Dr Jessica Bates

Biography

Dr Jessica Bates is Research Coordinator for education, she is also Lecturer and Course Director in library and information management. She finished her PhD in 2009, joining the School of Education the same year. Before working at Ulster, she was a College Lecturer in information and library studies at University College Dublin. Her research has been published in key international journals including the Journal of Academic Librarianship, Library and Information Science Research and School Libraries Worldwide. She currently holds research funding from SCoTENS for a North/South study into trainee teachers knowledge and experiences of digital literacy and previously held two Innovation vouchers from Invest NI for library and information research work she undertook for the peace and reconciliation charity, Corrymeela. Additionally, she has been part of research teams from the School of Education who were responsible for evaluating the school programmes PIEE (Primary Integrating and Enriching Education – a shared education multi-school partnership project in the North Antrim area) and Creative Change (a programme for primary schools in the North coast area which focused on developing Personal Development and Mutual Understanding within the Foundation Stage classroom through creative arts). Dr Bates regularly reviews for a number of academic journals and is an Editorial Board Member of the New Review of Academic Librarianship. She was also a Member of the review group for the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for librarianship, information, knowledge, records and archives management (2015). Dr Bates supervises a number of doctoral candidates at Ulster in education and library and information science and has also been a PhD External Examiner at other UK institutions. She also regularly co-authors with Library and Information Management and PhD students and graduates and is a strong advocate of mentoring postgraduate students and new professionals.

Research Interest

Dr Bates’ research interests relate to information, education and social inclusion; digital literacy; and improving library and information services.