Source: School of Information Management
Written by: Ning Zhang, Qingbin Zeng, Andrew Madden
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The 2018 iConference was themed "Transforming Digital Worlds" and was held in Sheffield, UK, between 25 and 28 March 2018. It was co-sponsored by the Information Schools of the University of Sheffield, and the University of Northumbria. The conference attracted more than 500 scholars from around the world, who gathered to discuss research developments in library, information and archive management. During the conference, Professor Miguel Nunes, Dean of Sun Yat-sen University’s School of Information Management, became the new chair of the Asia-Pacific iSchool regional chapter in Asia. He took over the role from Professor Shigeo Sugimoto of University of Tsukuba and will serve from March 2018 to March 2020.

Professor Nunes also participated in the iConference’s Best Practice session. He and Miss Ning Zhang (doctoral student) gave a presentation entitled "Teaching Research not Research Methods: a Summer School with a Reference", in which they introduced the rationale for the annual Summer School on Library Information and Archives Research Methodology. The presentation discussed aspects of the summer school’s design and organization, the role of the contributing experts, financial support and student evaluation.

Qingbin Zeng (undergraduate student) also presented in the Best Practice Session. His paper, entitled "Incorporation Service Learning in an Information Service-Marketing Course” shows the effect of applying service learning to an undergraduate elective course. Mr Zeng took, as an example, a reading promotion programme in a Guangzhou community library for migrant children. Using this example, he introduced the teaching practices of the School of Information Management to international counterparts, focusing on the following aspects: education philosophy, teaching objectives, design ideas, implementation of program and course evaluation.