School of Information Sciences

GSLIS faculty, students honored at 2012 iConference

GSLIS faculty and doctoral students were honored at the 2012 iConference that was held from February 7-10, 2012, and was hosted by the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto.

A Best Paper Award was given to doctoral student Noah Lenstra and Professor Abdul Alkalimat for their paper, “Networked Cultural Heritage and Socio-Digital Inequalities: A Case Study in an African-American Community.” Also receiving honors were doctoral student Karen Wickett and Professor and Interim Dean Designate Allen Renear who were named runners-up in the Best Poster category for their poster, “Towards a Logical Form for Descriptive Metadata.”

Papers delivered by GSLIS faculty and students included:

Dissecting the Rhythms of Scientific Data Use
Author: Tiffany C. Chao, doctoral student

Networked Cultural Heritage and Socio-Digital Inequalites: A Case Study in an African-American Community
Authors: Noah Lenstra, doctoral student; Abdul Alkalimat, professor

Metadatapedia: A proposal for aggregating metadata on data archiving
Authors: David M. Nichols (University of Waikato, New Zealand); Michael B. Twidale, professor; Sally Jo Cunningham (University of Waikato, New Zealand)

Posters presented by GSLIS faculty and students included:

Education for Data Professionals: A Study of Current Courses and Programs
Presenters: Virgil Eugene Varvel Jr., research analyst; Elin J. Bammerlin, certificate of advanced study student; Carole L. Palmer, professor

Significant properties of complex digital artifacts: Open issues from a video game case study
Presenters: Simone Sacchi, doctoral student; Jerome P. McDonough, associate professor

Towards a Logical Form for Descriptive Metadata
Presenters: Karen Wickett, doctoral student; Richard Urban (MS ’06, PhD ’12); Allen Renear, professor and interim dean designate

What is Community Informatics? A Global and Empirical Answer
Presenters: Kate Williams, assistant professor; Shameem Ahmed, doctoral student; Noah Lenstra, doctoral student; Qiyuan Liu, master’s student

Rainmakers, Space Mirrors and Atmospheric Vacuums: A Bibliometric Mapping of Geoengineering Research
Presenter: Nicholas Weber, doctoral student

The official iConference 2012 program consisted of 53 papers, 95 posters, and 20 alternative events, all offered the course of three days. As was the case last year, all papers and poster abstracts have been published in the ACM Digital Library. More than 480 information scholars and professionals flocked to this seventh annual presentation of the iCaucus. The event opened with a series of workshops and concluded with its annual doctoral colloquium, the latter sponsored by the National Science Foundation. In between, an array of thought-provoking papers, posters, and special sessions helped push the boundaries of information studies.

A full conference wrap up is available on the iSchools website.

 

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