The core IMA team

The consultants: their roles and project experience

How the IMA system works

IMA puts together teams of specialist consultants to conduct specific projects. The core work of IMA is maintained through a group of retained IMA consultants. The IMA core team consists of:

David Streatfield
Sharon Markless
Professor David Smith
Simon Rae-Scott
Professor Tom Wilson

David Streatfield

David is Principal of IMA. He was previously (1981-1990) Head of Information Research and Development at the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales, where he led a team of 16 staff involved in a variety of national and international research and development projects and was then Managing Director of NFER Enterprises, its training and consultancy company. Before that (1975-1980) he was Principal Investigator for Project INISS, a UK national research project focussed on information seeking and use of social workers. Earlier he had managed information and library services for the Confederation of British Industry, the London Metropolitan Police and the Council of Voluntary Service for Wales. ↩

Sharon Markless

Sharon is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the King’s Learning Institute, King’s College London, as well as a Senior Associate, IMA. She has taught in secondary schools, further education, prisons and higher education and was a Senior Researcher at the National Foundation for Educational Research until 1990. She has conducted national research and development on information literacy and on library development in schools, further education colleges and higher education and has conducted a wide range of training and professional development for the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and many academic institutions including work with police, hospital consultants and library service managers of all kinds. She has conducted overseas consultancy work in Finland, Lithuania, Mexico, Portugal, USA and Malaysia. ↩

Professor David Smith

David is an IMA Senior Associate. He was formerly Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise in Newport School of Art, Media and Design, where he managed and conducted a range of significant academic, applied and commercial research projects. He has been associated since 1984 with the development of cross-disciplinary research focussing on issues of knowledge transfer and management. In an earlier role he headed the Centre for Evaluation of IT in Education (CITE) at the UK National Foundation for Educational Research. His recent work has involved international projects including the EU-India Cross-Cultural Collaboration Programme and UK collaborations such as People-centred Computational Environments for Design Discovery and Purcell Plus: Exploring an eScience Methodology for Musicologists. He is currently working on behalf of the Wales Institute for Research in Art and Design to develop early career training. ↩

Simon Rae-Scott

Simon is managing director of ConnectWorks Limited, which specialises in arts and information publishing. He has backgrounds in teaching, professional photography and ICT consultancy. His role is to bring new media technology solutions and innovation to bear upon the presentation of the arts and public sector information. The range of work includes online galleries, specialist extranets, online learning resources, internet access to applications and – either in close co-operation or partnership with IMA – the development of online evaluation, survey and sector skills tools for clients including The National Preservation Office at the British Library, Natural England, Skills for Care, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Beside managing ConnectWorks publishing projects, Simon Rae-Scott is also a SFEDI accredited business adviser, providing ICT and business consultancy under a range of programmes. ↩

Professor Tom Wilson

Tom is a Senior Associate, IMA. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield and Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds Business School and at Högskolan I Borås, Sweden.

He is a leading international figure in information behaviour research and has conducted a number of practitioner studies in this field. He has been a visiting professor at universities in several countries and was Head of the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield for fifteen years. He has received a number of academic awards in recognition of his research and is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of the electronic journal, Information Research. ↩