Adam Worrall

My name is Adam Worrall and I am an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta School of Library and Information Studies. I earned my PhD from the Florida State University School of Information and also hold an MS in Library and Information Studies from FSU and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida.

I study information-centric communities that are wholly or partially online. I have particular interest in the roles played by information and communication technologies (ICTs) in online information-centric communities; the relationships and interactions they have with users and their information sharing behaviours and practices within and across community boundaries; and the intersections between informational, social, and emotional facets of online communities and online information sharing. I approach this research through the lenses of information behaviour, information practice, and social informatics perspectives, the latter a primary influence on my scholarship.

On this site, you can

find out more about my research agenda and interests;
learn about my teaching experience (including courses I teach) and my teaching philosophy;
review my service philosophy and experience;
review my full portfolio, including
- my research, teaching, and service statements,
- details of my publications and presentations, and
- my PhD dissertation;
review my curriculum vitae (CV);
read more about me, my research interests, and how and why I'm here; and
find out how to contact me.

Travels

Upcoming travel to be determined and subject to change.

Info for U of A SLIS Students

Sabbatical

I am on sabbatical from August 2021 to July 2022 and will not be teaching courses at SLIS for the 2021-22 academic year. If you were previously my academic advisee, you should have received a re-assignment to a different faculty member as your advisor for 2021-22. You may still contact me if you have a particular question or concern related to my specific research and teaching interests.

Departure

Unfortunately, I have to post today to say I am intending to leave my position as an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies, and will be moving away from Edmonton and Alberta later this summer.

This was a difficult decision, to be sure, but is one that has been building for a while and for multiple reasons. The University of Alberta’s operating grant and budget have faced multiple cuts, over 33% in the past four years, by the current conservative government here in Alberta. I have felt declining support, at multiple levels, for my research agenda, teaching, and service, as well as for our students. There has also been a clear rise in tension among faculty and staff at many levels. There have been disagreements over curriculum; decreasing connections between research and teaching; and less valuing of some research projects.

Instead of a place where I feel I could move forward as a researcher, teacher, and information scientist, I find myself stuck in an environment where I no longer fit and the university no longer fits me. Personally, while I may not know entirely what my future holds, I know it unfortunately does not hold here.

Tenure and sabbatical

I'm pleased to be able to say that, effective July 1, 2021, I am a tenured faculty member and have been promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. I have also been awarded an upcoming sabbatical, beginning August 1, 2021 and continuing through July 31, 2022.

Publication in JASIST

I’m happy to say that I recently had a paper accepted for publication in the special issue on "Paradigm Shift in Information Science" in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST): The importance of socio-emotional considerations in online communities, social informatics, and information science.

This paper, co-authored with Alicia Cappello and Rachel Osolen, considers that alongside cognitive and social phenomena, many scholars have examined emotional and affective considerations in information science, but a potential emotional or affective paradigm has not coalesced to the extent of the social or cognitive paradigms. We argue information science research should integrate the social paradigm, as offered by social informatics, with affective and emotional considerations: a socio-emotional paradigm. A review of existing literature and findings from users’ motivations to participate on the Academia section of the Stack Exchange social questioning-and-answering site make our case. As the paper explains, we uncovered tensions between the intended information-centric focus of the community and users who believed social, emotional, and affective considerations needed to be foregrounded, speaking to online communities acting as boundary objects, with the “fit” for one user or community not always the same as for another. An integrated socio-emotional paradigm shows much strength for social informatics and information science research, including uncovering hidden concerns and differences in values, as in our study. We argue that affective and emotional research, often bubbling under in information science, should rise to the surface in not so much a paradigm shift but an integration of social, emotional, and affective considerations into a socio-emotional paradigm.

A self-archived e-print of the article is available for non-commercial use. My research agenda and ongoing publications and presentations continue to build on this project with further research into the intersections between informational, social, and emotional facets of online communities and online information sharing.

Welcome!