The National Science Foundation-funded project aims to reduce online fraud among older adults, who lose billions of dollars each year. The iSchool is co-leading a two-year, $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator phase 2 project to create digital tools that help older adults better recognize and protect themselves from online deceptions and other forms of disinformation.

Fourteen iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Summer 2022. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.

It is evident that Hurricane Ian's recent devastation in Florida will impact the state economically for years to come. Tragedies such as this have motivated scientists to gain a better understanding of when such events might occur and how to cope with them once they do.

A project co-led by Emily Knox is one of the twenty-five projects that recently received funding through the Chancellor's Call to Action Research Program to Address Racism and Social Injustice. The program is a $2 million annual commitment by the University of Illinois to respond to the critical need for universities across the nation to prioritize research focused on systemic racial inequities and injustices that exist not only in communities but in higher education itself. For 2022, the funded projects will focus on systemic racism and social justice, law enforcement and criminal justice reform, and disparities in health and health care.

Forty-four iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Spring 2022. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Only those instructors who gave out ICES forms during the semester and who released their data for publication are included in the list.

A new project led by Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and Associate Professor Jodi Schneider will assist researchers and journals in evaluating citation behavior in biomedical publications. They recently received a two-year, $300,000 grant from the Office of Research Integrity of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their project, "Natural Language Processing to Assess and Improve Citation Integrity in Biomedical Publications."

Professor Catherine Blake will present the keynote at the Health Science Librarians of Illinois (HSLI) Annual Conference, which will be held virtually from September 7-9. HSLI promotes the professional and educational development of Illinois librarians, information professionals, and library students in the health sciences.

A new project led by Associate Professor Kate McDowell and Assistant Professor Matthew Turk will help libraries tell data stories that connect with their audiences. Their project, "Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians," has received a two-year, $99,330 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant RE-250094-OLS-21), under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which supports innovative research by untenured, tenure-track faculty.

David Charles has joined the iSchool as a specialized faculty member. He holds over fifteen years of industry experience in the areas of digital transformation, innovation culture and strategy, business and people analytics, and change management.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Brandon Batzloff will join the faculty as a teaching assistant professor. Batzloff, who holds a PhD in cognitive and information sciences from the University of California Merced, conducts research on social systems dynamics at multiple scales, from decision making in individuals to group interactions, and applies this research to real-world projects.