iSchool welcomes new advisory board members

Friday, October 30, 2015

The iSchool is pleased to welcome several new members to its Founding Board, Informatics Advisory Board and Master of Science in Information Management Advisory Board. These advisory boards foster closer ties between the University of Washington Information School and industry. Board members are a select group of business and community leaders with high capacity who are committed to promoting the academic and research enterprise of the iSchool. The boards offer strategic advice to the dean and program chairs. The new members include: Chris Miller, Founding Board. As CIO at Avanade, Mi

Mobile-izing Savings in Afghanistan

Monday, October 26, 2015

A typical mobile phone used in Afghanistan costs around $10 and has just nine symbols on it. This no-frills model won’t thrill the average American teenager or gadget geek, but it signifies technological advancement for one of the world’s most impoverished countries. People are better connected to each other now in the isolated, mountainous region that’s continually in need of modern-day convenience. They previously had only the occasional land line at their calling disposal. Yet a mobile phone in the hands of an Afghan has the power to do far greater good than simply enable people

Informatics alum Yared Ayele works to transform education in Ethiopia

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

To Yared Ayele, education is key to improving the lives of people in his home country, Ethiopia. A 2007 iSchool Informatics alumnus, Ayele is working as country director of Camara Education Ethiopia, a nongovernmental organization, to help accomplish that. Camara’s mission is to transform education through Information Communication Technology. Ayele had lived in the United States from age 11, and returned to Africa in 2010 to work as a volunteer consultant at Dire Dawa University, which later grew into a leadership role at Camara. Ayele told AfricanDevBoss he took a personal and pro

Hala Annabi returns to iSchool faculty in new role

Monday, October 12, 2015

When the iSchool’s newest Associate Professor, Hala Annabi, had just graduated from high school in Amman, Jordan, back in the mid-1990s, she loved the idea of studying overseas, but couldn’t imagine how her circumstances would ever allow it. “I thought coming to the U.S. was a pipe dream,” she said. “But it happened in a very serendipitous way.” She shared her interest with a family friend, a priest who mentioned he’d helped other students go abroad to study. After asking her mother’s permission, he recommended Annabi to the president of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New

iSchool's Gomez captures immigrant experience in pictures and words

Monday, October 12, 2015

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes that’s not enough. While working on his new book, “Fotohistorias,” Ricardo Gomez found that the stories behind the pictures are often what truly give them meaning. Gomez and co-author Sara Vannini loaned cameras to about 40 people and asked them to choose pictures that best represent their experience as migrants. They then spoke to their subjects about the pictures they chose. “By holding the conversation about the picture, it’s kind of a shortcut to the soul, a way to talk about deep, profound things in a way that would

Special issue of CCQ Journal edited by Cheryl Metoyer

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Indigenous Knowledge Organization is the subject of a special edition of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly Journal, July-September 2015, co-edited by Cheryl Metoyer, associate professor emerita of the iSchool. The edition includes articles authored by Metoyer, iSchool Ph.D. candidate Sandra Littletree, Marisa Duarte, Ph.D. ’13 and Miranda Belarde-Lewis, Ph.D. ’13.  In the introduction, Metoyer and co-editor Ann M. Doyle, write that the articles share “the inherent beauty in how and why Indigenous people express and fulfill their desire to learn, preserve, organize, and sh

New DPLA exhibit features MLIS Capstone project

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

It is a story that captured our imagination and resulted in astonishing breakthroughs in science and technology. Combining images from popular culture, politics, and even space suit technology, America’s space race is explored in a new and permanent exhibit at the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The DPLA “Race to the Moon” exhibit started as 2015 Capstone project by master of library and information students Danielle Rios, Dianne Bohach, Jennifer Lam and Bobi deMontigny. They focused on the period starting with the launch of Sputnik I in 1957 through the landing of

