iSchoolers at the forefront of effort to engage Native students in research

Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Information School’s leadership in engaging American Indian and Alaska Native students in research was on display at the UW’s recent Colloquium on Undergraduate Research. The colloquium featured keynote speaker Cheryl Metoyer, associate professor emerita and former associate dean for research at the iSchool. Alumni Iisaaksiichaa Braine (MSIM, ’15) and Juan-Carlos Chavez (Ph.D., ’17) were among the organizers of the event, which took place April 23. Staff and faculty research mentors discussed how to engage in meaningful recruitment, retention, promotion and graduation sup

Jessica Hullman's research project on data visualizations earns $523,000 grant

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Jessica Hullman, an assistant professor at the Information School, has been awarded a grant expected to total $523,516 over four years for her work creating more effective data visualizations. The National Science Foundation grant will support Hullman’s research project, “CAREER: Enhancing Critical Reflection on Data by Integrating Users' Expectations.” The project aims to take into account people’s expectations about data when they encounter interactive charts and graphs. Allowing users to compare their assumptions to actual data is a powerful tool for checking those assumptions an

Negin Dahya wins prestigious award for education research

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Information School Assistant Professor Negin Dahya is among this year’s recipients of the prestigious American Educational Research Association (AERA) awards. Dahya was the co-author of an article titled “Pathways to Educational Success Among Refugees” that won the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for outstanding article in an association-sponsored publication. She shares the honor with colleagues Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Elizabeth Adelman, both of Harvard University. The article, which appeared in the July 2017 edition of American Educational Research Journal, addresses the p

TASCHA embarks on effort to raise libraries' visibility in Africa

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Public libraries can help improve people’s lives through their programs and services, but first people need to know where they are. There are an estimated 320,000 public libraries around the world, but there is little or no data on where the vast majority of them are and what services they provide, said Chris Jowaisas, a senior research scientist with the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the UW Information School. The lack of visibility makes it difficult both for users to access what’s available and for libraries to demonstrate their value. “There’s very wide

Dean's message: Getting to know you

Monday, April 2, 2018

In my first few months as Dean of the Information School, I have moved across the country, met countless alumni, students and friends of the school, and gone to a LOT of meetings. It has been a whirlwind, but every day I feel even luckier to be leading this school. I see across our programs that students come here to experience our warm, welcoming intellectual community and to gain the knowledge and skills to help them make a difference in the world. They come to learn from faculty with a personal touch and an amazing diversity of interests. Our recent Research Fair highlighted more than 70

Scholarship helps student follow her dreams and support her family

Friday, March 30, 2018

Nicole Kuhn found the iSchool during the most challenging time of her life. After the unexpected death of her husband, she was left as the sole parent of their four young children. She suddenly had to change her life plans. Years before, she’d started an undergraduate degree in Canada and she had always intended to finish her degree when her kids were older. Her husband’s death sped up those plans. Kuhn, a Haida member of the Skidegate First Nations Band in Canada, had previously worked with First Nations in the Canadian courts. In that job, she had enjoyed administering the statisti

Susan Hildreth's expertise in public libraries makes an impact at the iSchool

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

High-profile library leader Susan Hildreth has seen the role of the public library – and the public librarian – change dramatically in the digital age. No longer just brick-and-mortar book-lending institutions, these 21st-century libraries are becoming community hubs that offer everything from free-access computer labs to in-depth instruction on sorting fake news from real. “There’s a key shift from librarians being gatekeepers and dispensers of information to becoming facilitators and coaches and educators who are helping community members understand the skills they need to navigat

Can app connect kids with nature? Researchers seek volunteers to find out

Thursday, March 22, 2018

University of Washington researchers have spent months developing NatureCollections, an app they hope will spark kids to connect with the outdoors. Now they’re ready to put it to the test. The research team, led by Assistant Professor Katie Davis of the Information School, is recruiting volunteers to help answer its central question: Can a mobile app connect kids with nature? In recent months, the researchers worked with KidsTeam UW to involve children in the design of the app, and later conducted field tests at University Prep in Seattle to try out the app’s design and gauge how

