Issue #54 On 11 September 2023 Jack Grove wrote an article for the Times Higher Education called “Swap Authorship for ‘Movie Credits’ Approach, Academics Suggest”¹. His article discusses a paper “from the League of European Research Universities (Leru) [which] proposes that the notion of an ‘author’ has become obsolete in those research fields where dozens of authors – or sometimes hundreds – are listed on a published paper.”¹ Large numbers of authors are not typical for library and information science articles, but collaborative writing is increasingly common as the pressure to publish increases not just for those who have professorships, but for those looking for positions and promotions, and for those needing a more substantial resume. In some fields the traditional first author, second author sequencing can mask the level of contribution, since first authors often get the primary credit even if they are sometimes only first due to the first letter of their last name. Frits Rosendaal from Leiden University suggests “that each contributor could be given a paragraph at the end of a paper to describe their contribution in their own words…”¹ He offers a music metaphor: “Science should not be treated like a football match where someone wins…It’s more like the Royal Philharmonic, where people come together to produce a piece of music. You need everyone and even the person who plays the triangle should be named in the programme.”¹ The result could be explanations about the contributions that are longer than the paper, but it also could also mean greater fairness and transparency. One of the inevitable questions for such a model is how universities would value the individual contributions, especially when they are unequal. What is the relative value of data collection versus data analysis? And is the overall initial concept for a paper ultimately worth more than the contributions of people (often doctoral students), who invest time and effort in the detailed work? The orchestra metaphor could imply that the academic conductor still gets first author credit, even though without the first violin, the performance may fail. There are no easy answers, but the proposal exposes one of the weaknesses in how universities value authorship. 1: Jack Grove, ‘Swap Authorship for “Movie Credits” Approach, Academics Suggest’, Times Higher Education (THE), 11 September 2023,https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/swap-authorship-movie-credits-approach-academics-suggest.

Issue #53 On 7 September, William H. Walters and Esther Isabelle Wilder wrote an article on “‘Fabrication and Errors in the Bibliographic Citations Generated by ChatGPT’” in the journal Scientific Reports¹. They wrote: “Although chatbots such as ChatGPT can facilitate cost-effective text generation and editing, factually incorrect responses (hallucinations) limit their utility. This study evaluates one particular type of hallucination: fabricated bibliographic citations that do not represent actual scholarly works.”¹ They used ChatGPT-3.5 and the newer version called ChatGPT-4. The goal was for ChatGPT to produce literature reviews using 636 citations in 84 papers. The authors’ instructions to ChatGPT were: “‘I want you to act as an academic researcher. Your task is to write a paper of approximately 2000 words with parenthetical citations and a bibliography that includes at least 5 scholarly resources such as journal articles and scholarly books. The paper should respond to this question: ‘[paper topic].’”¹ The authors note that none of the papers it generated were “more than 1400 words long” despite the request for something longer.¹ Fabricated answers were especially a problem with the earlier version of ChatGPT: 55% of the citations did not exist. ChatGPT-4 did better with only 18% fabricated, but “70% of the cited book chapters [were] fabricated.”¹ Interestingly, ChatGPT noted in one case: “‘These are sample bibliography entries and are not meant to represent actual sources’.”¹ The number of times that ChatGPT makes errors may be a blessing in disguise for teachers wanting to catch their students cheating with ChatGPT. The interesting technical question is why ChatGPT fabricates answers at all. Scholars have no single convincing answer. “Bhattacharyya et al.² assert that the difficulty is inherent in large language models, which ‘use deep neural networks to predict the next word in a sequence of text and provide responses based on statistical patterns learned during training…’”¹ Other explanations claim the amount of data to analyse is a problem. Whatever the ultimate cause, this form of AI is apparently improving. For those who see AI as a threat, that may be alarming. For those who value its potential as a tool, the improvement is a plus. 1: William H. Walters and Esther Isabelle Wilder, ‘Fabrication and Errors in the Bibliographic Citations Generated by ChatGPT’, Scientific Reports 13, no. 1 (7 September 2023): 14045,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41032-5. 2: Bhattacharyya, M., Miller, V. M., Bhattacharyya, D. & Miller, L. E. High rates of fabricated and inaccurate references in ChatGPT-generated medical content. Cureus 15, e39238. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.39238 (2023) p. 6.

