Informatics student joins two dots, wins iPhone

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Sang Ouk Kim, a senior Informatics major, recently won InfoSys’s nationwide “Join 2 Dots” social media contest, earning an iPhone 7. For the contest, InfoSys asked entrants to connect two dots in a creative way, showing that while artificial intelligence can do almost everything people can, imagination remains the realm of humans. Kim’s entry, a continuous line depicting a light bulb, earned 257 likes on Instagram, making him the winner. “When I was brainstorming my drawing ideas, I first thought of Thomas Edison,” Kim said. “He is one of my favorite inventors because

iSchool's Cynthia Del Rosario leads curriculum diversity effort

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

At the University of Washington, curriculum transformation is a process that asks faculty members to take a critical stance on power and difference in the classroom, interweave multiple perspectives, and integrate student voices and knowledge into the learning process. “The Diversity Blueprint and the Diversity Requirement set goals for change at the university level, but within each classroom, curriculum transformation is an opportunity for each instructor to create a thoughtful and equitable space for learning and to do so with support from instructional experts,” says Ed Taylor, vice

Documents that Changed the World: The man who defined 'statistical significance'

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

The subject of Joe Janes’ latest Documents that Changed the World podcast is close to the heart of many academic researchers: the threshold for “statistical significance” — and the man who, in a “surprisingly offhand manner,” set that mark for ages afterward at 5 percent, no more no less. The man in question is English statistician and world-class evolutionary biologist Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, and the document is his 1925 book, “Statistical Methods for Research Workers.” It embraces the question: How certain of something do you have to be in orde

Spiro, Starbird in Huffington Post: 'Slowing the spread of viral misinformation'

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

What should social media platforms do about the spread of fake news and other misinformation? UW Information School Assistant Professor Emma Spiro and Human Centered Design & Engineering Assistant Professor Kate Starbird, an adjunct iSchool faculty member, tackle the topic in a Dec. 20 article for The Huffington Post. The pair write that the phenomenon of fake news shares some similarities with online rumoring during crisis events, a related issue they have been studying in research funded by the National Science Foundation: “In the crisis context, rumors — which can be though

Annie Searle in The Risk Universe: Election has consequences

Friday, December 16, 2016

Information School Lecturer Annie Searle takes a grim view of the risks presented by the incoming Trump administration in her latest column for The Risk Universe. “At stake in the government’s relationship with the private sector are such fundamental principles as that of separation of powers, of separation between church and state, the role of a free press, the First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom to worship (which includes all worship, including that of Muslims); and the Fourth Amendment requirements for probable cause and use of a warrant to search a citizen,” Searle w

5 from iSchool nominated for UW teaching awards

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Five Information School instructors are among the nominees for University of Washington teaching awards. Each year, the UW honors several faculty members for their work with students. Recipients are chosen based on criteria including mastery of the subject matter, ability to engage students, and innovations in course and curriculum design. Lecturers Bob Larson and Joel Smith and Assistant Professor Jason Yip were nominated for Distinguished Teaching Awards, which are open to faculty, lecturers and instructors at the UW Seattle campus. Ph.D. candidates Ivette Bayo Urban and Beth Patin wer

Jacob Wobbrock and AnswerDash featured in Huffington Post

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Information School Associate Professor Jacob O. Wobbrock and AnswerDash, the startup company he co-founded, are the subjects of a recent article in The Huffington Post. The website did a Q&A with Wobbrock about his experiences with the startup, which grew from research at the iSchool. AnswerDash provides instant, contextual information for website visitors, putting answers to their likeliest questions alongside content without cluttering web pages. Wobbrock was asked about what kinds of challenges are involved in starting a new company out of university research and about some of the

INFO 200 students show off their final projects

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

“Emerald Refuge,” a central resource for refugees in the Seattle area; “MABuddy,” a website where people with food allergies can share information about restaurants; “Memoro,” an app that saves time on busywork so therapists can devote more time to clients. These and dozens of other ideas were on display Dec. 8 at Mary Gates Hall on the University of Washington campus as 155 students in Dave Stearns’ INFO 200 class displayed their final projects. The class, Intellectual Foundations of Informatics, is a key introductory course for students who intend to pursue a bachelor�

MLIS student Sunny Kim earns WLA scholarship

Friday, December 9, 2016

Information School MLIS student Sunny Kim has been awarded the 2016 Maryan E. Reynolds Graduate School Scholarship, the Washington Library Association announced. In making the $6,000 award, the scholarship committee noted that it was impressed with Kim’s active involvement in the WLA as a member of the Children and Young Adult Services steering committee, which also includes iSchool students Katie Riley, Erika Nicole Miller and Ryan Dzakovic. Kim came to librarianship through youth-led community organizing, and has focused on service to teens and on diversity and equality issues.&

Academic libraries must be flexible, Project Information Literacy says

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

In a time of profound change for academic libraries, there is no “one size fits all” way to design a library learning space, according to Project Information Literacy. “The goal for librarians and architects alike must be creating flexible spaces that are both ‘user-defined’ for meeting students’ needs at a moment’s notice with moveable furnishings,” the research group says. The finding is among several in a new report on academic libraries from Project Information Literacy, which was funded by a 2015 Strategic Research Grant when Alison Head was employed as a research sc

ConnectedLib white paper promotes connected learning in libraries

Monday, November 28, 2016

UW Information School researchers and their partners have released a white paper focused on the best ways to promote connected learning and 21st century skills in libraries. The white paper provides examples of connected learning in libraries, discusses opportunities and challenges associated with introducing connected learning in diverse library settings, and reviews existing resources for public librarians who wish to implement connected learning principles in their youth programming. The white paper also describes how the ConnectedLib project is addressing gaps in the existing connected

Internships put MSIM students' training to work

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Students in the Information School’s Master of Science in Information Management program put their skills to work over the summer during internships at major companies such as Tesla Motors, IBM, Visa and PricewaterhouseCoopers. What they found was that their classes in the MSIM program translated directly to the workplace. That was certainly the case for Srijan Bhushan, who worked at Tesla Motors in Palo Alto, California, as a data science and analytics intern with the service and diagnostic engineering team. “It was really helpful coming from the iSc

Informatics students make some magic during internships

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The best thing about many Informatics internships is that companies just put you on a team and expect you to produce awesome products. You are expected to hit the ground running. That was the case for Brittney Hoy and Alexander Bell-Towne, second-year informatics majors, during their 12-week summer internships. Both students had more than one internship offer to choose from and they picked the ones that fit their career interests. Hoy accepted an internship with Disney at its tech office in Seattle. “Whenever anyone thinks of Disney, they automatically assoc

MSIM student's passion for cybersecurity fuels UW student group

Friday, October 28, 2016

Andy Herman’s curiosity was piqued while attending a family physicians conference. He wondered: Are these physicians really ready to move to electronic health care record systems? At the time, Herman was in medical school and hadn’t really thought about cybersecurity. The medical industry was incentivizing physicians to make the move but not really training them in the potential pitfalls of keeping the data secure. It opened his eyes to another career path. He decided to pursue the cybersecurity field and enrolled in the University of Washington Information S

The triumphant story of the iSchool

Friday, October 21, 2016

When you’re immersed in a good book, you might imagine how the story will eventually play out. What you can’t predict are the twists and turns and the heroic efforts of the characters you’ll meet in every chapter. The joy of the story is in the journey. This will be my final academic year as dean of the Information School, and I can’t help but look back on the journey we’ve all taken together. The story of the iSchool is one of persistence, loyalty, trust, and heart. It’s a story of tremendous creativity, determination, and ultimately of triumph. I arrived in 1998 a