Jacob Wobbrock honored with SIGCHI Social Impact Award

Friday, February 17, 2017

  Jacob Wobbrock, an associate professor at the Information School, has earned the SIGCHI Social Impact Award for his research into improving how people – particularly those with disabilities – interact with computers and information. The award from SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction), a branch of the Association for Computing Machinery, is given annually to individuals who promote the application of human-computer interaction research to pressing social needs. Wobbrock’s research focuses on “Ability-Based Design," where the human abilities requi

Smart cities through data science

Friday, February 17, 2017

Bill Howe’s enthusiasm for data is matched only by his desire to improve the health and vibrancy of modern cities. At the intersection of those twin passions is where Howe, an associate professor at the Information School, has launched UrbAnalytics, a partnership of research projects around the University of Washington campus with the common threads of data and urban issues. UrbAnalytics combines aspects of two other projects in which Howe is involved – the eScience Institute and Urban@UW. “The eScience Institute is kind of ‘all t

iSchool graduate's Ph.D. dissertation judged best of year

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Rachel Ivy Clarke, who earned her Ph.D. in Information Science at the UW iSchool in 2016, has earned this year’s Doctoral Dissertation Award from the international iSchools organization. Clarke’s dissertation, “It’s Not Rocket Library Science: Design Epistemology and American Librarianship,” was judged best of the 2015-16 academic year at an iSchools-member institution. The award committee said Clarke’s dissertation “distills design principles and applies them to the critical analysis of three cases representing significant artifacts in library history. Examining the field

iSchool alumna fighting fake news as a school librarian

Monday, February 6, 2017

Librarians such as iSchool alumna Janelle Hagen are playing a critical role in the fight against fake news, columnist Jerry Large writes in the Feb. 6 edition of The Seattle Times. Librarians have always helped people sort reliable information sources from deceptive ones, a skill that’s become increasingly important amid the recent surge of false information masquerading as real news. Middle- and high-school students in particular can have a difficult time distinguishing advertising, propaganda, news writing and other forms of information. Hagen, a librarian at Lakeside School in

Kids inspire Jason Yip's research into technology and learning

Friday, February 3, 2017

Jason Yip knows that, to be a good designer, he has to work closely with the people he’s designing for. For Yip, that means a lot of time hanging around with curious kids. Yip, an assistant professor at the iSchool, heads up KidsTeam UW, an after-school program that works to create technology and learning experiences with kids, for kids. Yip says the lessons he’s learned about user-centered design, like the type of design he utilizes in his work with KidsTeam UW, are the linchpin for all his work. “It’s hard for me to come up with ideas without w

Hundreds of students make an impression at iSchool Career Fair

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Armed with resumes and elevator pitches, hundreds of students from the Information School and across the University of Washington visited with recruiters from dozens of employers at the iSchool Career Fair on Jan. 31 at the UW HUB. For students, the annual event is a chance to meet with potential employers or line up possible internships. For employers, it’s a chance to pitch their companies to future information professionals who will be in demand when they graduate. Among the recruiters was Holden Stegman, who graduated with a degree in Informatics last year. Stegman now does sof

200 students dream big and work fast at Winfo Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Give some enterprising University of Washington students a whole day and they’ll dream up some amazing ideas. That’s the impetus for the annual Wiinfo Hackathon, held Jan. 28 at the HUB on the UW campus. About 200 students spent the day in small groups huddled around tables, munching on snacks while brainstorming ideas, then designing and, in some cases, coding their technological solutions. They were joined by mentors representing sponsors of the event, including Alaska Airlines, Avanade, G.E. Digital and Nordstrom. Peter Freschi and Xiaowen Feng, both senior Informatics majors

Students do a deep dive in virtual reality

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

A little more than a year ago, Mano Barkovics didn’t know much about virtual reality. He thought it was interesting, sure, but didn’t believe in its ability to truly immerse a person in a virtual world. That all changed with a class at the University of Washington’s iSchool and a project to create a virtual reality underwater submersible. Barkovics, who intends to major in Informatics, took INFO 466 with Lecturer Ran Hinrichs. The class is conducted entirely in the virtual world, using the Second Life platform. “I learned how much I love

TASCHA takes mobile literacy effort to Kenya

Thursday, January 19, 2017

The Technology and Social Change Group’s Chris Rothschild and Melody Clark recently visited Kenya to work with national and international organizations to develop training for public librarians who are helping people navigate an abrupt onslaught of information via mobile devices, internet and applications. Rothschild and Clark, both researchers at TASCHA and UW alumni (2009 and 2010, respectively), spent a full week visiting public libraries, talking with patrons and staff, and meeting with representatives of the Kenya National Library Services and&

Professors aim to fight for truth by 'Calling Bullshit'

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Politicians, academics, advertisers. All of them cater to a media landscape that rewards quick sound bites over analytical thought, and often they use spurious data to back up their claims. Too much of the information we consume, in the words of Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom, is “bullshit.” West, an assistant professor at the Information School, and Bergstrom, a biology professor, hope to teach people how to think critically about what they’re being told. To that end, they’ve proposed a new course, “Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data.” “We feel that the world has becom

Marcie Stone remembers Larry Brandt, an internet visionary

Monday, January 9, 2017

Larry Brandt saw the potential to bring about today’s interconnected world before most people even heard of the word “internet.” Brandt, who was instrumental in the development of both web browsers and of the NSF’s Digital Government research program, died Aug. 1 at his home in Potomac, Maryland, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 65. Marcie Stone, now a member of the Information School’s MLIS Advisory Board and one of the school’s most fervent supporters, worked with Brandt in the mid-1990s and wanted to be sure that we didn’t get too far into 2017 withou

iSchool alumna Jill Bourne named Librarian of the Year

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Jill Bourne, an iSchool alumna who now directs California’s San Jose Public Library, has been named Library Journal’s 2017 Librarian of the Year. Bourne arrived in San Jose in 2013, taking on the challenge of budget shortfalls and reduced hours across the library system’s 23 branches. Despite a capital campaign that had renovated older libraries and built new ones, library use was in decline. “The staff were all scared,” Bourne told Library Journal. “There had been layoffs, and the place was in this awful kind of holding pattern. They had finished that beautiful capital progr