iSchool Capstone

2024

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BACtracker

Adolescent alcohol use poses serious health risks, often due to poor awareness of safe drinking practices. BACtracker targets this challenge with a web application designed for young adults, which tracks Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and integrates educational tools to foster informed choices about alcohol consumption. Features include a self-care guide, resources on hazardous alcohol combinations, an emergency contact system, and an emotional tracker to correlate feelings with intake levels. This innovative approach not only educates users but also actively contributes to reducing alcohol-related incidents, enhancing safety and public health for young adults.
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Characteristics of International Interlibrary Loaning

This capstone project wanted to determine characteristics of materials shared internationally by libraries’ interlibrary loan (ILL) departments, seeking to determine drivers behind such resource sharing and whether any interesting or useful patterns in the practice could be identified. By interviewing institutions who participate in international ILL, we found that the experience, and number of resources shared by the participants varied greatly and were the result of differing circumstances. It was determined that participants faced similar challenges the world over, but that the responsibility ILL teams feel to their users to provide the best access to resources is universal.
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ClearView Assist: Aiding the Visually Impaired in Navigating Cluttered Websites with Generative AI

Team TechTribe identified a prevalent challenge among the blind and low vision community; navigating cluttered websites. Thus, we’ve developed a transformative solution using GenAI. Our browser extension: ClearView Assist enhances web accessibility by decluttering interfaces. By leveraging voice commands, users can articulate their browsing objectives, prompting ClearView Assist to dynamically filter out irrelevant page elements while highlighting content crucial to the user's input. This significantly reduces the time and effort required by screen readers to locate specific details and exemplifies a proactive approach to inclusive design, promoting digital equity and empowering individuals with diverse visual needs with efficient web navigation.
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ConnectOne

ConnectOne is an application that helps first-generation iSchool students overcome their lack of information by giving them all they need to know about their school environment. ConnectOne grants students access to necessary school information and upcoming events as well as providing them a place to organize their hectic college schedules. Our project yielded significant results, with students reporting that ConnectOne not only increases their confidence but also their academic success. By bridging the gap between information and accessibility, ConnectOne makes sure that first-generation students feel supported throughout their educational paths starting from day one.
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dewy: an innovative approach to accessing tailored skincare ingredients

In today's digital age, the internet and social media have transformed into essential tools for skincare beginners. Yet, alongside this accessibility, the prevalence of misinformation within the skincare industry has surged. Dewy tackles this challenge by offering immediate access to personalized skincare insights. Leveraging computer vision technology, our website swiftly analyzes images or skin segments and provides tailored recommendations for addressing specific skin concerns. Our results not only identify potential skin concerns but also offer an ingredient-focused approach, empowering users with knowledge to make informed decisions about skincare purchases.
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Digital Crisis Librarianship: field notes from the front line

The impacts of accelerating technological and social change influence all aspects of present life. New professional disciplines have emerged over the past decade addressing online-offline crises at the intersection of digital information and social conflict & violence. This project is a field report elaborating a unique professional role drawn from my personal professional experiences and library and information science skills. Digital crisis librarianship helps people and organizations find and make sense of information about extreme and harmful subjects in a fractured and adversarial information environment. Digital crisis librarians provide information services for researchers, policy-makers, trust & safety professionals, and more.
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Guitars For Libraries: Community Partnerships and Lifelong Music Education

Musical instruments are expensive, resulting in many people being unable to afford music education. Musical instrument lending collections can make music education more accessible. Seattle-based nonprofit Music4Life had a surplus of guitars and amplifiers which they wanted to gift to a library. We began a relationship between Music4Life and a public library to start the process of integrating this collection. We also created an informative document about implementing a musical instrument lending collection. Our work will benefit the library’s community, increasing arts accesibility, and could benefit public libraries that are interested in offering musical instruments as well as their communities.
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Improving UX in Digital Collections

The Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations digital collections in the Law Library of Congress require updated organization and metadata to optimize user experience. This project reviewed these and other FR / CFR collections to identify solutions for improving UX / UI design. The primary deliverable of this Capstone project is a whitepaper report highlighting opportunities for improvement and providing recommendations to enhance accessibility, organization, and navigation in the collections. The project will broaden access to free legal resources that researchers—particularly nonprofits and small organizations—can use to further their work, saving them time and resources.
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inStroketor: Simplifying your stroke recovery

Stroke can have severe impacts on individuals, including paralysis and speech impairments. To address this, many patients meet with various therapists and complete assigned exercises to improve their mobility and cognitive abilities. However, this is found to be inefficient and unmotivating for stroke patients. To address this, we’ve created inStroketor, a stroke rehabilitation website that provides an individualized and clear rehabilitation progress plan, the ability to walk through rehabilitation exercises step-by-step, and resources to connect with other stroke patients local to you. Through effortless progress monitoring, inStroketor empowers patients and improves their recovery journey in a fun, adoptable manner!
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lingua-link: peer-to-peer language learning community

lingua-link goes beyond rote memorization by connecting you with fellow language learners in a secure peer-to-peer community. Unlike traditional apps that lack real-world interaction, lingua-link fosters meaningful language exchange and cultural understanding. Our focus on privacy and security ensures a safe space to practice conversation, bridge the communication gap, and accelerate your fluency.