Capstone Projects | Information School | University of Washington

iKeep for iSchool

Students spend thousands of dollars on a university degree only to forget much of the information learned a few years later. Research shows reviewing information regularly is the key to building long-term information recall. iKeep is a mobile app which provides users with quick, targeted questions based on University of Washington iSchool curriculum to improve recall over time. The mobile application assists students who have taken iSchool core courses in retaining these fundamental skills to remain competitive in both their academic and professional careers.

Improved Interface and Alignment between the Pima County Public Library and Friends of the Library

This project applied insights gained from surveys, focus groups, interviews, and meetings with library administrators, managers, and staff, and volunteers from several Friends of the Library groups. The goal was to inform a new Library administrative liaison role between the Friends and the Library. We began to create training materials, a toolkit for library staff and friends. Next steps involve revision and refinement of existing Friends agreements and charters to support a fruitful partnership. The project team involved collaboration with a library administrator and a consultant on non-profit organizational success, as well as Friends volunteers.

Improving Azure Machine Learning Customer Retention

Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning platform is currently experiencing a growth in its number of users, creating an area of opportunity to sustain these incoming users month over month. We explored this opportunity by using a hypothesis validation framework to examine what efforts can be made to improve customer retention, focusing on customers who are still in the early stages of their development. Through this framework, we were able to identify key user behaviors and pain points that led to churn. These findings have been used to suggest changes to the platform to improve product experiences and usability for customers.

Improving Metadata with NLP Tools

I researched improving metadata with natural language processing for libraries. I finished my research with a Python script for extracting named entities from text and another for analyzing the sentiment of a text. This project helps spur interest in using natural language processing for library metadata. It also shows how easy and scalable it can be as a baked-in feature of integrated library systems.

Improving the Accessibility and Usability of the 10,000ft Platform on Smartsheet

A 2019 CDC report states that 35% of Americans living with a disability suffer from a condition that directly affects their ability to navigate webpages and platforms. And there aren’t nearly enough websites that address that accessibility problem. Smartsheet was invested in changing that and wanted to kickstart research on improving the accessibility and usability experience of its resource management platform - 10,000ft. As part of our solution, we studied impacted user groups, the issues they encountered, and created a framework to address accessibility problems in the future.

Indigenous Representation in Subject Headings

Internationally used systems such as LC Subject Headings, LC Classification, and Dewey Decimal Classification use misrepresentative or offensive language, marginalize Indigenous topics, and categorize them as things of the past. Through research, interviews, and consultations, our project focused on developing alternative subject headings. The ultimate goal is to reflect the identity of Native students, faculty, and staff at UM and increase their ability to access resources. The project team developed an annotated bibliography and provided the library with recommendations for immediate changes and strategies for continuing the project as part of the library’s commitment to an inclusive library experience.

INFO 101 Research Essentials: Re-imagined & Re-designed

INFO 101: Research Essentials is a 2-credit course taught by librarians at Pierce College that introduces students to research skills, ranging from building a topic to locating and evaluating information. For this project, the librarians were interested in assessing and updating the current course shell or set of foundational modules to see how they could build a more inclusive, anti-racist course. Through a survey of librarians, research of anti-racist teaching tools, assessment, and revision of the course, we were able to pinpoint ways to better support students and highlight their unique perspectives.

Inked Sports

Inked Sports is a start-up helping collegiate athletes achieve name, image, and likeness (NIL) success through branding opportunities in anticipation of forthcoming NCAA legislation. This new legislation will allow college athletes to profit off their NIL. Our team created a dashboard for our sponsor to provide insights to potential brand partners looking to work with college athletes. The dashboard includes information such as audience location, reach, and impressions for both athletes and custom campaigns. The resulting dashboard contributes to the start-up’s larger effort to help collegiate athletes generate well-deserved income.

Inside Civil Commitment

After receiving copious mail in recent years documenting abuses experienced by those incarcerated at Illinois civil commitment facilities, Black and Pink Chicago sought to create an archive to shed light on this little-known issue. This project involved digitizing nearly 100 documents from incarcerated individuals, establishing appropriate metadata standards, populating an engaging Omeka site, and creating guidelines for project continuance. The archive is now a tool Black and Pink Chicago can use to share stories from inside with researchers, activists and the general public to facilitate rehumanization of the incarcerated, advocate for measurable changes and ultimately abolish the carceral system.

Internationary

It is very difficult for the numerous international students at UW, coming from countries with a very different cultures, academics, and people, to adjust here. It becomes even harder without having easy access to correct information about important things such as finances, housing etc. We made a one stop website which students can use to easily get information about important things and adapt well to this new place and system and in turn succeed in their lives!

iSchool Capstone

2021