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information Application Deadline: October 16, 2023 The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for up to two tenure-track Assistant Professor positions to start in Fall 2024. Candidates will be expected to conduct innovative and impactful research and to teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in Health Informatics, one of the six concentrations in our new undergraduate informatics degree program which has synergies with other concentrations, such as Human-Centered Data Science, User Experience Design, and Social Informatics. We are particularly interested in outstanding scholars who have expertise that spans more than one concentration or focuses on the intersections of these concentrations with a specific focus on healthcare. Successful candidates will address the human and/or societal implications of information and technology on healthcare.

The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information Application Deadline: October 16, 2023 The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for up to two tenure-track Assistant Professor positions to start in Fall 2024. Candidates will be expected to conduct innovative and impactful research and to teach at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in Social Informatics, one of the six concentrations in our new undergraduate informatics degree program which has synergies with other concentrations, such as Social Justice Informatics, User Experience Design, and Health Informatics. We are particularly interested in outstanding scholars who have expertise that spans more than one concentration or focuses on the intersections of these concentrations with a specific focus on social behavior, organizations, and/or society. Successful candidates will address the human and/or societal implications of information and technology. Candidates focused on human-centered design and use of information technology for human benefit, social good, and/or social justice in local and global contexts will fit well within the culture of our school and are particularly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates will be expected to expand on one or more established and emerging areas related to Social Informatics within the school, including but not limited to and in no particular order: Social, societal, and ethical dimensions of information and information technology, including emerging technologies (e.g., ethical and responsible computing) Social computing, particularly the impacts of computing on organizations and society The use of computing to study society (e.g., computational social science) Legal and policy dimensions of information and information technology, including information security and privacy as well as data governance Technology and society, including their mutual shaping (e.g., science and technology studies) Socio-technical consideration of the roles of documents, data, information, and knowledge in society (e.g., document studies; big data and society; knowledge management; socio-technical systems) The future of work, including developing the future workforce, crowdsourcing, gig work, and technology-enabled workplaces A range of methodological, disciplinary, and theoretical approaches are relevant to study of complex Social Informatics phenomena. We thus invite applications from scholars from diverse disciplines including but not limited to information studies, psychology, communication, anthropology, political science, sociology, and computer science. Our intent is to recruit scholars with compelling human-centric research agendas that fit with the mission of the iSchool regardless of disciplinary background. Applicants, especially those unfamiliar with Information Schools, are welcome to contact us via the email below prior to submitting their application to discuss how their research agenda connects to our school, as well as examining resources provided at www.ischools.org. For more information, please feel free to reach out to Search Committee Chair Prof. Ken Fleischmann at kfleisch@ischool.utexas.edu. Successful candidates will address the human and/or societal implications of information and technology. Candidates focused on human-centered design and use of information technology for human benefit, social good, and/or social justice in local and global contexts, including critical theory and perspectives, will fit well within the culture of our school and are particularly encouraged to apply. Tenure-track faculty at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin normally have a 2/1 teaching load. Salaries are competitive.

Cornell University, Information Science Application Deadline: December 01, 2023 The Cornell University Department of Information Science (IS) in the Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Bowers CIS) has tenure-track and tenured faculty positions available. The IS Department spans Cornell’s Ithaca and New York City campuses where nearly 40 faculty members are leaders in their respective fields within Information Science's interdisciplinary structure.

Cornell University, Information Science Application Deadline: December 01, 2023 The Cornell University Department of Information Science (IS) in the Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Bowers CIS) has tenure-track and tenured faculty positions available.

Cornell University, Information Science Application Deadline: December 01, 2023 The Cornell University Department of Information Science (IS) in the Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Bowers CIS) invites applications for full-time, long-term Lecturer or Senior Lecturer positions at Cornell’s Ithaca campus.

