Convocation celebrates hundreds of new iSchool grads

Thursday, June 7, 2018

The UW Information School honored more than 480 graduating students from its undergraduate and graduate programs on Saturday, June 2, at its 2018 Convocation ceremony. Graduates include 213 earning their bachelor’s degree in Informatics; 130 earning their master’s in Library and Information Science; 130 earning master’s degrees in Information Management; and nine earning their Ph.D. degrees. Numbers are subject to change as the academic year comes to a close. About 350 of the graduating students took part in Convocation. Ellenore Angelidis, Amazon’s global director for Kindle con

Capstone 2018 features student projects with impact

Thursday, May 31, 2018

The iSchool’s 2018 Capstone event, held May 30 at the University of Washington HUB, featured 123 poster presentations and 17 online ones from more than 300 graduating students. Projects were judged for awards in several categories, including social impact, commercial potential, research, service, innovation/design, and diversity. Additionally, students in each program awarded a Best in Class prize to their peers. (Many of the winners are pictured above.) Held annually, Capstone showcases the breadth of skills and expertise students develop in the B.S. in Informatics, M.S. in Information M

iSchool MLIS student earns scholarship to attend ALA Annual

Friday, May 25, 2018

Information School student Dovi Mae Patino has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Gordon M. Conable Conference Scholarship. The scholarship, given by the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), will cover Patino’s expenses to attend the American Library Association’s 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. Patino is a first-year, first-generation student in the iSchool’s Master of Library and Information Science program. As a Filipina-American, she aspires to be a public librarian committed to ensuring equitable access to information and resources in underrepresented communities.

Students set for showcase

Friday, May 25, 2018

The Information School Capstone event, our annual showcase of student projects, takes place on Wednesday, May 30, in the HUB on the UW campus. You can join us in person starting at 6 p.m. in the HUB Ballrooms on the second floor. All are welcome to attend: industry professionals and employers; UW and iSchool alumni, students, faculty, and prospective students; and family and friends of the presenting students. The highlight of the evening is an award ceremony showcasing presentations of premiere projects that were determined by judges. Capstone project collaborators include organizations

TASCHA explores public libraries' role in civic engagement

Friday, May 25, 2018

What role should public libraries play in civic engagement? That was the question posed to a cross-section of leading thinkers — invitees from public libraries, civic media, technology, collective action, the arts and other fields — at a gathering hosted by the Information School’s Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA). At a time when society is increasingly divided, libraries remain trusted institutions that seek to serve the public good, but how far should their efforts go? And should librarians be asked to serve as instructors and advocates? A new TASCHA report documents

Children's Literature Association honors Michelle Martin with Mentoring Award

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Michelle Martin, the Information School’s Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services, is this year’s recipient of the Children’s Literature Association’s Mentoring Award. The award recognizes Martin’s work encouraging and nurturing scholars in the children’s literature field. Martin focuses primarily on helping young scholars of color, particularly African American women, when they seek support and advice. The number of full professors in the U.S. who are black women is so small, “we could probably all fit into one conference room,” she said. In fact, only

Informatics students help KEXP keep its human touch

Thursday, May 24, 2018

A music collection is full of emotion. At KEXP, a public-radio station based in Seattle, that’s particularly true. For years, the station’s staff have been carefully curating the best music; the KEXP library is full of the history and context of that music. It’s a place where it’s easy to find an emotional connection. A group of three Informatics students is working on a project to preserve that emotional power of the KEXP library, while adding the benefit of working in a digital space. For their Capstone project, Adam Bourn, Monica Cao and John Harrison are creating a prototype

Designed for evil: How to make bad technologies better

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Many of today’s technologies leave users feeling like they got lost in a time vortex — they resurface hours later with no memory of what just happened to them. But it doesn’t have to be that way, according to Alexis Hiniker, an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Information School. That’s why she developed a new upper-level class that gives informatics majors a crash course on ethics. Then they can use these ideas to combat potentially problematic new technologies. Through Designing for Evil, which is unique to the UW, Hiniker’s stu

MSIM team digs into T-Mobile's data to spot malicious traffic

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Timothy Pace likes to sink his teeth into big data. Dania Tanzil gravitates toward cybersecurity. Manas Thakre has a knack for business analytics and project management. For their Capstone project, the trio of Information School Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) students joined forces to help T-Mobile tackle a rising problem: malicious data that clogs mobile networks and poses a security risk to smartphone users. With people increasingly glued to their smartphones for both communication and entertainment, more and more unauthorized advertisers and bad actors are targetin

Informatics team elevates Airlift Northwest's use of technology

Monday, May 21, 2018

The list of Airlift Northwest missions is long: wilderness rescues, plane crashes, car accidents, strokes, heart attacks, neonatal emergencies. Since its founding in 1982, the nonprofit air ambulance service has transported more than 100,000 critically ill and injured patients to medical centers throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Speed and efficiency are critical to patient outcomes. That girl who slipped off a cliff may have only an hour to live without life-saving rescue and medical treatment. Time is of the essence. So the air ambulance service was game when a team of Inf

Students' superpower: bringing LGBTQ comic books to light

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

“Representation matters. It’s a cliché, but it’s definitely true,” said Le Button. Button and Aydin Kwan, both Information School Master of Library and Information Science students, have combined their academic knowledge with their personal interests in LGBTQ representation and comic books for their Capstone project. Together, they have created a database and website that will help readers, librarians and booksellers discover comics that tell a wide range of LGBTQ stories. “For us, it’s very easy to find queer comics because we already speak the language of queer comics,”

iAffiliates Day focuses on ways to thrive amid tech disruption

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

“Surviving and thriving in the era of tech disruption” was the theme of iAffiliates Day, the Information School’s annual showcase for engagement with corporate and community partners. The event took place on May 3 at the Intellectual House on the University of Washington campus. iAffiliates Day began with a welcome from iSchool Dean Anind Dey and a series of short talks on innovation from Professor Jacob Wobbrock, Master of Science in Information Management student Laura Blanford and Informatics student Isaiah Barhoum. Wobbrock discussed the concept and implications of “radical p

IMLS grants will support work on co-design, video game archiving

Friday, May 4, 2018

Information School researchers recently won a pair of 2018 National Leadership Grants for Libraries, awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Assistant Professor Jason Yip and Associate Professor Jin Ha Lee will team up on one of the projects, a three-year, $353,000 effort to involve people from different generations in co-design sessions at libraries. The funds will support iSchool Ph.D. student Kung Jin Lee. Yip’s KidsTeam UW has embraced the concept of co-designing new digital learning activities with children, giving them a hand in designing their own experiences

Apps for children should emphasize parent and child choice, researchers say

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The average preschooler watches more than three hours of TV, film and other video programming each day — just one of many examples illustrating the huge role that entertainment plays in children’s lives. But parents don’t need to fear their children playing with iPads and other devices, researchers say. Mindful play with an adult, combined with thoughtful design features, can prove beneficial to young developing minds. New research shows that thoughtfully designed content that intentionally supports parent-child interactions facilitated the same kind of play and development as an

iSchool lecture series on disaster response available on YouTube

Friday, April 27, 2018

A series of talks from experts on disaster response — part of Information School Professor Hans Jochen Scholl's research seminar this past winter — is now available on YouTube.  The set of seven video clips from the "Pacific Northwest Disaster Management Speakers Series" include 45- to 75-minute talks from disaster management experts and government officials, each giving their perspective on disasters and the potential for a catastrophic event in the Pacific Northwest. The speakers addressed challenges for professional disaster responders, along with the need for situational