Colin Smith
Colin Smith

Dr Colin Smith

Associate Professor

Biography

My research addresses ICTs, strategic innovation and organisational change particularly in public sector organisations, and often in relation to ‘e-government’ and ‘e-democracy’.
I am a member of the Centre for Social Informatics http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/c/main/site/csi

I also undertake pedagogic research looking at emergent professionalism in computing students and the role played by placement and professional practice in underpinning employability. I am a member of the Centre for Computing Education Research (CCER) where I lead on employability research.

Core areas of interest:
- Role of the Internet for political parties in contemporary democratic practices.
- Digital delivery platforms for public services.
- Use of new technology by parliamentarians.

Journal/Conference Roles:

March 2015 - Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning
Member of the Review Panel for this journal, focusing on the interface between higher education and the workplace.

March 2010 – Dec 2013 Information Polity
Reviews Editor and then member of the Editorial Board (December 2013- ) for this leading journal in the field of critical assessment of information age governance and democracy http://www.iospress.nl/journal/information-polity/

1995 - European Group of Public Administration
Member of Permanent Study Group 1: e-Government

News

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • UUK / Department for Education roundtable
  • Member of ISO-WACE Advisory Board

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Programme Committee Member - BHCI

 

Editorial Activity

  • Member of Reviewers Panel: Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning
  • Member of the Editorial Board: Information Polity
  • Reviews Editor: Information Polity

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External Examiner for BSc Information Systems, Heriot-Watt University
  • External Examiner (MBA), Liverpool John Moores University

 

Invited Speaker

  • Grasping a Jellyfish? Some problematic aspects of 'Belonging'
  • Digital Skills for Graduates
  • Employability and Social Mobility Workshop - 'Exploring Barriers'

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner (PhD) - Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
  • External Examiner (PhD) - Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
  • External Examiner (PhD), University of Derby
  • External Examiner (PhD), University of Udine, Italy

 

Date


81 results

Skills in Sight: How Social Media Affordances Increase Network Awareness

Conference Proceeding
Buunk, I., Hall, H., & Smith, C. (2017)
Skills in Sight: How Social Media Affordances Increase Network Awareness. In Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Knowledge Management ECKM 2017
The discussion in this paper derives from an analysis of data from twenty interviews conducted with members of an online knowledge sharing platform between October 2016 and Fe...

Evaluating the social impact of youth digital culture co-creation: let’s participate and play

Conference Proceeding
Pawluczuk, A., Webster, G., Hall, H., & Smith, C. (2017)
Evaluating the social impact of youth digital culture co-creation: let’s participate and play. In HCI '17 Proceedings of the 31st British Computer Society Human Computer Interaction Conferencehttps://doi.org/10.14236/ewic/HCI2017.32
This paper examines young people’s participation in digital culture and current approaches to measure its social impact. The analysis of the literature presented here reveals ...

Taking education for granted: the role of placement in computing science

Presentation / Conference
Smith, S., Smith, C., Taylor-Smith, E., & Gemma, W. (2017, June)
Taking education for granted: the role of placement in computing science. Presented at Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland
The importance of placements and internships was highlighted in the 2016 Shadbolt Review of Computer Science Degree Accreditation and Graduate Employability – indeed the secon...

Rich Pictures of the Future

Presentation / Conference
Smith, S., Smith, C., Berg, T., & Bowen, T. (2017, June)
Rich Pictures of the Future. Presented at Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference, Edinburgh , Scotland
The acceleration of technological innovation means that higher education must prepare students for an unknown future like never before, and help them see their position in rel...

Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: locating “Ba” within a platform for public sector professionals

Presentation / Conference
Buunk, I., Hall, H. & Smith, C. (2017, June)
Tacit knowledge sharing in online environments: locating “Ba” within a platform for public sector professionals. Paper presented at i3 - information, interactions and impact, Aberdeen, Scotland
Results from a survey undertaken by members of an online platform that incorporates social media features, and enables knowledge sharing amongst public sector professionals, a...

Getting unstuck: Information problem solving in high school STEM students and evidence of metacognitive knowledge

Presentation / Conference
Richter, T., Muir, L., Flint, T., Hall, H. & Smith, C. (2017, June)
Getting unstuck: Information problem solving in high school STEM students and evidence of metacognitive knowledge. Paper presented at i3- information: interactions and impact, Aberdeen, Scotland
This presentation reports the initial findings from an ongoing empirical study which aims to evaluate how students seek, use, and think about information when they encounter p...

Visualising the future: surfacing student perspectives on post-graduation prospects using rich pictures

Journal Article
Berg, T., Bowen, T., Smith, C., & Smith, S. (2017)
Visualising the future: surfacing student perspectives on post-graduation prospects using rich pictures. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(7), 1339-1354. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1325855
The gradual commodification of higher education in the context of an increased focus on graduate employability attributes together with evolving labour markets is creating cha...

Tacit knowledge sharing: the determination of a methodological approach to explore the intangible

Journal Article
Buunk, I., Hall, H., & Smith (F), C. (2017)
Tacit knowledge sharing: the determination of a methodological approach to explore the intangible. Information Research, 22(1),
Introduction. Research design should take into account both (a) the specific nature of the object under scrutiny, and (b) approaches to its study in the past. This is to ensur...

In search of graduate employability: An exploration of student identity

Journal Article
Smith, S., Smith, C., Taylor-Smith, E., & Fotheringham, J. (2017)
In search of graduate employability: An exploration of student identity. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 18(1), 15-24
Universities are adopting institution-wide projects to increase student work placements and work-related learning across all subject disciplines. However, there are large vari...

Learning for the Workplace: Exploring professional identity in search of meaningful alternatives to student work placement

Presentation / Conference
Webster, G., Smith, S. & Smith, C. (2016, December)
Learning for the Workplace: Exploring professional identity in search of meaningful alternatives to student work placement. Paper presented at Society for Research into Higher Education 2016, Cardiff, Wales
Moves towards the marketisation of higher education have led to greater priority being placed upon students undertaking relevant work experience while they study. Recognising ...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • COST A14 - Government and Democracy in the Information Age

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