Rutgers, School of Communication and Information The Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) has named Distinguished Professor Emeritus Nicholas Belkin its inaugural ASIS&T Fellow. The Association for Information Science & Technology has named Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science Nicholas Belkin the inaugural recipient of the ASIS&T Fellow Award. “This award,” wrote ASIS&T, “recognizes individuals who have made substantial and sustained contributions to ASIS&T and the broader field of Information Science. ASIS&T Fellows have made a significant contribution to one or more of the following areas of information science: research, products, teaching, and service to the profession, the association, and other entities such as government, industry, etc. Fellows must uphold ethical and professional standards to be appointed and to maintain the honor.” SC&I Teaching Professor and Director of the Master of Information degree program Lilia Pavlovsky said, “I am so happy that Nick got this recognition! He has earned and deserves every bit of it! His work continues to be foundational to all students in the field of information science.” Belkin's groundbreaking work involving ‘cognitive viewpoint’ in information science has been guiding scholars and practitioners working in the areas of information behavior for decades. ASIS&T said Belkin was nominated for the award by former SC&I faculty member Chirag Shah, who is now professor, lab director of the InfoSeeking Lab, and co-founding director of the Center for Responsibility in AI Systems & Experiences (RAISE) at the University of Washington in Seatle. He is also the editor-in-chief of Information Matters. Shah wrote about Belkin, “There are very few scholars in our field with the breadth and depth of scholarly impact that Prof. Nick Belkin has shown over his storied career spanning many decades, multiple continents, and a spectrum of challenging issues, methodologies, and outcomes. I can see no better candidate deserving the prestigious ASIS&T Fellows Award.” In its announcement of the award, ASIS&T wrote, “Belkin is one of the most distinguished scholars in the field of information science and technology. His groundbreaking work involving ‘cognitive viewpoint’ in information science has been guiding scholars and practitioners working in the areas of information behavior for decades. He is the co-author of one the first books to explicitly investigate and describe the process of interactive information retrieval. In addition, Belkin has authored or co-authored over 200 journal articles, conference proceedings and book chapters, and has been identified variously as the first or second most highly cited scholar in Library and Information Science. Belkin has conducted ethnographic, sociological, behavioral, and experimental research, including twelve years in the TREC Interactive Track. Belkin has been identified variously as the first or second most highly cited scholar in Library and Information Science. “Over his career spanning multiple decades and institutions, Belkin has advised and mentored countless students. These students themselves have done groundbreaking work in the field of information science and technology.” Belkin’s research has been supported by many agencies, including NSF, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Google, DARPA, NIST, U.S. Department of Education, the British Library Research and Development Department, and NATO. His current research project, characterizing and evaluating whole session interactive information retrieval, is supported by the National Science Foundation. Read the full ASIS&T announcement on its website. Learn more about the Library and Information Science Department at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information on the website.

Pratt Institute, School of Information Application Deadline: November 01, 2023. Pratt Institute invites applications for a cluster of five new tenure-track faculty positions at the level of Assistant Professor, focused on “Diverse Voices Creating Just Futures.” We seek applicants from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds whose teaching and research / creative practices will advance the Institute’s commitment to an education that centers on justice: “Pratt students make decisions with consideration of their impact upon individuals, communities, and the earth. They are compelled into action to resist all forms of discrimination, inequalities, and supremacism, in order to promote just societal transformation with frameworks and tools that allow for reflection and agency” (All-Institute Learning Goals). The faculty hired through this initiative will have the opportunity to work as a multi-disciplinary cohort with shared interests that cut across fields, as well as pursue their work as individual scholars and creative practitioners. With this initiative, Pratt further elevates its commitment to increasing the size of its full-time faculty; to recruiting, hiring and supporting diverse faculty; and to educating artists and creative professionals whose work has a transformative impact on the world. A top-ranked college with opportunities in art, design, architecture, liberal arts and sciences, and information studies, Pratt Institute provides the creative leaders of tomorrow the knowledge and experience to make a better world. School of Information Library and Information Science, Information Experience Design, Data Analytics and Visualization, and/or Museums and Digital Culture (earned doctorate required for all): Focus on critical approaches and engagement with areas including, but not limited to, critical information studies, critical design, data justice and tech ethics, activism, and communities facing barriers (e.g., people who are incarcerated).

