Shaun Kane: Success by Design

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Shaun Kane, a PhD candidate at the Information School, is by any measure immensely creative. So when when he's asked what it was like to hear his name announced as a winner and appear on stage with Kristen Shinohara at the Imagine Cup Awards ceremony, you might expect to hear his mind had wandered to some of his other recent accolades from Google and Microsoft, the home stretch before his PhD, or the next phase for his research. "It was a larger than life experience. We were in a theater set up like the Oscars, photographers and journalists were on stage," Kane says over coffee one day in C

Technology not value-neutral

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

As an iSchool student of Value Sensitive Design, Lisa Nathan's focus is the adaptations people make when they interact with information technology. "Engaging human values and technology together to evolve better solutions for human society" is how Professor Batya Friedman, director of the iSchool's Value Sensitive Design Laboratory, characterizes those students and faculty who work in this multidisciplinary lab. Theirs is work of moral import that addresses questions of privacy, trust, sustainability and other human values implicated during interactions with information technology. Natha

Term papers sustain knowledge ecology

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

To University of Washington Information School Assistant Professor Kevin Desouza, higher education is a kind of ecology. Some ecosystems are necessarily more fragile than others. Desouza has involved his students in the iSchool's Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program in the Global Text Project (GTP) (globaltext.org) to bolster the class environment while moving some of the benefits of his students' work further downstream, where it is much needed. GTP began as a way to create and provide affordable, up-to-date and academically rigorous textbooks to the developing world.

To love, honor and inform

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

It is often observed that couples who have been together for a while develop a way of communicating that is theirs alone. They may complete each other's sentences or share a word, phrase or a glance whose meaning is known only to them. Yet information behavior research has bypassed the way couples develop this information exchange over time. Gina Kessler, a student in the iSchool's Master of Library and Information Science program, became interested in looking more closely at what appears to be a gap in the research. "People have studied the information behavior of individuals, of small

Tuning technology to special needs

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

In the late 1940s, "assistive technology" might have meant a cane or walker for a wounded World War II vet. Sixty years later, in busy UW labs, the possibilities expand almost daily. Assistive technology experts have created software programs that help disabled people control computers with vowel sounds -- oooh, ahhhh, eeee. They've developed audio technology to help the blind access touch screens. They're working on software that lets the deaf use sign language over mobile phones. In the thick of the inventive bustle is an iSchool assistant professor with a guiding sense of fairness. "Most

UW iSchool collaborates to help homeless youth

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Homeless youth served by Street Youth Ministries in the University District can now participate in technology literacy and life skills classes offered through a partnership with the UW iSchool. Basic computer skills are necessary to build a resume, find a job website or complete online employment applications. Everyday life skills are just as crucial for homeless youth, so the curriculum combines low-barrier technology skills with ways to work on issues that might prevent youth from setting and achieving their next goals. It was Jill Woelfer, a 2008 alumna of the iSchool's Master of Scie

UW iSchool mourns loss of Spencer G. Shaw

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Today the iSchool and UW community mourns the loss of nationally and internationally known librarian, storyteller, and educator Professor Emeritus Spencer G. Shaw. Spencer passed away on June 16. He was 93 years old. Books and reading were important parts of his early family life, and so was the Northwest Branch of the public library in his native Hartford. He shared his love of libraries, service and community during a nearly seven-decade career as a public librarian, educator and world-renowned expert on storytelling and library service to children. The American Library Association called

UW iSchool: 77 million use library computers

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Faced with unprecedented budget cuts, the head of New York public libraries took his case to city hall this year armed with a groundbreaking study conducted by the UW iSchool. Library C.E.O. Paul LeClerc cited the report on library Internet use in interviews with national television and in the Huffington Post, waging a campaign that resulted in restoration of $26.8 million of the $36.8 million in proposed cuts. Other library leaders are following suit as they confront deep recessionary cuts, reduced hours, and closures. The study, "Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits From

UW receives Academic Excellence designation

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (CIAC), directed by iSchool Professor Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, was re-designated as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education. CIAC is one of only three institutions on the west coast that is recognized as both a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education and a National Center for Academic Excellence in Research. These designations are made jointly by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "Your ability to meet the increasin

UW wins iSchool-sponsored security contest

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

What began as a classroom exercise in Dr. Barbara Endicott-Popovsky's Information Assurance class back in 2004, is now a regional contest attracting 11 schools and 112 student participants. "We started with a one-day event for our iSchool students, staged by West Point and held at Fort Lewis in their state-of-the-art Battle Command Training Center. Over time, as others heard about it and asked to participate, it grew to include other departments and schools," recalls Popovsky, who remains the primary event organizer. "Five years ago, with $80k in sponsorship from Microsoft, we moved from Ft

Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

By Catherine O'Donnell As the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda issues its remaining judgments, a University of Washington team has assembled a historic collection of interviews with the judges, lawyers, interpreters and other people who have worked on the trials. "Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal" is believed to be the first collection of stories from people who have served on war crimes tribunals. It puts human faces on international justice. Seventeen years ago, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsis, were massacred in only 100 days. The trials have focused on people acc

YouTube goes gaga over iSchool

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

by Nancy Wick We've come a long way from Marian the librarian. Since that young woman shushed everyone at the River City Library in countless productions of The Music Man, we've seen Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl become an action figure. And now this: Students and faculty at the UW Information School are in a music video gone viral -- a video in which the key word is ca-ca-ca-catalog. If you haven't seen it yet, take this opportunity to go online and have a look. The video, created by MLIS graduate Sarah Wachter, had more than 680,000 hits as of September 15. It has been featured on NYMa

Zen and The Art of Archiving

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Practice is a word that means many things. For six Information School students and assistant professor Joseph Tennis, this summer offered the opportunity for practicing the theory of archiving and practicing meditation. Students from both the residential and online MLIS programs converged at the San Francisco Zen Center, an urban Zen Buddhist monastery in the heart of the Golden Gate City. For four weeks they lived according to the monastic schedule, practiced meditation, and worked to organize materials that tell a major part of the history of Western Zen. They got up at 5 a.m., sat in silenc

Barbara Endicott-Popovsky invited to brief the White House on cybersecurity careers for veterans

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Professor Barbara Endicott-Popovsky was invited to brief the White House on Friday, July 20, on issues concerning transitioning veterans into educational and training programs designed to prepare them for careers in information assurance and cybersecurity. Endicott-Popovsky was among 16 principal investigators (PI) receiving grants from the National Science Foundation through the Innovations in Engineering Education, Curriculum, and Infrastructure program to study road blocks to veterans transitioning to academia and was the only PI to partner directly with the military--in this case the Wa

Barbara Endicott-Popovsky's course one of the first offered in the new UW/Coursera agreement

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The University of Washington announced on July 18 that is was joining Coursera, a a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities around the globe to offer free online courses to the public. According to the Seattle Times article, the "UW currently has two free courses listed on the site, and by day's end Tuesday, more than 2,500 people had signed up to take them. The free courses are: scientific computing, taught by J. Nathan Kutz, and information security and risk management in context, taught by Barbara Endicott-Popovsky." In response to the article, Popovsky