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Dubin and Kilicoglu named NCSA Faculty Fellows

Teaching Associate Professor David Dubin and Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu have been named National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Faculty Fellows for the 2021-22 academic year. This competitive program for faculty and researchers at the University of Illinois provides seed funding for new projects that include NCSA staff as integral contributors to the research.

Bonn elected ASIS&T director-at-large

Maria Bonn, associate professor and director of the MS/LIS and CAS programs, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). She will begin her three-year term immediately following the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, which will be held from October 29-November 2 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

2022 Maria Bonn

New project uses empathy to teach students about cybersecurity and AI ethics

While empathy is important in almost every aspect of daily life, it is not always a priority in the development of technology, especially technology using artificial intelligence (AI). iSchool researchers are working to address this gap by using empathy to teach high school students about cybersecurity and AI ethics issues. Led by Associate Professor Yang Wang, the project, "Teaching High School Students about Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence Ethics via Empathy-Driven Hands-On Projects," has received a two-year, $297,575 National Science Foundation (NSF) Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER). Assistant Professor Yun Huang; Pilyoung Kim, associate professor of psychology at the University of Denver; and Tom Yeh, associate professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder, will serve as co-principal investigators.

Yang Wang

Desai to discuss using smart speakers as learning partners at CUI 2021

PhD student Smit Desai will discuss his research with Assistant Professor Jessie Chin at the ACM Conversational User Interfaces conference (CUI 2021), which will be held virtually from July 27-29. The goal of the conference is "to further develop a collaborative community around human-computer interaction issues in speech and language technology, with a specific interest in theory-based and applied scientific issues in the field of speech and text-based conversational user interfaces."

Smit Desai

iSchool researchers present at NASKO 2021

Teaching Associate Professor David Dubin, Postdoctoral Research Associate Jacob Jett, and Adjunct Lecturer Bobby Bothmann presented their research at the North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO 2021), which was held virtually on July 9-11. The theme of this year's symposium was "Resilience, Resistance, and Reflection: Knowledge Organization at a Crossroads."

David Dubin

Cordell to join iSchool faculty

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Ryan Cordell will join the faculty as an associate professor in August 2021, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He previously served as an associate professor of English at Northeastern University (NU) and core founding faculty member in the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks.

Ryan Cordell

Workshop to examine provenance for transparent research

iSchool researchers have co-organized a highly interactive workshop on traceable, transparent, and trustworthy research as part of ProvenanceWeek 2021. The T7 Workshop: Provenance for Transparent Research aims to engage attendees in a focused conversation about how methods for automated provenance capture, storage, query, inference, and visualization can make research more transparent and the trustworthiness of results easier to evaluate, both by other researchers and the public. The free workshop will be held on July 22 from 9:00 a.m.-12:45 p.m. CT.

T7 Workshop logo

Community Data Clinic receives Broadband READY grant

The Community Data Clinic, a mixed methods data studies and interdisciplinary community research lab led by Associate Professor Anita Say Chan, has received a $50,000 grant to address gaps in household access to computing devices, hotspot connectivity, and digital literacy skills in East Central Illinois. The grant is part of the state's Broadband Regional Engagement for Adoption and Digital Equity (READY) program, which is operated through the governor's office and Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The Community Data Clinic at the University of Illinois is one of only four sites that are partnering with the state on this effort.

Anita Say Chan

Digital exhibit celebrates 75 years of the CCB

In celebration of its 75th anniversary, the Center for Children's Books (CCB) has published a digital exhibit highlighting defining moments from its past.

"The history of the Center for Children's Books provides an excellent window into the history and evaluation of U.S. children's books more broadly—and for a period when both the quality and quantity of youth literature published increased tremendously," said CCB Director and Professor Sara L. Schwebel, who worked with a team of graduate assistants to design and publish the multimedia site.

CCB 75th anniversary timeline

Kilicoglu contributes to more transparent medical research publications

Peer review is a valuable component in the research process, but it also lengthens the time to publish research. The need to rapidly communicate scientific findings has been especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to an increase in the number of publications disseminated via preprint servers. With the lack of traditional peer review, the quality of these publications can be questionable. Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and the Automated Screening Working Group are working to assess COVID-19 preprints for rigor and transparency in their reporting.

Halil Kilicoglu

School of Information Sciences

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