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Session Information

iEdge 2007 will consist of the following sessions:

 

Opening Keynote (12:30 - 1:15 pm)

Stu Weibel
Keynote Speaker

We are thrilled to have Stuart Weibel as our keynote speaker. Stu is a Senior Research Scientist at the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) in Columbus, OH. He is a recognized expert on metadata and was instrumental in the development of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). He has tremendous experience in both research and the practical application of research as evidenced by his success with DCMI. Stu is also well known and loved in the iSchool community, having spent the better part of 2006 as a resident researcher. He is a dynamic and engaging speaker and the opportunity to listen to what he has done with some of his recent research now that he has returned to OCLC will be exciting to a broad audience.

 

Session 1 (1:30 - 2:15 pm)

Track 1 - Information is Social

Online Communities: Visual Conversational Styles in Online Communities
David McDonald, iSchool

Imagery and picture sharing are an important and growing part of many online communities. Prior studies of online interaction rely heavily on text. This study takes a different approach by focusing instead on the images that individuals use to interact with each other. Image data collected from several online communities is analyzed to characterize a range of visual conversational styles. Four specific styles of visual conversation are illustrated and explained; positional play, image quoting, text-in-picture and animation. These visual conversation styles are contrasted with similar textual communication styles that are now commonly taken for granted. The discussion identifies several tradeoffs when designing communities to promote different visual conversational styles.

Track 2 - Information is People

User-Centered Design
Judy Ramey (Technical Communication)

User-Centered Design is a design methodology that focuses on developing information systems by studying and interacting with the prospective users. Dr. Ramey will be discussing how both academic and lay research can be utilized to create better systems.

Track 3 - Information is Practical

Research and Strategic Decision Making at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Darren Hoerner (Associate Program Officer, Global Libraries), Kara Fox (UW Graduate Student Assistant, Global Libraries)

Join two members of the Global Libraries team to hear them dicuss how the Gates Foundation uses research in their strategic decision-making.

 

Session 2 (2:30 - 3:15 pm)

Track 1 - Information is Social

Catalyst Research: Influencing Technology Use and Development at UW
Cara Lane (Research Scientist), Janice Fournier (Research Scientist), and Kelly Reinhard (Research Assistant)

Catalyst Research & Development builds and maintains a suite of Web tools for use by faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington. As researchers at Catalyst, we investigate the use of technology in diverse teaching and learning contexts in order to discover best practices for the use of existing tools and to identify future needs. In this presentation, we discuss key findings from two research projects: a study of e-portfolio implementation and an evaluation of podcasting. We then use these projects as examples of our work process, highlighting how we collaborate with other campus groups to maximize the practical applicability of our research.

Track 2 - Information is People

Personal Information Management.
Harry Bruce (iSchool), Andrea Civan (BHI), and Predrag Klasnja (iSchool)

Our work and lives increasingly involve handling more and more information--email, web pages, documents, text messages. How do people organize and deal with this information? How do they find needed information from ever growing collections that many people are accumulating? The KFTF project focuses on these and other problems in Personal Information Management (PIM), an area that explores how people manage their activities and the information that supports those activities in their daily lives. This presentation provides an overview of the recent work by the KFTF project, with the special emphasis on the current field and prototyping efforts that examine the role of structure and metaphor in people's information management. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and by Google.

Track 3 - Information is Practical

Thesaurus Building Workshop
Trent Hill, Heather Card, Christie Ericson, Betsy Rolland (iSchool)

As information systems become more complex, thesauruses can help keep things organized and make searching easier. This workshop, led by Trent Hill, will walk participants through the process of building a thesaurus. MLIS students Heather Card, Christie Ericson and Betsy Rolland will discuss how their group built a Microbial Genetics thesaurus in Trent’s LIS 537 section last spring.

 

Session 3 (3:30 - 4:15 pm)

Track 1 - Information is Social

Research Shapes WebJunction: Web Design and E-Learning
 Rachel Van Noord, Michael Porter

WebJunction is an online community for library staff to find resources, share ideas and learn new things. Research conducted at WebJunction is always structured around finding solutions to real world challenges. Two recent projects of this nature demonstrate our approach to actionable research. First, WebJunction recently completed a "site refresh" which was guided by multiple types of research both internally and externally. Several examples of research turned to results, including a card-sort and the 2006 WebJunction Member Survey, will be discussed in light of this project. Additionally, WebJunction's current field building around e-learning is the direct result of interviews with practitioners and a 2005 survey. The results of this research were published in the well-received report "Trends in E-learning for Library Staff" and written up in "E-Learning's Next Wave" a feature article in Library Journal. Based on the field's reception to these publications, WebJunction is now doing additional research around staff development in libraries.

The success of both of these projects is due to the support of the WebJunction community. WebJunction members have taken an active role in providing thoughtful input that drives the success and direction of our projects.

Track 2 - Information is People

Library and Information Services in Small High Schools
Mike Eisenberg, Eric Meyers (iSchool)

Dividing large, comprehensive high schools into smaller schools is an important educational reform with major implications for library programs. The small schools approach has the support of the United States Congress, the Department of Education, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To date, little attention has been given to the needs of small schools in terms of library and information services, systems, and resources, the role of teacher-librarians, or how to deploy library and information infrastructure effectively and efficiently.

