Doctoral students meet with Laura Bush

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

On her recent visit to Seattle, former First Lady Laura Bush visited with UW iSchool doctoral students. The students are recipients of fellowships made possible through the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians program of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the largest funding body of libraries and museums. A grant from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians program allowed the iSchool to recruit and enroll a cohort of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in a doctoral fellowship program that has become a model for intensive mentoring in library and information

Dr. Dresang on WA early literacy team

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Dr. Eliza T. Dresang, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington's Information School, has been selected to serve on the Washington State Birth-to-12 Literacy Team. The Team consists of twenty-five literacy educators and community members who have a high level of expertise in literacy and who represent the diversity of the state. This team, appointed by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and supported by "Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Plan," a formula grant from the U.S. Department of Education, will contribu

Faculty Profile: Jin Ha Lee

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

It all started with a Seattle rock band. As a teenager growing up in South Korea, new iSchool Assistant Professor Jin Ha Lee learned violin and piano and knew a lot about classical and popular Korean music. But one day she caught a snippet of an American rock video on TV. "It was about five seconds. I didn't know the title or the band, but I couldn't get it out of my head," Lee remembers. "None of my friends listened to pop music; they couldn't help. So I went to the music store, but I was quiet and shy so I didn't ask anyone. I read the music magazines, pretty much all the magazines the

File under: Problem-Solving; Linking, Perspectives

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

With apologies to The Bard, whether you're trying to find a document or define who a child laborer is, a rose by any other name is, in practice, somewhat different than a rose. But the field of knowledge organization (KO) makes specific information easier to access and more meaningful to information seekers. Connections and links created by professionals who organize knowledge make it easier to find a specific version of a work that does, in fact, go by many names. KO ensures access to various media and the sciences and is aware of the challenges and opportunities of diverse social and cultura

Games serious new tools in diabetes care

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Video games may be good for hand-eye coordination, strategizing, skill-building and pitting interplanetary forces of good against evil. But can they make the United States a healthier society? That's the bet of an increasing number of U.S. health-care advocates who are helping to create innovative, interactive games that empower patients with medical knowledge and self-care techniques. Leading the way at the University of Washington are researchers from information, medical and health service fields who've teamed up to create video games designed to help people with diabetes master nutri

iConference showcases iSchools' strength

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

A 90-person poster session, keynote from Susan Dumais, two industry panels, a Microsoft tour and more than 50 other sessions with 325 presenters were just a few of the highlights from this year's iConference, a gathering of scholars and practitioners in the information field spanning the public, private and non-profit sectors in eight countries. More than 530 attendees made this the largest iConference to date. Hosted in Seattle by the University of Washington Information School for the first time, the goal of the conference was to show Seattle the strong contributions 29 Information School

If You Build InfoCamp, They Will Come

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

As a student in the Information School's MSIM program, Rachel Elkington ('08) was given a travel award from the iSchool's gift funds to help pay her way to the 2007 Information Architect Summit in Las Vegas. "I hadn't seen the user experience community as a whole before that," she remembers. "Going meant I had all these great opportunities. I took a huge step forward professionally because of it; I would be able to interview better and network. I was very conscious that my peers who didn't get to go wouldn't have that." Always a student leader and a co-chair of the iSchool's ASIS&T stud

Improving the student experience

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

For as long as universities have existed, one rule has remained constant: Don't carry on conversations during lectures. That's changing at the UW, thanks to one of several new teaching and learning tools being evaluated across campus. The tool, called Yarn, allows students to participate in real-time chats with one another during lectures. "My biggest goal is to have 100 percent participation. I want every student to feel connected to the class," said Mike Eisenberg, professor and former dean of the Information School, the first to try the new tool in Spring Quarter 2011. Eisenberg uses Yar

In MSIM, understanding = better outcomes

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The iSchool's Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program was designed for Alyson Le'au. Or at least people like her. But she had no idea that the program would pay dividends in her first quarter. As a senior operations analyst in a reverse mortgages department for Bank of America, Le'au makes sure the information systems her colleagues use to conduct business and assure compliance are doing what they need to do to keep everyone on track. "I manage all the defects for the origination systems loan officers use," she says. She manages workflow and bug tracking, but also expe

Informatics students ace Microsoft internship

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Maybe you've seen the ads for Windows 7, where users come up with "ideas" like "make my PC simpler" and take credit for the new operating system. But are there users who really do help Microsoft determine what functionality should be added to their software and how it should work in detail? Yes, and some of them are right here in the iSchool. Informatics students are taught to understand the connections between usability and design, and nearly every class in their major includes one or more group projects. So when Microsoft wanted to research how students would use collaborative tools for s

Informatics students win Microsoft Hack-a-Thon

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Patrick Siu and Matt Garrett, first-year Informatics students, decided to participate in the Microsoft Hack-a-Thon even though they had never programmed in XNA. In spite of this handicap, their team's mobile game application, Wrangler, won the popularity award as judged by their peers. Microsoft invited university students to the Redmond campus on February 11 for a 12-hour coding marathon designed to create mobile applications for Windows phones. Developers were on hand to answer questions from the dozen teams that participated. The local contest was part of Microsoft's national Big App on

Information's first responders

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The massive earthquake and tsunami that killed 562 and displaced 1.5 million Chileans last year left behind a world of hurt. Survivors needed food, water. They needed shelter. And they desperately needed information. Where were their loved ones? Were they OK? Did they still have a job? How could they get government assistance? New fieldwork from iSchool researchers and their Chilean partners shows how the country's dedicated librarians and telecenter operators scrambled to fill that information gap, often in treacherous circumstances and often at personal cost. With the earth still tremb

iSchool in the high schools

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

When Michael Marczewski registered for FIT 100: Fluency in Technology at Tahoma High School in Covington last January, he figured he was ahead of the curve. An avid computer user, he wanted to learn programming and thought the class would be easy. Wrong. "It included things I didn't know, so the way the class unfolded almost surprised me," said Marczewski, 17. Students like Marczewski are the reason Fluency in Technology has been offered at the University of Washington since 2007, and for the last year, it's also been offered at three high schools in the Seattle area. Fluency in Te

iSchool students win 2012 UW Case Competition

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Jiuqun Fang, Lulu Yu, first year students in the Master of Science in Information Management program, and Informatics student Curtis Howell, along with Jenny Sang, an undergraduate from the UW Business School, were on the winning team of this year's Deloitte's Case Challenge, beating 30 other teams for the prize. In its fifth year, the UW Case Competition attracts more than 100 students from across the University of Washington. UW faculty and 20 Deloitte practitioners were involved in giving advice and serving as judges over the course of five days. This year's challenge involved the fic

Jeff Huang wins coveted Facebook Fellowship

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Two Ph.D. candidates are following internet lesson No. 1 in the iSchool: Put yourself in the shoes of the user. These innovative iSchool researchers, recipients of prestigious Facebook Fellowship awards, are designing innovations for a future web that will be increasingly tailored to individuals and customized for special fit: What will each user need? What will the user want? And what are real-world ways that will enhance that personal experience online? "I'm always interested in making people have a better user experience. And with a search engine that's easier and that's faster, that's a