Dr Sophie Rutter

BA (SOAS, London), MSc (Sheffield), PhD (Sheffield), SFHEA

School of Information, Journalism and Communication

Senior Lecturer in Information Management

Sophie Rutter
Sophie Rutter
Profile picture of Sophie Rutter
s.rutter@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2659
Room C223, The Wave

Full contact details

Dr Sophie Rutter
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
Room C223
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

I joined the School in March 2019. I am currently researching hand hygiene at work for both office workers and those who work on the move. I am also working on a project that aims to create an agenda for embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in usability testing. Previously as a research fellow in communication design at the University of Leeds (2018-2019), I worked with children on a co-design project to transform school toilets and motivate hand hygiene.

My PhD (Sheffield, 2017) focused on children’s use of search technologies and the influence of the school environment.  I continue to be interested in using naturalistic methods with children and other user groups.

Prior to academia, I worked in industry for several years as the web and communications manager for the Port of London Authority (2001-2006), a project manager for Futura Interactive (2000-2001), and as an online publication coordinator for Donovan Data Systems (1993-1999).

University Responsibilities

  • Deputy Programme Coordinator for MSc Information Management
  • Module Coordinator for INF6060 Information Retrieval: Search Engines and Digital Libraries
Research interests

I am the principal investigator on the project. This project currently has two strands.  Strand one, in collaboration with the University of Leeds and Savortex (an SME specialising in hand hygiene technology), aims to understand how organisations and their employees perceive hand hygiene within the workplace. Strand two investigates the everyday experiences of  mobile workers' access to facilities as part of their work.

I am the principal investigator on the project. This project aims to create an agenda that embeds EDI in usability testing.

I am also interested in how the environment influences the way people interact with information, what techniques people use to search for information, and how information use can be evaluated in different environments. My research so far has been broadly focused on school children, workplace settings, search interfaces and health communication.

I am interested in supervising PhD projects in the following areas

  • Hand hygiene and more broadly health communication
  • Information seeking behaviour
  • Human Computer Interaction (HCI) studies
  • Inclusive user research
Publications

Journal articles

  • Rutter S & Needham C (2025) . Perspectives in Public Health, 145(5), 237-238.
  • Greyson D, Lundy M, Rutter S & Walugembe D (2024) . Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 61(1), 758-761.
  • Rutter S, Zamani E, McKenna-Aspell J & Wang Y (2024) . International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 188.
  • Rutter S, Sanger S, Madden AD, Ehdeed S & Stones C (2024) . JMIR Formative Research, 8.
  • Stones C, Ai W, Rutter S & Madden A (2024) . Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 17(1), 49-63.
  • Rutter S, Madden A & White L (2023) . BMC Public Health, 23.
  • Madden AD, Rutter S, Stones C & Ai W (2022) . International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15).
  • Stones C, Ai W, Rutter S & Madden A (2022) . Design for Health, 6(2), 185-203.
  • Rutter S, Bonne M, Stones C & Macduff C (2022) . Journal of Infection Prevention, 23(3), 87-92.
  • Stones CM, Stark J, Rutter S & Macduff C (2022) . Visual Communication, 21(1), 97-122.
  • Rutter S, Stones C, Wood J, Macduff C & Gomez-Escalada M (2020) . International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7).
  • Rutter S, Toms E & Clough P (2019) . Journal of Documentation, 75(6), 1370-1395.
  • Cox AM, Pinfield S & Rutter S (2019) . Library Hi Tech, 37(3), 418-435.
  • Cox A, Pinfield S & Rutter S (2019) . portal: Libraries and the Academy, 19(3), 485-509.
  • Rutter S, Macduff C, Stones C & Gomez-Escalada M (2019) . International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 31(1), 1-19.
  • Cox AM, Pinfield S & Rutter S (2019) . Library Management, 40(5), 313-326.
  • Rutter S, Blinzler V, Ye C, Wilson ML & Twidale MD (2019) . Information Processing and Management, 56(3), 919-938.
  • Rutter S, Stones C & MacDuff C (2019) . Health Communication, 35(9), 1091-1100.
  • Rutter S, Clough PD & Toms E (2019) Using classroom talk to understand children’s search processes for tasks with different goals. Information Research, 24(1).
  • Rutter S, Clough PD & Toms E (2019) . Journal of Documentation, 75(2).
  • Wakeling S, Rutter S, Birdi B & Pinfield S (2016) . Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 50(2), 168-185.
  • Rutter S, Ford N & Clough P (2015) How do children reformulate their search queries?. INFORMATION RESEARCH-AN INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC JOURNAL, 20(1).

