iSchool researchers receive Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper

A paper coauthored by PhD student Yuerong Hu, HTRC Associate Director for Research Support Services Glen Layne-Worthey, Alaine Martaus (PhD '19), Professor J. Stephen Downie, and Associate Professor Jana Diesner, "Research with User-Generated Book Review Data: Legal and Ethical Pitfalls and Contextualized Mitigations," has received the Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper at iConference 2023. The award recognizes the most exceptional completed research paper presented at the iConference each year. Papers are judged by the respective track chairs, in consultation with the conference and program chairs.

According to the researchers, while the number of user-generated book reviews has increased, there is a lack of literature that addresses the legal and ethical use of these reviews. Legal issues presented by user-generated book reviews include copyright infringement and violations of terms of service/end-user license agreements and privacy rights, while ethical concerns center on users' expectations, informed consent, and institutional reviews. In their paper, the researchers discuss the potential legal and ethical pitfalls in leveraging user-generated book reviews and provide scholarly references that might serve as useful guidelines to avoid or manage these pitfalls.

"This work is inspired by the legal and ethical problems we encountered from user-generated book reviews, such as our JCDL paper with Zoe LeBlanc and Ted Underwood and CHR panel with Ted Underwood and Wenyi Shang," said Hu, who is also pursuing this topic for her dissertation.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

What are the effects of trade restrictions on digital technologies?

President Donald Trump has threatened to levy higher tariffs on more than two dozen countries and on various products in the past few months. China in particular has been a target of the administration’s trade wars, aimed at preventing its dominance in areas such as artificial intelligence, although the U.S. government announced recently that it would sell advanced semiconductors used in AI to China. Assistant Professor Meicen Sun spoke with News Bureau arts and humanities editor Jodi Heckel about the effects of trade restrictions.

Meicen Sun

Hassan selected for IAPP Westin Scholar Award

PhD student Muhammad Hassan has been selected as an IAPP Westin Scholar Award honoree. The annual awards were created by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) to support students who are identified as future leaders in the field of privacy and data protection. 

Muhammad Hassan

Bak defends dissertation

PhD candidate Michelle Bak successfully defended her dissertation, "Promoting a Healthy and Comprehensive Diet through Theory-Driven Large Language Models-based Agents," on July 14.

Chaewon Bak

School welcomes specialized faculty

The iSchool is pleased to announce the appointment of two specialized faculty members. Yildiz Esener and Nitin Verma will join the School as teaching assistant professors in August 2025.

iSchool to present research at the Digital Humanities 2025 conference

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will present their research at DH2025, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), which will take place on July 14–18 in Lisbon, Portugal. The digital humanities (DH) conference is the largest event of the international DH community and unites scholars from across the globe.