Capstone Projects | Information School | University of Washington

Chīmu: Fostering Academic Teams for Success

Chīmu fosters positive experiences for team collaboration in an academic setting by focusing on three core concepts that make a great team: communication, accountability, and reflection. Our platform incorporates these concepts into three key features: icebreakers, team agreements, and team check-ins. We understand that teamwork is a continuous process that requires feedback from beginning to end, and our goal is to create a positive first impression. Through peer accountability, open communication, and feedback we aim to reduce negative team experiences. Our platform emphasizes the importance of the team agreement to establish clear expectations and encourage trust among team members.

CleanCommute

Greenhouse gasses trap heat and make the planet warmer, and the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the US are from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Car ownership and use is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions accountable for 43% of emissions. CleanCommute is a web-based solution to help young King County residents calculate, monitor, track, and mitigate their transportation-related carbon footprint. CleanCommute aims to empower young adults in the metro Seattle area to be conscious of how their individual transportation choices affect the environment.

Co-Design to Redesign: Optimizing a Multi-Use Middle School Library

Lakeside Middle School has a bustling library. The space accomplishes a lot, but it could accommodate the students better. The shelves are not easy for students to browse, and loud and quiet activities happen simultaneously in the relatively small space. Working closely with the students, I and the librarians at Lakeside redesigned the library space to accommodate these multiple uses and to allow for the organization of the books by genre. We expect to see an increase in circulation and have students happier with the space they helped design.

collabor-action

As it currently stands, cross-sector partnerships between hospitals & community based organizations are under-performing & disoriented, leading to disparities in community-based health outreach. Our platform collabor-action aims to streamline discovery and communication between healthcare systems and community based organizations. We accomplish this through the use of information cards to provide information on services/specialties, contact information, and a message form feature to send collaboration requests. In doing so, we hope to facilitate clear communication and planning between these organizations in pursuit of promoting relevant partnerships and community health outreach.

Collections in the Ricci Institute

The Ricci Institute houses a collection of books and artifacts from China and East Asia between the 16th century to the 19th century. As a research institution, their primary focus is for scholars interested in this time period. Through this project, we realized that their presence online is only minimal at best. Teatime Treasures is a way for us to not only spread the word about this collection, but to also give the Ricci Institute an example of how they could potentially increase their digital presence, as well as showcasing their collection to a much wider and more diverse audience.

Communications Handbook for Pend Oreille County Library District

The information problem I addressed with my project was that POCLD did not have any centralized policies or guidelines for promotion of library events or social media presence. To combat this, I created social media guidelines, a brand book with logo and formatting information, and a PR Pack for quick reference on type of marketing for programs. This project will allow for each individual library in the district to take ownership of their own social media and program marketing. It will also provide consistency among POCLD's branding and communications allowing them to present a united identity to their community.

Community Engagement Inside Library Walls

Community Engagement Inside Library Walls centers Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in community engagement in the town of Monrovia, California. This project entails a display of material within the library’s collection that covers the ethnic heritage of select demographics important to the town’s history. The collection adds more material for children, teens, and adults in e-book and e-audiobook formats in several languages as well as in bilingual formats. This is meant to create space in the library for the people of the community and to educate those wishing to learn about some of the individual cultures, languages, and communities.

Compose A New Canon: Reno Philharmonic Repertoire Report

“Compose A New Canon” is a report analyzing the repertoire performed by the Reno Philharmonic from 2009 to 2024, looking specifically at the representation of composers who fall outside of the traditional classical canon. This analysis includes a comparison of the Reno Phil’s programming practices with national trends identified in the Institute for Composer Diversity’s 2022 Orchestra Repertoire Report. The written report resulting from this project will be distributed to the Reno Philharmonic’s Board, staff, and musicians in the hopes of promoting discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion in orchestral programming.

Constructing a Classification System for the Pan Eros Library Collection

For this project, we developed a unique classification scheme inspired by queer and Indigenous knowledge organization for the Pan Eros Foundation’s human sexuality library collection. This process involved researching alternative classification systems, familiarizing ourselves with the materials in the collection, and identifying the values and needs of the local sex positive community. The project will continue with volunteer training on cataloging using the classification scheme and moving towards making the library collection available to the public again after years of being in storage.

Conzensus: Making Group Decisions Easy

Coordinating outings with friends can be difficult, particularly when everyone has different preferences. To remedy this, we created Conzensus, an app that simplifies group decision-making. Users select from broad categories that interest them, such as restaurants, parks, or museums. The app utilizes location-based discovery to recommend individual places within these categories, including tags, distance and price information. After an anonymous voting process, the results page displays the top three choices according to everyone’s preferences. Conzensus is a platform for discovering new and exciting experiences, so why waste time on endless planning when you could be exploring with your friends?

iSchool Capstone

2023