Conference proceedings

  • Fallatah K, Harvey M & Rutter S (2024) . Information Research, Special Issue: Proceedings of the 15th ISIC - The Information Behaviour Conference, Vol. 29(2) (pp 253-274). Aalborg, Denmark, 26 August 2024 - 26 August 2024.
  • Batool SH, Bullard J, Campbell-Meier J, Fourie I, Jimenez A & Rutter S (2023) . Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 60(1) (pp 742-746). London, United Kingdom, 27 October 2023 - 27 October 2023.
  • Madden A, Rutter S & White L (2022) . Information Science Trends 2022: Untold Stories
  • McKenna-Aspell J, Wang Y, Rutter S & Zamani E (2022) . Information Science Trends 2022: Untold Stories
  • Figueiredo V, Meyers EM, Bilal D, Rutter S & Magee RM (2021) . Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 58(1) (pp 577-581)
  • Hopfgartner F, Harvey M, Rutter S, Mazumdar S, Cameron D, Checco A, Bentley C, Zhang Z & Clough P (2021) . Information Science Trends 2021: Information Science Research During COVID-19 and Post-Pandemic Opportunities. Virtual conference, 9 June 2021 - 9 June 2021.
  • Rutter S, Blinzler V, Ye C, Twidale MB & Wilson ML (2017) Complex search task: How to make a phone safe for a child. Ceur Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 1798 (pp 34-36)
  • Rutter S (2014) . Proceedings of the 5th Information Interaction in Context Symposium (pp 330-332)
  • Hall M, Villa R, Rutter SA, Bell D, Clough P & Toms E (2013) Shefleld submission to the CHiC interactive task: Exploring digital cultural heritage. Ceur Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 1179
  • Villa R, Clough P, Hall M & Rutter S (2013) Search or browse? Casual information access to a cultural heritage collection. Ceur Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 1033 (pp 19-22)

Reports

  • Pinfield S, Cox A & Rutter S (2017) Mapping the future of academic libraries: A report for SCONUL
  • Birdi B, Pinfield S, Wakeling S & Rutter S (2015) Investigating interlending: a scoping study of resource discovery, sharing and cooperation

Preprints

  • Rutter S, Sanger S, Madden AD, Ehdeed S & Stones C (2023) , JMIR Publications Inc..
Research group

I am a member of the Information Retrieval research group.

Current PhD students

Fahad ALenezi

Grants

 Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Usability Testing

Research England QR-Policy Support FundingPrincipal Investigator£5,0141 Jan 20223 months

Hand hygiene for mobile workers: developing and disseminating evidence-based policy to support covid recovery

Research England Covid Recovery Fund and Research England QR-Policy Support FundingPrincipal Investigator£35,6081 Jan 20227 months

Workplace smart sanitiser guidance: dissemination and impact

ESRC HEIF / IAAPrincipal Investigator£9,27219 Jul 202112 months

 Smart sanitisation: Development and evaluation of a smart hand sanitiser system for use in the office environment

Innovate UKPrincipal Investigator£109,0601 Dec 202015 months

 Awarded £109,060 from Innovate UK as part of a £570,562 funded project in collaboration with Savortex (SME) and University of Leeds. The project is to develop and evaluate a smart (IoT) hand sanitiser system for use in the office environment.

Teaching activities

INF6060 - Information Retrieval

INF6031 - Public and Youth Library Services

INF6031 - Public and Youth Library Services DL

INF6060 - Information Retrieval: Search Engines and Digital Libraries 

INF6000/6555 - Dissertation 

INF6430 - User-Centred Design and Human-Computer Interaction

Professional activities and memberships

Membership of professional bodies

  • Senior Fellow of the HEA

Committee and advisory group membership

  • Chair (2022-2023) / Past Chair (2023-2024), ASIS&T European Chapter
  • Advisory board member,  123

Journal and conference reviewing

  • Journal of Documentation
  • CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
  • Health care
  • Environmental Health Insights
  • iFutures
  • International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
  • Journal of Information Management
  • Library and Information Research
  • Online Information Review
  • Pakistan Journal of Information Management & Libraries

Invited presentations

  • Rutter, S. (2021). Communicating and evaluating health messages during a pandemic. Keynote. Information Science Trends - ASIS&T European Chapter Series.
  • Rutter, S. (2021). Trialling a novel evaluation method to pre-test hand hygiene messages. Cap Gemini.