Allen Foster

BA(Hons) MSc(Sheffield) PhD(Sheffield) FHEA

 

Department of Information Studies

Aberystwyth University

 

INTRODUCTION

I am currently based in Aberystwyth at the Department of Information Studies and my other WWW page has various contact details etc.   I hope that you will feel free to email ( allen.foster@aber.ac.uk ) for further information or discussion of any of the ideas mentioned here, or just to say hello! I am also everything from on Delicious,Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, WoW, Second Life, and lots more depending on my available time.  Special interest in theoretical and conceptual modelling, interdisciplinarity and information behaviour within diverse information grounds and information situations.

 

RESEARCH AND TEACHING

A focus on the central area of human information behaviour, and how this works in the contexts of information seeking, learning, communication, and society. Around and within this interest in human information behaviour a number of theoretical and practical problems are explored: information skills training, models of information seeking issues surrounding behaviour, specific behavioural processes including serendipity, uncertainty, and problem solving, the effects of personality, cognitive process and learning styles on information seeking, and more broadly the exploration of non-linear interpretations of problem solving and decision making. Social tagging, Web 2.0 and social dimensions to information exchange are fascinating, as are the applications of these in cultural and heritage scenarios. Away from the behavioural theme I am interested in the very human problem of implementing technological change and how this relates to the individual, organisation, and society, and how humans learn and communicate within computer mediated environments.

 

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

There is lots of of writing up to be done at the moment, not least the update to my model, the development of a related model, and a collaboration co-editing an Information Retrieval text.  Some of the publications are outlined below.

 

PUBLICATIONS

Foster, A.E. & Rafferty, P. (editors, in preparation for Spring 2011), Innovations in Information Retrieval: Perspectives for Theory and Practice, Facet.

Ferguson-Boucher, K and Foster, A.E. (in preparation). Conceptualising information: working towards a unified model of information seeking, use, recording, and retrieval

Foster, A.E. & Urquhart, C.J. (in preparation) Working title: Refining a Nonlinear Model of Information Behaviour

Foster, A E; Ferguson-Boucher, K & Broady-Preston, J. (2010) Unifying information behaviour and process: a balanced palette and the balanced scorecard, Performance Measurement and Metrics, 11(3): 280-288.

Foster, A E; Ferguson-Boucher, K & Broady-Preston, J. (2010) Unifying information behaviour and process: a balanced palette and the balanced scorecard, QQML Conference 2010

Stokes, P, Foster, A, and Urquhart, C.  (2009).  Beyond relevance and recall: testing new user-centred measures of database performance, Health Information & Libraries Journal, (DOI) 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2008.00822.x

Foster, A., Urquhart, C. & Turner, J. (2008). Validating coding for a theoretical model of information behaviour. Information Research, 13(4) paper 358. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/13-4/paper358.html]

Foster, A.E. and Urquhart, C.   (2008).  Validating coding for a theoretical model of information behaviour.  Paper presented at the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2004 conference (Vilnius).

Foster, A.E. and Urquhart, C.J. (2007). Testing a nonlinear model of information behaviour: experiences of examining coding. Paper presented at the I3 Conference, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

Foster, A.E. (2007). Information literacy for the information profession: experiences from Aberystwyth. Aslib proceedings, 58(6), 488-501.

Foster, A.E.  (February, 2006).  A Nonlinear Perspective. In Spink, A. and Cole, C. (Editors).  New Directions in Human Information Behavior, Dordrecht: Springer, pp.155-170.

Foster, A.E. (2005) "A non-linear model of information seeking behaviour", Information Research, 10(2) paper 222 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/10-2/paper222.html]

Foster, A.E.  (July, 2005) Nonlinear information seeking.  In Fisher, K E., Erdelez, S., & McKechnie, E. F. (Eds.).  Theories of Information Behavior: A Researcher's Guide.  Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Foster, A.E.  (2005).  Non-linearity and Human Information Behaviour, Elucidate, 2(4), July/August, pp.3-8.

Foster A.E. (2004). A Nonlinear Model of information seeking behavior.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 55(3), 228-237.  (This paper was ranked in Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) “Top Twenty” information instruction articles of 2004, announced June 2005, [Available at:  http://www3.baylor.edu/LIRT/lirtnews]).

Foster, A.E.  (2004).  Nonlinear information seeking.  Paper presented at the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) 2004 conference (Dublin), proceedings to be published Information Research.

Foster, A.E. and Ford, N.J.  (2003).  Serendipity and information seeking: an empirical study.  Journal of Documentation, 59 (3), 321-340.  (This article won the Emerald Literati Club 2004 Award for Excellence Outstanding Paper).

Foster, A.E.  (2003).  Interdisciplinary information seeking behaviour: A naturalistic inquiry, Unpublished PhD. Thesis, University of Sheffield, UK. 

Ellis, D., Wilson, T.D., Ford, N., Foster, A. Lam, H.M., Burton, R. & Spink, A.  (2002).  Information seeking and mediated searching.  Part 5.  User-intermediary interaction.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,  vol. 53 (11), 883-893.

Spink, A., Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. A., Foster, A., & Ellis, D.  (2002).  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part I. Background and research design. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,  53 (9), 695-703.

Wilson, T. D., Ford, N., Foster, A., Ellis, D., & Spink, A.  (2002 ).  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 2: Uncertainty. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology,  53 (9), 704-715.

Spink, A., Wilson, T. D., Ford, N. A., Foster, A., & Ellis, D.  (2002).  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 3: Successive searching.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.  53 (9), 716-727.

Ford, N., Wilson, T. D., Foster, A., Ellis, D., & Spink, A.  (2002).  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 4: Cognitive styles and individual differences. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.  Vol 53 (9), 728-735.

Ford, N. J., Wilson, T. D., Ellis, D., Foster, A., & Spink, A. (2000).  Individual differences in information seeking: An empirical study.  ASIS 2000:  Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science, November, Chicago, IL.  14-24.

Wilson, T.D., Ford, N.J., Ellis, D., Foster, A.E. & Spink, A. (2000).  Uncertainty and its correlates.  The New Review of Information Behaviour Research, 1(1), 69-84.

Wilson, T.D., Ellis, D., Ford, N., and Foster, A.  (1999).  Uncertainty in Information Seeking: Final Report to the British Library Research and Innovation Centre / Library and Information Commission on a research project carried out at the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Grant number LIC/RE/019.  [Available at http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/unis/ ]

Levy, P. and Foster, A.  (1998).  Communicating Effectively in the Networked Organisation: Using Electronic Mail in Academic Libraries, Journal of Documentation, vol. 54 (5), 566-583.

Foster, A., Levy, P and Ward, S.  (1997)  Communicating effectively in the networked library: an investigation into good practice for computer-supported co-operative working, Final Report to the British Library Research and Innovation Centre.  British Library Research & Innovation Centre Report No. 111.

 

 

   

Official UWA disclaimer: The information provided on this and other pages by me, Allen Foster (aef@aber.ac.uk) and is my own personal responsibility, not that of the University of Wales  Aberystwyth. Similarly, any opinions expressed are my own and are in no way to be taken as those of UWA.  Images are owned and created by Allen Foster, all rights reserved.