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ASIS&T Middle East Chapter

Better Information Science and Technology for Middle East, We Can Collaborate

About Our Chapter

The Middle East Chapter of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T-ME) is the leading Middle East community of academics and practitioners in the field of information science and technology, also a part of the worldwide ASIS&T community.

 

The objectives of the Middle East chapter are to facilitate personal networking and professionalism among ASIS&T members located in the Middle East Region:

  • contribute to their professional development by means of meetings, continuing education programs, special programs, newsletter,s and forms of communication and interaction;
  • cooperate with ASIS&T officers, SIGs, and other chapters, and with related professional organizations;
  • and facilitate the interaction between ASIS&T members in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.

Middle East Chapter would like to see you among us as a young and dynamic community.

Very soon, this page, where you will receive much more news from us, and many news on the Middle East, technology and information science are on this page.

We are just as excited as you are!

2024 Officers & Advisors

Chair: Güleda Doğan

Chair-Elect: Reham Alshaheen

Secretary & Treasurer: Fawzi Shamsi

Webmaster & Social Media: Elçin Keleş Ziya

Membership Officer: Mücella Sena Köksal

Communications Officer: Ezgi Uğurlu

Middle East Advisors: Dania Bilal & Emil Levine

Chair: Güleda DoğanGüleda Doğan

Dr. Güleda Doğan is an Associate Professor at Hacettepe University in the Department of Information Management. She holds an undergraduate degree in Statistics and focused her PhD studies on university rankings. Her research in this field continues even today. Currently, she is leading a national project that aims to promote responsible university rankings.

With 12 years of editorial experience in a Turkish library science journal, Dr. Güleda Doğan has a strong background in academic publishing. She also serves on the editorial board of ARIST.

Dr. Güleda Doğan is a co-founder of the Scholarly Communication Network, a platform dedicated to fostering collaboration and communication within the young scholarly community.

Chair-Elect: Reham Alshaheen

Dr. Reham Alshaheen serves as a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Information Studies at Kuwait University (KU) and is currently a visiting scholar at Simmons University in Boston, USA.

She earned her PhD from Simmons University, where her dissertation was recognized as one of the ten notable dissertations of the year by American Libraries in 2019. She also holds a master's degree with honors in Library and Information Science (LIS), and a bachelor's degree with honors in Mass Communications and English Language and Literature, both from KU. Her research primarily focuses on the user experience and information architecture of apps and websites.

In addition to her academic and professional endeavors, Dr. Alshaheen is deeply committed to community service. She has organized numerous workshops aimed at enhancing information skills in both educational institutions and non-profit organizations. She is a firm believer in the transformative power of knowledge sharing and information literacy for societal advancement.

Secretary & Treasurer: Ahmad Fawzi Shamsi

Dr. Ahmad Fawzi Shamsi is a doctor at Eastern Mediterranean University in the Foreign Languages and English Preparatory School. He holds a PhD in English Language Teaching, in which he conducted research about Article Publication Literacy for PhD Students as Novice Authors.His research mainly focuses on publication literacy for novice authors in terms of encountered challenges, adopted strategies, and needed support, and he has published several articles on this issue. Furthermore, his research also focuses on teaching via technology, multilingualism, and education during emergencies.

Believing that research should go hand in hand with practice, he divided his professional career into two phases. At first, he started teaching English to teenagers and adults for 8 years to improve his skills as a practitioner. Later, he started his academic career as an academician and researcher in 2014. Since then, he has worked on several articles, attended several conferences, and trained several groups about both teaching expertise and research.

Webmaster & Social Media: Elçin Keleş Ziya

In 2017, I completed my bachelor's degree from Hacettepe University, Department of Information Management as the first in my department. In 2015, I graduated from Anadolu University Associate's Degree in Public Relations and Advertising. In 2022, I completed my master's degree at Hacettepe University, Department of Information Management by completing my thesis titled "An Evaluation of Turkey-Addressed Publication in Terms of The Altmetric Attention Scores". I am currently continuing my PhD program at Hacettepe University, Department of Information Management and will soon start working as a research assistant. During my master's program, I took part in an EU ERASMUS+ project in Graz, Austria. I have worked as a Digital Media Broadcast Specialist (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation), Account Manager (Informascope), Senior Librarian (Başkent University), Digital Marketing Specialist (Netvent), Marketing Team Volunteer (TEDx Hacettepe University), Business Development Intern (Mantis Software) and Research Project Scholar (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and Hacettepe University) in various universities, government agencies and companies.

