Information seeking and synthesis are time consuming processes for physicians. Although systems have the potential to simplify these tasks, future improvements must be based on an understanding of how physicians perform these tasks during clinical prioritization. We engaged physicians in semi-structured focus groups, and found that data is collected to categorize and prioritize patients according to expected clinical course. When data does not support these expectations, or when categorization indicates potential for morbidity, physicians increase efforts to act or re-categorize patients. We identified a standard prioritization workflow that differs slightly by medical specialty. These findings lay a foundation to advance information displays that facilitate information processing by physicians in clinical care environments.

The objective of this research is to improve our understanding of how people perceive and describe the mood of video games and interactive media. The mood element and its respective controlled vocabulary was developed by the Game Metadata Research Group at the iSchool, in collaboration with the Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM), as a part of the Video Game Metadata Schema.In order to evaluate the applicability of the mood element, I have conducted user interviews in which gamers were asked to evaluate the current mood CV and apply mood terms to familiar game titles. Next, I have compiled a list of over 1500 games, with applied mood terms, and sourced genres and release years. This project rectifies the scarcity of past research, enabling cataloguers and users of the SIMM to search and organize video game metadata by mood.

Many colleges and academic programs undergo recurring accreditation. In this process, documents and information about the college or program must be collected from all of the units within the college, collocated, and shared with the accreditation committee in a timely manner. This presents several challenges. Many of the documents involved contain confidential material. In addition, collecting the documentation can be very time-consuming in a large college. Third, collocating documents in a place where many staff people have access can involve the risk of accidental deletions or faulty editing. My project involved building a SharePoint site to facilitate the AACSB accreditation process for the College of Business at University of Wyoming. SharePoint is an ideal tool for accreditation because it is secure, provides version control for recovery of lost or damaged items, and offers robust permissions control. For these reasons, this project has a broad application to other accredited institutions.

My capstone focused on the preservation, arrangement, and description of photographs made by Dolores Varela Phillips, documenting the 1970 conflict between two tribes, Nisqually and Puyallup, and Washington state law enforcement. Results include EAD finding aid and digital access to the collection. These images shed light on a critical period of national and local civil-rights history. Phillips’ collection is comprised of negatives she hid in her purse lining to prevent confiscation by the police. The photographs capture an important event that was the catalyst to a revision in Washington state  laws. Negative collections are distinctive and a time-consuming variation from standard processing. This often hinders valuable materials from reaching the public; a mounting information problem archives face. Raising awareness about the significance of this rare collection is paramount as 2014 marked the 40th anniversary of the new law passing. Already, these images have received user-requests for a Smithsonian exhibit. 

Have you ever held a musket ball or a three-foot long walrus tusk? Ever wondered what a sad iron is, and how it was used? Artifacts like these are just a few of the more than 600 items the Museum of History and Industry uses in support of its programming for children and families. With curriculum covering everything from the Coast Salish Tribes of Puget Sound to Century 21, the Seattle World's Fair, MOHAI's programming brings local history to schools throughout Puget Sound. With the museum's move to their new location this collection is now at a storage facility in Georgetown, across town from South Lake Union where Education staff have their offices. Using CollectiveAccess, a customizable open-source collections management database, we have described and organized this collection so the Education Department staff can continue to access and share this valuable collection.

ChronoZoom, an online, digital media exploration tool provides a unique approach to digital aggregation; however, it also presents problems in how to effectively find, explore, and collocate information in a meaningful manner. Working with the archives at CERN (the European Organization for Particle Research) I created a domain analysis, resource retrieval, and organization system that created just such a timeline of the history of particle physics. It is an efficient user-centric system that explores digital documents, their influences, and interconnections in innovative ways. The process has demonstrated applications for digital archival management systems, semantic technologies, teaching methodology, academic publishing, and knowledge management.

The eXtensible Business Reporting Language is the new standard for business reporting and all companies who file their information with the government must comply. We have created an application which serves as a layer of abstraction between XBRL filings and BlackRock employees who want to monitor their competitors, which originally required tedious and time consuming scanning through individual PDF documents for comparison. We have gathered XBRL filings from BlackRock’s competitors and aggregated them on a website. Our tool enables BlackRock employees to conduct detailed evaluations regarding how the fees of a BlackRock fund compare to a competitor such that they may make informed decisions to adjust their business strategy accordingly.

The Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to being the leading reference institution in archiving and exhibiting the ever-evolving world of digital interactivity to the public. Designed for curious amateurs as well as industry professionals and academics, the SIMM has several goals: 1) housing interactive exhibits that showcase both the history and future of interactive media, including a walk-through history of video gaming, 2) developing and maintaining the world’s largest physical and online collection of artifacts from the interactive media realm and 3) providing a comprehensive and publicly available online library of interactive artifacts.  These goals are backed by a state-of-the-art cataloging and collection system co-developed by the SIMM and a graduate studies program at the UW’s iSchool.

The Fluke Corporation is a fast growing company with many factories, each of which have their own reporting methods and terminology used in daily work and reporting. This siloed environment has caused inefficiencies for employees who frequently rotate assignments to different areas of the business. The Fluke Taxonomy Project was initiated to define taxonomy for the Fluke Operations function and develop a taxonomy template for other functions within Fluke to use. The goal of the taxonomy is to drive toward a common language that would help better unify the corporation. The taxonomy would also serve as a structural taxonomy in terms of development of a common reporting and information management portal. The project identified many recommendations to make Fluke more efficient.