Brewing up apps

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

A first-generation college student from Kent, Washington, Stephen Ramirez, ’15, always wanted to give back to people. He grew up watching his grandmother spend her life in the public service industry, volunteering and working on behalf of others — it’s part of what inspired him to help others better do their jobs as an application developer at Starbucks. It was Ramirez’s grandfather, a retired employee of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, however, who inspired him to attend the University of Washington. “He used to pick up Metro shifts on the weekends that t

iSchool interns' ideas take off at Alaska Airlines

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

They may have been interns, but iSchool students working at Alaska Airlines this summer say they felt more like peers, working side-by-side with co-workers to identify and solve major problems in the Information and Technology Services division (ITS). Their contributions had substantial impact. One intern proposed advanced technology for baggage tracking that could shave up to 15 minutes off the handling process. Others created new guidelines that will speed up delivery of mobile apps within the company and developed software aimed at greater customer satisfaction and fewer operational hitches

New MSIM chair brings business acumen to classroom

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Sean McGann’s business smarts were evident at an early age. He ran lemonade stands and paper routes, organized yard sales, and, by age 12, had set up his own lawn-mowing business. He was a young entrepreneur, advised by a father who continually reminded him that no one goes anywhere in this life without hard work. “He was old school,” says McGann, new chair of the iSchool’s Master of Science in Information Management program. “He said, ‘If you want money, you’re going to have to earn it. If you want to succeed, you’re going to have to go out there and work hard.’ That work

iSchool spin-out AnswerDash raises additional $2.9M

Monday, September 14, 2015

What started as an idea inside the Information School at the University of Washington is now a full-fledged business that’s raising cash from venture capital firms. UW-spinout AnswerDash today announced a $2.9 million seed investment round led by Voyager Capital, with participation from existing investors WRF Capital, Summit Capital, the W Fund, and Arnold Venture Group. AnswerDash, formerly known as Qazzow, wants to fundamentally change how online businesses answer questions that customers might have. Rather than forcing people to comb through an FAQ or use a written-based solution li

Justin Wadland, MLIS '03, is 2015 Washington State Book Award finalist

Monday, September 14, 2015

Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound (Oregon State University Press) by UW Tacoma Librarian and Tacoma resident Justin Wadland is on the short list in the General / Nonfiction category of the 2015 Washington State Book Awards. Wadland received his MLIS from the Information School in 2003.  View the KBTC interview with Wadland (25:20). Read a UW Today interview with Waldand (October 2014) On the short list in the same category is Mary Randlett Portraits (University of Washington Press) by Frances McCue, writer-in-residence at the University

Using Minecraft to teach coding to kids: KUOW interviews Katie Davis

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Teenager Alea Frydnlund is creating zombies. “It will attack you if you’re on survival,” she says. “But right now, I’m just on creative.” Alea hunches over a screen in a classroom at the University of Washington. Her bright red hair falls in her face as she rattles off terms – survival, creative – for Minecraft, the wildly popular videogame that is dipping its toe in education. Kids love playing the game so much that teachers and summer camps around the world use it as a way to teach computer programming, history and even physics in their classrooms. Microsoft bough

Informatics students find welcoming workplaces for summer internships

Monday, August 24, 2015

Here's a look at how some students in the iSchool's Informatics program have been spending their summer. Alice Yan Interning as a UX designer at Udemy, an online education company in San Francisco Q: What are you working on? A: My project for this summer is a complete redesign of their current support site. If you take a look at the website right now, the UX is pretty bad. I'm tackling the project in three parts, User Experience, Information Architecture, and Content. If everything goes well, at the end of the internship, my project will be shipped and live on the site! Q: What�

Button museum, Sno-Isle libraries among MLIS students' fieldwork sites

Friday, August 21, 2015

Here’s a look at how some students in the iSchool’s Master of Library and Information Science program have been spending their summer: Dianne Bohach A remote intern with the Button Museum of Chicago. Q: What are you working on? A: As a remote intern, my job is to research pinback buttons that have already been physically described by other colleagues on site in Chicago. I search the Internet for any clues and information that might relate to the buttons and then write up short, interesting narratives about them for the website. I add that and any copyright i