Pratt Institute, School of Information Application Deadline: September 30, 2023 (Extended). A top-ranked college with opportunities in art, design, architecture, liberal arts and sciences, and information studies, Pratt offers nearly 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. The Institute’s impact expands beyond its 25-acre residential campus in Brooklyn to cutting-edge facilities throughout the borough, a landmark building and public gallery in Manhattan, as well as an extension campus, PrattMWP College of Art and Design in Utica, New York. Since its founding in 1887, Pratt has prioritized diversity and inclusion, welcoming students from all walks of life while developing and sustaining pathways to more equitable workplaces and careers. The School of Information (SI) at Pratt Institute has been educating information professionals for nearly 135 years. SI, one of six schools within Pratt Institute, offers rigorous, interdisciplinary, student-centered programs at the intersection of information, knowledge, and culture. We enroll over 300 graduate students in our Masters programs in Library and Information Science, Information Experience Design, Museums and Digital Culture, and Data Analysis and Visualization. We pride ourselves on providing a vibrant and diverse community of scholars, designers, and learners committed to using information and technology to improve lives and communities. We seek a new faculty member who will help advance our mission to lead the information field, through teaching and research, in making connections with arts, culture, and technology. Today, Pratt is committed to advancing social justice, environmental sustainability, and accessibility through our curriculum as well as increasing diversity in the ranks of our faculty, students, and staff. We seek applicants who can contribute to the furtherance of these goals as well as advancing antiracism and decolonization efforts. Position Summary The School of Information (SI) at Pratt Institute seeks to hire one full-time tenure-track faculty member at the assistant or associate professor level. We seek a full-time faculty who can contribute notably to our M.S. Library and Information Science program and coordinate and teach a core LIS course, INFO 652 Reference and Instruction. A notable facet of this course is that it has been partnering with the New York Public Library Correctional Services to have students address reference questions from incarcerated persons since 2013. The ideal candidate will have a passion for teaching user-centric services in libraries and other cultural institutions. In addition to teaching and coordinating this core course, we are open to a wide range of interests from the field of Library and Information Science. Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: Academic librarianship and scholarly communication Connections between LIS and art, design, and architecture Makerspaces and other emerging models of instruction in libraries Activism and civic/community engagement (e.g., addressing book bans) Special collections and ephemera (zines, political ephemera) Sustainability and LIS Engagement with users/stakeholders and UX librarianship Data literacy and Data librarianship Digital humanities and its relationship to LIS Information ethics and justice Position Responsibilities Teach three 3-credit courses per semester (fall and spring) Work with the School Curriculum Committee to maintain the curriculum in areas of specialization, including the possibility of developing new courses and revising existing courses. Within the field(s) of specialization, be an active researcher able to produce a sustained record of research and publication in peer-reviewed journals and present peer-reviewed papers at conferences on a regular basis. Serve on faculty, School, and Institute committees, participate in related school activities, and provide service to the profession. Serve as an advisor to School of Information graduate students. Contribute to the life of the school. Qualifications An earned doctorate in Information Studies, Library and Information Science, Archival Studies, or a related field is required. Candidates must also have teaching experience at the college level and demonstrated commitment to DEI. Practitioner experience is a plus but not required. Research that speaks to the needs/interests of libraries and other cultural institutions is a plus. SALARY and RANK are commensurate with qualifications and experience. Application Instructions Please submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, statements on research and teaching, and a statement describing how you have worked to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in your career and how you would continue to do so at Pratt, and a list of names and contact information for three academic references.

Nanyang Technological University, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Application Deadline: November 12, 2023. Young and research-intensive, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) is ranked among the world’s top universities. NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) is highly respected for its strong record of academic research and global experiential learning. WKWSCI is an iSchools member with an established history of library and information science education and research. WKWSCI seeks new faculty colleagues with a strong record of high-quality research and a commitment to mentoring the next generation of communication and information scholars. Assistant Professor: Information Science/ Knowledge Management We are looking for a scholar-teacher working in the fields of information science or knowledge management. The candidate would have experience in one or more of the following primary areas: library science, reference and information services; digital curation; data management; knowledge management technologies; taxonomy; ontology. Having a secondary area of expertise in applied data and text analytics or artificial intelligence would be a plus, although not mandatory. The candidate is expected to possess a doctorate in an appropriate field from a reputable university. Emoluments Salary will be competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. The University offers a comprehensive fringe benefit package. The closing date for applications is November 12, 2023. All applications and materials submitted will be held in strict confidence. Application Procedure Submit the following documents to us using the link below: Cover letter Curriculum Vitae including a full publication list Research and Teaching statements Effectiveness of teaching (if any) Selected publications (if any) Submission link: https://ntu.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Careers/job/NTU-Main-Campus-Singapore/Assistant-Professor-in-Information-Science-Knowledge-Management_R00013818 For enquiries, please address to: The Search Committee Email: faculty-recruit@ntu.edu.sg Review of the applications will begin on November 13, 2023 and continue until the position is filled. The candidate is expected to start in July 2024. Only shortlisted candidates will be notified. Meet with our WKWSCI faculty members in a one-on-one interview setting during ASIS&T AM 2023. Indicate your interest by sending your CV to sci-hr@ntu.edu.sg by October 15, 2023.

University of Sheffield, Information School Application Deadline: September 27, 2023. We have an exciting opportunity in the Information School at the University of Sheffield for an excellent Postdoctoral Researcher to work on the AHRC-funded project ʻPatterns in Practice: cultures of data mining in science, education and the artsʼ. ʻPatterns in Practiceʼ is researching how practitionersʼ beliefs, values and feelings interact to shape their engagement with data mining and machine learning in three specific contexts: pharmaceutical drug discovery, higher education learning analytics, and arts practice. As a Postdoctoral Researcher on Patterns in Practice your primary responsibility will be providing research support during the final months of the project, including archival and literature work, events and administrative support.