Jevin West talks 'BS' with Wall Street Journal

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Information School Assistant Professor Jevin West was quoted in a March 19 Wall Street Journal article, “Fine-Tune Your B.S. Detector: You’ll Need It.” The article notes that scientists have begun serious research on the skill and methods of spreading false information and attempting to quantify when and why people spread it, who is susceptible and how people can confront it. The story cites a recent study by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that analyzed the spread of 126,000 rumors tweeted by 3 million people over 10 years. The study found that false news spre

Rolf Hapel brings international perspective to iSchool as professor of practice

Monday, March 19, 2018

More than 4,700 miles is a long way to travel, but Rolf Hapel has a world of expertise to share. Hapel, an internationally recognized leader in public libraries, joins the University of Washington Information School this fall as its next Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, focusing on the future of libraries. Since 2006, Hapel has served as director of Citizens’ Services and Libraries in Aarhus, a city of approximately 340,000 people in central Denmark. Previously, he worked in four Danish cities as a librarian, deputy manager and director of public services, and became direc

Ricardo Gomez explores lives of Latinx at UW in new book

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Information School Associate Professor Ricardo Gomez has published a new book documenting the lives of Latinx faculty, staff and students at the University of Washington. The book, titled “LatinX @ UW: Stories and photos of Latinos and Latinas at University of Washington,” is available at Amazon.com. Latinx is a gender-neutral term often used in lieu of Latino or Latina. For the book, Gomez used a participatory photography process he calls Fotohistorias, in which people take photos and share stories about them to document their lives. “This book presents a tapestry of image

'A Wrinkle in Time': A dangerous book for a dangerous world

Monday, March 12, 2018

Michelle Martin, Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services, and Martin's research assistant, J. Elizabeth Mills, shared a story with the UW Alumni Association that was given to viewers at its screening of "A Wrinkle in Time" on Saturday, March 10. It's reprinted here by permission: Some folks consider “A Wrinkle in Time” a dangerous book. True, Madeleine L’Engle’s novel won the Newbery Medal in 1963 as well as a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (which designates a book worthy to sit on the shelf next to Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”), and it was a runner-up for the i

Countering 'hate speech': Q&A with Nadine Strossen, 2018 Mignon lecturer

Monday, March 12, 2018

Nadine Strossen, an author, law professor and civil liberties advocate, will be the Information School’s guest for the Ed Mignon Distinguished Lecture on April 2. From 1991 through 2008, Strossen served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization. She was with the ACLU as it re-examined its position on “hate speech” throughout the 1980s and ’90s and concluded that censoring such speech would do more harm than good. She is now the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law at New York Law Sch

From academia to Amazon, MSIM alum is always teaching

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

In America, an Amazon survey may ask if your online experience was “frustration free.” That works here, says Akshay Bhagwatwar. People get it. But travel halfway around the world and the reaction may be puzzlement. "‘Frustration’ has different meanings in different countries,” says the iSchool alum, who is analytics leader on an Amazon customer experience team that develops tools to gather and analyze individual feedback worldwide. In another culture, Bhagwatwar points out, the word “frustration” might be used in dire situations, like a family tragedy. “You would never say t

iSchool, partners to create Biomedical and Health Informatics specialization

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

The Information School has signed an agreement with the University of Washington’s Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics (BIME) and School of Medicine (SoM) to create a new Biomedical and Health Informatics specialization in the iSchool’s undergraduate Informatics program. The specialization will be jointly run by the iSchool and BIME, with 4-6 course offerings per academic year. The iSchool and BIME will each be responsible for offering a minimum of two courses per year, starting with the 2018-19 academic year. BIME offers MS and Ph.D. degrees in Health Informatics. This p