Stars on a bigger stage

This year, two students from Wuhan University got their papers accepted and were invited to attend an international conference at the University of Sheffield.

Dressed in a white sweater and deep blue pants, 24-year-old Wuhan University student Lu Liuxing takes a deep breath before stepping up to the podium in a spacious lecture hall at the Diamond Library of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

This is the first time that Lu is presenting at an international conference.

In front of her are scholars and researchers from around the world.

She takes questions from them after the presentation.

"I was quite nervous," says the information and library science major.

"You usually don't expect many questions when making presentations in China, but here, the audience wanted to ask questions and engage in discussions."

The gathering Lu attended was the iConference, which took place at the University of Sheffield from March 25 to 28.

The theme of the event was Transforming Digital Worlds, where 466 delegates from academia, industry and NGOs shared their concerns and observations about critical information issues facing contemporary society.

This year, two students from Wuhan University - Lu and Library Science graduate student Cheng Lei - had their papers accepted and were invited to attend the iConference.

"I feel honored to be accepted," says Lu. "It's a great encouragement, which makes all my research efforts worthwhile."

Lu's research focuses on user's information behavior in navigation.

"Most related research focuses on car navigation, but only a few researchers examine pedestrian navigation," she says.