Allen Foster BA(Hons) MSc(Sheffield) PhD(Sheffield)

University of Wales, Aberystwyth

 

INTRODUCTION

I am currently based in Aberystwyth at the Department of Information Studies, and my other WWW page with 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 on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. With my Programme Team Leader role I am responsible for several taught Masters degrees in full time and distance learning modes covering Information and Library Studies, Management of Library Services, and Resarch Training Masters in Information Systems and Information Management, details at Distance Learning Masters, and my Full Time Masters programmes.  

 

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.

Some of these interests arise from my educational background which spans the disciplines of law, sociology, history (industrial & medieval) and information management, and much is informed by my experiences of employment in the legal profession, of administration (business) and management (in an Arts & Education Centre with its own theatre), of being a computer support officer, and variously researcher and academic.   

I have been involved in teaching both as full time academic, as teaching assistant and guest lecturer since about 1996.  Subject areas that I have taught include Information Seeking, Information Resources, training in the use of DIALOG, Business Information, Training in software including Endnote and Microsoft Office, Practical Computing, Information Management Strategies, Global Management, Research Methods, Information Retrieval, and Information Literacy, and Information Services and Client Led Information Services. All of my teaching commitments tend to be have both a full-time and a distance-learning aspect. Information studies at Aberystwyth University is perhaps the biggest department in terms of distance-learning library students in the UK. My students on MSc and BSc programmes can as easily be from Aberystwyth as Barbados or Singapore. Current students live in a wide range of locations from Saudi Arabia and Africa, to America, the Caribean, and many different parts of Europe. My PhD students are distributed across the UK, Mediterranean and North America, initially it was a shock to realise PhD students could study at a distance, but the fact that we can support PhDs in "distance learning" mode is actually a fantastic opportunity for some really interesting research.    I am also a Registered Practitioner with the Higher Education Academy. 

Academic duties at Aberystwyth and elsewhere have included Deputy Dean, Postgraduate Programme Team Leader, External Examiner for Theses, External Examiner Undergraduate schemes, Panel Member AHRC, Peer Review College Member, Peer Reviewer various journals, Guest Editor, Module Coordinator, and PhD supervisor.

 

A NONLINEAR MODEL OF INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR

My doctoral research allowed a detailed exploration of information seeking behaviour and one product of this was a nonlinear model of information seeking.  The top level of the model is expressed in the Journal of the American Society for Information Society and Technology (JASIST) paper below, and puts forward a new approach to thinking about information behaviour.  Other publications aim to providing more detail, data, and discussion of the implications of nonlinearity as a perspective from which to explore information seeking behaviour. The implications of the model, and the wider perspective it suggests, raise many questions, hypotheses and point to a wide range of future research. The model offers, amongst other things, a useful way to ask questions about information seeking.

 

SERENDIPITY

In 2000-2004 part of my research considered serendipity and put forward some empirical evidence to suggest that the "accident" of serendipity may be somewhat more complex.  Part of that exploration is published in the Journal of Documentation in a joint authored work with Nigel Ford. Serendipity appears within the Foster Nonlinear Model of Information Seeking within the core process of Opening. The junction between information seeking and information retrieval is quite complex and serendipity is of huge interest.

 

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

“TESTING A NONLINEAR MODEL OF INFORMATION BEHAVIOUR”:  In the period 2005-2009 I have worked with Christine Urquhart and our project researcher Janet Turner to explore and test the nonlinear model, briefly our aims have been to: (1) examine methods of assessing the reliability of coding; (2)  employ the skills of two further coders to the analysis of the original data, and validate the coding original framework; (3) apply the coding framework to a new information context, and generate a validated and amended coding framework; and (4) to lay the foundations of a refined non-linear model of information seeking behaviour.  Findings: the themes of the nonlinear model are largely confirmed, though some code definitions are refined further, and some work within parameters, but overall the transferability of the core processes seems to be confirmed.  We are in the process of writing up the work for publication, and the outcomes are expected to inform further funded research and doctoral study.

 

Current Supervision

ELLUL, Kevin. Part-time PhD. Information behaviour and information literacy of higher education students in Malta

McBIRNIE, Abigail. Part-time. PhD. Serendipity and information seeking

MAWBY, Janet. Full-time PhD. Influence of peer group pressures on information behaviour

STOKES, Peter. Part-time PhD. Information behaviour of nursing students

SURTEES, Jane. MPhil. Medical students' mental models for searching and information retrieval

TOLAND Dawn. Full-time PhD. Evaluation of the longitudinal impact of Internet support services for older people

Publications etc

  (2007). 

*Ferguson-Boucher, K and Foster, A.E. (in preparation for 2010). Conceptualising information: working towards a unified model of information seeking, use, recording, and retrieval

*Foster, A.E. (in preparation for 2010) Working title: "Refining a Nonlinear Model of Information Behaviour"

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), proceedings to be published Information Research.

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

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.

Foster, A.E.  (1996).  Organisational electronic communication auditing: towards a methodology.  Department of Information Studies, Unpublished Masters Dissertation, University of Sheffield.

 

 

   

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.