iSchool Capstone

2013

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Compliance to the National Institutes of Health Public Access: A Case Study

Open access to scholarly publications nurtures the collaborative nature of impacting research. For biomedical researchers, the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy (NIHPA) also makes it a requirement to ensure continued and future funding of their work. Completed in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s (FHCRC) Arnold Library, this project aimed to assess the NIHPA compliance of publications from one biomedical research institute in order to understand their past adherence to this policy and provide recommendations towards optimizing the access of future publications. This included the development and population of a publication-tracking database – enabling the analysis of the institute’s past compliance rate and compliance-related services (library interventions) – and a comparison of these local tracking efforts to the new NIH Compliance Monitor tool. Based on this work, recommendations for the future tracking, assessment, and improvement of the FHCRC’s public-access compliance were provided.
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From Immigration Detention to Unfamiliar Territory: Surviving Post-Release

There are over 350 immigration detention facilities in the United States. More than 400,000 people were deported in 2012, often to countries where they have not lived for years, or perhaps have never lived as an adult. A smaller number of people are released from detention in the U.S., but find themselves many miles from home. What happens to all these people? How can they find shelter, transportation, and other social services after a disruptive and disorienting period of detention? Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) sponsored this project to provide basic information post-deportation to help people stay safe and start over after immigration detention. Our website, www.survivingpostrelease.org, lists resources that organizations can share with people leaving immigration detention.
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Golder BIS End User Relations Mapping Strategy: Connecting People and Technology

At Golder Associates (Golder), Business Information Services (BIS) have a diverse user population of over 9,000 employees and consulting clients located worldwide. BIS provide support in multiple business aspects such as general administration, communication and knowledge management. As a result of the organization’s rapid growth, user experience has become a critical requirement of BIS. In our strategy project, we work with Golder End User Relations Function on mapping methodologies and staffing needs of user experience requirements. We made recommendations on how the areas of user analytics, system usability, and information accessibility can be improved within BIS. Our strategy document informs Golder with up-to-date methodologies through example processes developed on real scenarios. With our strategy document, Golder will be able to build a professional user experience function that effectively connects people and technology.
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GroupLoop: Stay in the Loop

Among the many online services that provide communication channels for groups, there is a lack of singular services that provide users a way to easily interact with each group in one place. In order to communicate with their respective groups, 25 out of 27 people we surveyed online use four or more services, including email and various social media sites. Coordinating so many different services across multiple groups is tedious, challenging, and often results in important information being overlooked or lost. GroupLoop is a single interface that integrates all of the functions users require to effectively communicate with each of their groups. Users can send private or group messages, access contact information for each group member, upload shared multimedia, add events in a group calendar, and participate in forums. They can even view information for multiple groups at once. Feedback from GroupLoop users who have tested these functions in order to communicate with their groups have found it to be “helpful,” “convenient,” and “a service they would like to use.”
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Hear Rite

Approximately 17 percent of American adults report some degree of hearing loss. Such hearing problems can lead to frustrations and inconveniences in everyday life while listening to or communicating with others. Our team has created a free mobile application, Hear Rite, which diagnoses hearing impairments and provides an economical alternative to costly hearing aids. The first segment of our application takes the user through a hearing assessment, analyzes the user’s hearing capacity and provides feedback on their results. The second part of our application functions as a hearing aid, filtering out undesired pitches and tones while adjusting sound output using a built-in equalizer. The hearing aid utilizes the hearing test results to provide a custom tailored hearing aid to the user along with presets that cater to general sound environments, such as a private conversation or a large lecture hall. Through a series of user studies, we have shown that Hear Rite could be a cost-free alternative hearing aid for people with simple hearing impairment.
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Higher Scalability for UW Health Science Report Generation

Most healthcare institutes have complicated step-by-step operation procedures to ensure safety and privacy protections. Reporting used in routine tasks for healthcare institutes must be customized to meet urgent needs within these organizations. To meet these needs, our project presented a solution using a high-scalability reporting tool: SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), connecting directly to the UW medical database. With SSRS, complicated data extractions can be handled without end users’ involvement; hundreds of reports can be customized and delivered within few seconds.
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Identify Global Logistics Risks by Monitoring Twitter

There are many interruptive events that can affect a global supply chain, such as political unrest, global economics, labor disruptions, natural disasters, and transportation delays. The speed at which a logistics company such as Expeditors International can respond to these events is critical for maintaining a competitive advantage and providing exceptional customer service. Today, flourishing social media is changing how information is sourced and the velocity at which it is being distributed. Our project is to design a social media network monitoring system to help Expeditors utilize timely, accurate, and relevant information on supply chain interruptions and other events that might pose risks to its logistic operations. With the tool we have designed, Expeditors management can proactively respond to these events and consistently meet service commitments while effectively managing costs and risks.
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Imara: A Collaborative Space for Service Projects

Websites that provide volunteering and donating opportunities often lack a centralized hub for communicating, displaying, and tracking the progress of service projects.  Most organizations have a way of keeping track of projects internally; however, with underserved communities, there may be a lack of resources to enable the efficient monitoring of project development and to obtain expertise on a project topic.  Imara is a web platform that promotes a social and collaborative atmosphere allowing volunteers, community members, donors and subject matter experts to exchange knowledge and contribute up-to-date information on the progress of projects.  This information allows project members to identify areas that need more resources, funding, expertise, or volunteer effort.  Users who evaluated Imara stated that it delivers a simple, informative, and engaging way to get involved with service projects.
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Immingle

Each year, approximately 2 million new immigrants from all over the world arrive in the United States. These newcomers can often find themselves feeling isolated due to language and cultural barriers, which make meeting new people and acclimating to their new environment especially challenging. We built an events based social networking website, called Immingle, designed specifically with the needs of this group in mind. Our solution helps immigrants who share a common language or homeland connect with one another through creating and attending local events. Events can range anywhere from small knitting group gatherings to large cultural music festivals, and can be created by new immigrants, established immigrants, or even local organizations. By providing a resource for both recent and established immigrants alike to connect with one another, Immingle helps newcomers meet friends who have shared similar experiences. These peers can help them overcome some of the challenges that transitioning to life in a new country can pose. Our solution aims to strengthen local immigrant communities by providing a platform with very low barriers to access that encourages making new friends, building support networks, and getting involved in the local community.
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Interactive Visualization for Mental Health Data

Mental health clinicians, researchers, and program managers require good data to make good decisions. The Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) has collected a significant quantity of population data, but action based on this data is hindered without extensive technical training and experience. This limits the data’s impact to improve health care outcomes and performance by preventing a wider audience from using the data to make high-level care and policy decisions. We worked with the Group Health Research Institute to design an interactive tool that transforms health care data into understandable visualizations, which are easy to explore.  Our tool will provide translational research; encourage people to ask questions; and promote data-driven healthcare improvements, ultimately impacting over 11 million patients across the United States currently served by the MHRN.