Since 2022, I have been working on the editorial board of peer-reviewed journals, Information World, as a Section Editor and I am a member of the Scholarly Communication Network (SCN) research group. In 2023, I won ASIS&T's 2023 InfoShare Award as a young PhD researcher. I am also involved in the activities of ASIS&T's SIG-III group. My research interests are: data analytics, data manipulation and visualization, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, information retrieval, scholarly communication, research evaluation, altmetrics, digital media, science communication, and sustainable development goals. I am also continuing my Kodlasam Data Analytics Certified Training Program, which I started in 2023. Teamwork, creative and original thinking, interdisciplinary cooperation, aiming to solve problems in the field of information science and academic integrity are among the most important value sets for me in this journey.

Membership Officer: Mücella Sena Köksal

Mücella Sena Köksal is a Librarian at ISBN-ISSN-ISNI Turkey Agency in General Directorate of Libraries and Publications. She has published a master’s thesis: “Citation Impact of Turkey-addressed Information Science Articles”. Also she is a PhD student at Hacettepe University in the Department of Information Management. Her researches focuses on peer rewiev, science and scholarly communication, research evulation and bibliometrics. She is a member of the Scholarly Communication Network.

Communications Officer: Ezgi Uğurlu

Ezgi Uğurlu works as a Reference Librarian at Bilkent University Library and also serves as the faculty librarian for the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture. She completed her undergraduate education in the Department of Information Management at Hacettepe University and is currently pursuing her master's degree in the same department. Within the scope of her master's thesis, she is examining the job transition processes of information management graduates.

Having graduated at the undergraduate level in 2018, Uğurlu served as an educator with the title of Training Specialist until 2022, taking responsibility for user training on databases sold by a distributor firm.

Middle East Advisors

Dr. Dania Bilal 

Dr. Dania Bilal is a Professor at the School of Information Sciences, The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her research sits at the intersection of human information behavior, human-computer interaction, human-AI Interaction, and information retrieval. She has published four books and over 125 publications and made numerous presentations at the national and international levels. Her research focuses on children and youth information behavior and interaction with technologies, unveiling their cognitive and affective experiences. Her research led to a breakthrough in understanding the differences and similarities between children’s and adults; information behavior in using web search engines, which attracted the media at the national and international levels. Her most recent research includes using humanoid robots to facilitate the delivery of reminiscence therapy to older adults with dementia; and user voice switching behavior in digital assistants, including the embodiment of voice interfaces (EVIs) in images of people of diverse and multicultural backgrounds. She received numerous awards, including The Association of Information Science & Technology SIG USE 2017 Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Research, The 2014 Google Faculty Development Research Award, The Association of Information Science & Technology 2008 SIG USE Book-of-The-Year Award, The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) 2007 Excellence in Teaching Award, and two research awards from the College of Communication and Information. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) on the IDEA (Innovation, Disruption, Enquiry, Access) Institute on Artificial Intelligence (AI), funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Her research has also been funded by Google, Inc., and Eugene Garfield Foundation, among others.

Emil Levine

Member since 1970s. Chair several SIGs and EC Chapter. Board Member (SIG Representative). ASIS&T Watson Davis Award, 2017. Bulletin Editorial Staff. Member EC, SA, AP, and ME chapters. MLS University of Maryland, MBAs American University and USC. BA Journalism. Author Information Science: Law Enforcement Applications. Employment US Navy, US Drug Enforcement Administration, UN International Atomic Energy Agency and UN United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Librarian), Vienna. American residing in Austria.

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2023 ASIS&T SIG Special Project Award

SIG-III was awarded the SIG Special Project Fund for organizing a Winter School for Enhancing Research Skills.

 

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Publications & Resources

You can find the publications of all our members regularly, as well as the publications and resources that will interest you.

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How to Join

To be a member, one first needs to be a member of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). When completing the Membership Application Form, select the special interest group (SIG) of your choice.

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