iSchool Capstone

2024

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Supporting Professionals and Young Minds: Creating Effective Libraries for Early Childhood Educators

At the UW Children’s Center at Portage Bay, the goal of the project was to enhance professional development for early childhood educators by focusing on social-emotional and anti-bias curricula. By curating a specialized library, educators gain access to resources that delve into these critical areas, offering insights, strategies, and practical tools to implement inclusive teaching practices. Additionally, auditing and restructuring the existing book collection will ensure alignment with these priorities, fostering a more comprehensive resource hub. Through the implementation of a cataloging system, educators can utilize the curated materials, empowering them to create nurturing and equitable environments for young children.
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Switching Your DEI-ET: A project to Standardize Diversity Reports

Our project introduces a unified diversity framework," a standardized approach to reporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) metrics within the tech industry. Recognizing the current inconsistencies and confusion in DEI reporting, we are establishing a common standard to enhance transparency and accountability across the sector. This initiative aims to streamline how companies measure and compare their DEI efforts, facilitating better strategic decisions and resource allocation. By implementing this framework, tech companies will be better equipped to foster a more inclusive and equitable workplace, ultimately advancing systemic equality throughout the industry. This is a crucial step toward meaningful change in tech.
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Taking the Temperature on Archival Outreach: An examination of Donor Outreach at Institutional Archives

A perennial issue of stewarding archival collections is getting the word out about our processing and preservation concerns prior to donation. Within the last fifteen years, there has been a substantial amount of scholarship concerning donation strategies at institutional archives. It has largely focused on diversifying the contents of the archive through non-extractive methods. Donor education is integral, as there is pervasive misunderstandings concerning repository capacity. While practitioners understand that their collections are not equitable or not representative of the community, capacity limitations restrict their ability to implement structure formalized outreach programs, which are necessary to remedy these generational issues.
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The Archives are the Story: Processing and Cataloging the Self-Help Graphics and Art Founder Archives

In collaboration with Self Help Graphics and Art (SHG), this project processed, condition reported, created metadata, and rehoused 315 archival artworks by the organization’s co-founders, Sister Karen Boccalero, Antonio Ibañez, and Carlos Bueno. The research culminated in two finding aids for each sub-collection. These collections evidence the origins and early artwork of the co-founders, who collectively lit the fire for an organization with 50 years of history and significance to Chicanx and Latinx artists in Los Angeles still burning bright today. The project aims to make these previously unprocessed collections accessible to SHG’s local community of neighbors, artists, and researchers.
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The Misinformation Play Pack: Play-Based Educational Resources for Community Information Literacy

Current developments in technology have increased young people’s exposure to digital misinformation. Since the ability to critically and mindfully evaluate digital content has become a vital skill, I worked with the UW KidsTeam research group to develop educational resources teaching about misinformation with play-based learning experiences. These activities were tested over four co-design sessions with teens, and were designed with the framework of Radical Change Theory to implement not only a dynamic learning environment, but a community-driven approach to information literacy.
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The State of Internet Privacy - Blacklight Archiver

Our project seeks to augment the existing Blacklight tool to enable users to compare current and previous ‘scans’ for a website, so that users are cognizant of how companies manage their data and are better equipped to take steps to secure it. The Blacklight Archiver, a product of tech publication The Markup, enables users to easily track online surveillance. By providing users with point-in-time comparisons of cookie-based website trackers, Blacklight users are able to see which websites are the largest surveillance offenders. This publicly-available product is useful to journalists and consumers alike.
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Trailblazing Efficiency: Optimizing Digital Asset Management for WTA

Washington Trails Association (WTA) is a non-profit organization that promotes and preserves hiking trails within Washington State, ensuring they are well-maintained and accessible. The staff at WTA utilizes a digital asset management system, Image Relay, to store images used for media development. WTA staff are frustrated with the inefficiencies of existing, non-standardized workflows throughout Image Relay. Collaborating closely with WTA leadership, we have analyzed existing processes and developed new training documentation to optimize WTA’s usage of Image Relay. Our project ultimately aims to enable WTA to focus on storytelling and public lands advocacy by reducing time spent on menial tasks.
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Transcriptions for the Illinois Civil Commitment Archive

The digital format used to make handwritten letters articles available on the archive may not be the best way for everyone to read the file’s content. To make the archive’s materials more accessible to a larger audience, I used optical character recognition software and hand-typed all 90 files in the archive and edited the transcriptions to create as faithful a representation of the handwritten content in a digital text format as possible. These transcriptions, in combination with the scanned archive materials, will help share the experiences of those impacted and incarcerated in a Civil Commitment Facility in Illinois.
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TruthTube: Nutritional health Narratives In YouTube Shorts

The proliferation of short-form video platforms like YouTube Shorts has revolutionized health information dissemination. However, these platforms often prioritize engagement metrics over content reliability, exacerbating misinformation. This study examines how the content of nutritional health videos influences their popularity and viewer uptake, focusing on informative versus misinformative content. By analyzing video transcripts and comments using YouTube's APIs,, we identified themes and sentiment differences between video types. Informative videos foster positive viewer reactions, while misinformative ones elicit negativity. Our findings highlight the importance of content quality in online health discussions, aiding viewers in discerning reliable information and promoting informed decision-making.