This presentation provides an overview of the Small School Libraries project, now in the final phase of its 3-year study, with emphasis on research findings related to youth information behavior, and the evidence-based practice model that has emerged from this work.

This project is funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the University of Washington iSchool.

Track 3 - Information is Practical

Thinking Through New Entrepreneurial Ideas
Connie Bourassa-Shaw (Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, UW Business School)

Research and practice can spark one of those "aha!" moments when you see the glimmer of an opportunity for a new product or company. How do you know if your idea has merit--and what are the first steps you should take to investigate the market and think through the initial logistics? What are the resources available on campus (and in the Seattle community) for entrepreneurially minded students?

 

Panel Discussions (4:30 - 6:00 pm)

Track 1 - Information is Social

Information Behavior in Everyday Contexts: Social-Informational Lives of Shoppers and other IBEC projects.

Moderator: Karen Fisher, Associate Professor, iSchool
Panelists: Matt Saxton, Assistant Professor, UW Information School, Carol Landry, PhD Candidate, UW Information School

The Information Behavior in Everyday Context (IBEC) team, led by Karen Fisher, will discuss some of their recent and ongoing projects.

Karen Fisher: Pink, Waterproof, and Scented: Designing Mobile Technology for Women
In the U.S., women do 80 percent of household shopping, spending $4-7 trillion annually. Using qualitative data gleaned from 14 women through in-depth interviews and participant observation at a shopping mall, we present recommendations for a mobile device for facilitating women's role as family shopper for non-grocery items. Findings reveal that whether shopping for themselves or for others, shopping is pervasively about social interaction. We thus introduce recommendations for a ubiquitous mobile device (“DEVI”) that centers around three broad categories: information, communication, and physical. Aimed at supporting women's cognitive, social, and affective needs, this device can ultimately support the integration of women’s myriad daily roles while promoting women in technology design and use.

Matt Saxton: Seattle Public Library as “place”: Community building
This field study applies two primary frameworks for understanding libraries as place, Oldenburg’s “third place” concept and Cresswell’s five facets of place, to analyze responses from 226 participants regarding the social, political, cultural, and economic meaning of the newly constructed and internationally renowned Seattle Public Central Library. Emergent themes are discussed in terms of the library as a physical place, a social place, and an informational place. While these two frameworks help explain how libraries as “places” provide social and economic benefits and foster the growth of social capital within a community, neither framework adequately addresses the concept of information as it figures in the broader notion of place. Thus, this study contributes “information” to the repertoire of place, comprising themes regarding information finding and seeking, life-long learning, learning resources, and learning environment.

Carol Landry: The emotional frontiers of tweens and stay-at-home moms
Tweens (ages 9-13) and mothers who stay at home have received little attention regarding their everyday information behavior. I will share results from two NSF-funded studies that address these populations from several theoretical lens, including Chatman’s (2000) information poverty, Fisher’s information grounds (Fisher et al., 2005), and Dervin’s (c.f., 1992) Sense-Making. Analyzing data collected through participant observation, focus groups and interviews with tweens and stat-at-home mothers in different field settings, I will discuss how emotions affected the emergence of the participants’ information needs, their information seeking, and information use and none-use. Highlights will include participants’ emotive responses to different information systems and implications for system design.

Track 2 - Information is People

Patients, Clinicians, Insurers or Administrators: Who’s Your User? Can User-Centered Design Work in Health Care?

Moderator: Dr. David Masuda (BHI)
Panelists: Sunny Consolvo (iSchool), Dr. Ruth Krauss (Group Health Cooperative), George Demiris (BHI)

Designers of information systems for healthcare settings walk a fine line trying to balance the needs of different user groups, including patients, clinicians, administrators and insurers. Is it possible to meet the needs of all those users in one system? How do information system designers in healthcare approach the process of understanding the needs of their users and what can other industries learn from their experience?

Track 3 - Information is Practical

Entrepreneurship: Taking Ideas and Making Them Real

Moderator: Bob Mason (iSchool)
Panelists: Ben Brigham (2004 Informatics graduate), Kim Emmons (Washington Research Foundation), Gail Dykstra (UW TechTransfer)

Our panelists have had that “aha” moment where they've taken a glimmer of opportunity and made it into a real product, service or company. Please join our moderator, Bob Mason, Associate Dean for Research at the iSchool, and three panelists, Kim Emmons of the Washington Research Foundation/WRF Capital, Gail Dykstra of the UW's TechTransfer Office and Ben Brigham, UW 2004 Informatics graduate, all of whom have experience taking ideas and developing companies around them. Kim Emmons, UW MLIS graduate and Manager of Research at the Washington Research Foundation, was Washington Research Foundation's first information specialist, developing their Research Services. Gail Dykstra, UW MLIS graduate and Software Licensing Officer at the UW's TechTransfer Office, licenses digital content created at the University. Ben Brigham graduated from the Informatics program at the Information School in 2004, and went on to receive his Master of Marine Affairs at the UW.