After forty years of service to the iSchool, Associate Professor Terry L. Weech (MS '65, PhD '72) will retire at the end of December. Weech is well known for his teaching and research, his positive influence on students as an advisor and mentor, and his contributions to international librarianship and intellectual freedom.

Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider has received an award from the University of Illinois Research Board for her project, “Identifying Potential Bias in Science Using Citation Network Structures.” According to Schneider, citation bias happens when authors ignore relevant research and present one-sided evidence, which mispresents what is known about a topic. Citation bias benefits authors in the short-term by bolstering grants and papers, but it can have severe negative consequences for scientific inquiry.

Professor Emeritus Alistair Black discussed his research at the UK's Library and Information Group Work-in-Progress Conference, which was held virtually on November 27. At the conference, he presented an analysis of the 1962 feature film Only Two Can Play as a tool for learning about the history of the post-war public library in the UK.

Associate Professor and MS/LIS Program Director Maria Bonn will present her research at OE (Open Education) Global 2020, which will be held virtually from November 16-20.  The conference attracts researchers, practitioners, policy makers, educators, and students to discuss and explore how Open Education advances educational practices around the world.

Professor Ted Underwood, PhD students Wenyi Shang and Yuerong Hu, MS/IM students Anirudh Sharma and Shubhangi Singhal, and English PhD student Peizhen Wu will present their research at the Workshop on Computational Humanities Research (CHR2020), which will be held virtually from November 18-20. The purpose of the workshop is to "foster the formation of a community of humanities scholars that rely on a wide range of computational approaches" and to serve as a stepping stone toward the creation of a research-oriented, open-access computational humanities journal.

PhD student Linh Hoang will present her research with Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider and Assistant Professor Nigel Bosch at the AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) Annual Symposium, which will be held virtually from November 14-18. The symposium showcases the latest innovations from the community of biomedical informatics researchers and practitioners.

Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and PhD student Linh Hoang will present their research at the AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) Annual Symposium, which will be held virtually from November 14-18. The symposium showcases the latest innovations from the community of biomedical informatics researchers and practitioners.

Professor Emeritus Boyd Rayward was recently interviewed in Mons, Belgium, at a meeting of scholars involved in the HyperOtlet research project. This multi and transdisciplinary project is focused on Le Traité de documentation, a major book in the history of information sciences that was written in 1934 by Paul Otlet, a Belgian lawyer, bibliographer, internationalist, and pacifist whose ideas foreshadowed current digital and other technologies such as the Internet, hypertext, and Wikipedia.

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and William Aspray, senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, have co-edited a new book, Deciding Where to Live: Information Studies on Where to Live in America, which was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield. Their book explores major themes related to where to live in America and shows how "changes in media and information technology are shaping both our housing choices and our understanding of the meaning of personal place."

Associate Professor Jana Diesner will present her research on biases in data science at the Big Data Summit, which will be held virtually on November 12. The annual summit brings together experts from the University of Illinois Research Park, industry, and academia to share knowledge about big data and its business applications through panel discussions, keynote presentations, and networking opportunities. This year's summit will include sessions on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation.