. Yoon, M. Duncan and A. Thomas-Fennelly ID 434 A problematic dichotomy in the perspective of field theory: hermeneutics and quantitative analysis in distant reading by M. Chen Best Chinese Research Paper Award Finalists (1.000 USD) ID 153 Research on Early Identification of Emerging Topics Based on the Three-Dimensional Framework for Weak Signals by J. Mao, M. Ma, G. Li and S. Xiang ID 258 用户信息素养与谣言验证意愿：基于动态视角的组态效应研究 by 校亮 沈, 忧 吴 and 永强 孙 ID 467 “能”与“势”：生态学与物理学交叉视角下的跨学科知识交流动力模型研究 by Z. Peng, G. Ye, S. Li and L. Xia ID 565 Research on Academic Knowledge Mapping Construction Program for Evaluating Academic Achievements in China under the Perspective of Full Evaluation by Z. R. Wang, S. H. Deng, X. Y. Song, W. X. Yang and H. Wang ID 658 Personalized Recommendation Rationality on Content Platforms: Construct and Effect by G. Li and M. Wang The Best Poster Award finalists will be announced soon.

National Taiwan University, Department of Library and Information Science Application Deadline: 10 July 2024 The Department of Library and Information Science at the National Taiwan University is seeking to employ two full-time faculty members. Candidates should have a Doctoral degree in library and information science, information management, information and communication, educational technology or related fields. Those who can teach required courses in LIS are preferred. The Appointment begins on February 1, 2025 or August 1, 2025. Official ranks will be appointed according to working experience and qualifications.

University of Texas at Austin: School of Information Application Deadline: 10 April 2024 The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for multiple new full-time post-doctoral Boyvey Teaching Fellows to start in August 2024 or January 2025. These positions are geared primarily toward early career scholars looking to gain more experience with teaching that can help to strengthen their future applications for tenure-track positions within and beyond the UT-Austin iSchool.

Issue #71 On 14 March 2024, Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch reported about a pilot  “Papermill Detection service” that “... flagged 10-13% of all of the 10,000 manuscripts submitted to …”¹ the Hindawi subsidiary of Wiley. The tool’s mechanism is not simple, and involves factors such as “... looking for similarities with known paper mill papers, searching for ‘tortured phrases’ and other problematic passages, flagging ‘irregular publishing patterns by paper authors,’ verifying researcher identity, detecting hallmarks of generative AI, and analyzing the relevance of a given manuscript to the journal.”¹ Wiley explained they are using the tool because “‘Research integrity is an industry-wide challenge, and we are committed to transparency and sharing what we learn about paper mills with our peers and the wider industry.’”¹ Oransky asked “... if Wiley has considered steps to reduce the incentives authors have to use paper mills …” and Wiley answered that “‘... this is a problem we must address across the entire scholarly communications ecosystem …‘”.¹ That answer is certainly true, but largely avoids the real issue, which involves every institution that puts pressure on scholars, especially young scholars needing a number of publications in order to keep their jobs or to get new ones. Further pressure on senior scholars gets compounded by the sheer amount of time and effort required by faculty committees at universities to review job or tenure applications, which also affects the ability of senior faculty to publish. In recent decades, the solution has been to rely on quantitative measures like rankings and publication numbers. Such measures effectively shift judgment to publishers and to those who run ranking systems. It is not a sustainable long term solution. There probably is no simple and cost-effective way to handle the paper mill problem other than to change an incentive system that pushes scholars toward quantity. Only universities can change that by empowering senior scholars and institutional administrations to make judgements based on careful reading rather than quantity. Careful reading costs time and money, but dealing with the paper mills is itself expensive. At some point academic institutions must come to terms with the paper mill monster that they created. 1: Oransky, Ivan. ‘Up to One in Seven Submissions to Hundreds of Wiley Journals Flagged by New Paper Mill Tool’. Retraction Watch (blog), 14 March 2024. https://retractionwatch.com/2024/03/14/up-to-one-in-seven-of-submissions-to-hundreds-of-wiley-journals-show-signs-of-paper-mill-activity/.

University of Texas at Austin: School of Information Application Deadline: 10 April 2024 The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for up to four new full-time post-doctoral Bullard Research Fellow positions to start in 2024, with the exact start date depending on applicant availability and completion of doctoral studies. The salary for successful candidates will be $60,000 per year, plus a standard package of benefits. These are 12-month positions that can be renewed for a second year contingent upon performance.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications Application Deadline: 15 April 2024 The Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya seeks several course instructors for different programs offered by the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications. Candidates should have a university qualification relating to the field in which the candidate is offering their services, University and/or non-university teaching experience and/or professional experience in the last three years related to the knowledge area in which the candidate wishes to collaborate, excellent command of the language in which the teaching will be given and a main work activity.

Combing through countless PDF reports for hours in search of a piece of relevant information is no one’s idea of an interesting day at work. Tedious, overwhelming, soul-crushing, maybe. Engaging? Not so much. Dedicated public servants – and lots of other people – do it anyway, often, in service to some larger goal: to make the case for a new policy, to advocate for funding, or to explain a position. Recently, a team of graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and Integrated Innovation Institute in Professor Chris Goranson’s Policy Innovation Lab: Public Interest Technology course came up with a generative AI application that helps researchers find the information they seek in a matter of seconds, not hours. Their tool, GovScan, provides government workers the ability to locate the proverbial needle in a haystack. News submitted by Jennifer Monahan, Carnegie Mellon University, The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign seeks nominations for the 2023 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is March 15, 2024. The award is cosponsored by Sage. Given annually, the award acknowledges individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas. Granted to those who have resisted censorship or efforts to abridge the freedom of individuals to read or view materials of their choice or to hear or express ideas, the award may be in recognition of a particular action or a long-term interest in and dedication to the cause of intellectual freedom. News submitted by Cindy Brya, School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign