During the COVID-19 pandemic, internet access has become more critical than ever before. Sharon Irish, research affiliate, Julian Chin (MS ’12), research manager, and Lisa Bievenue, director of informatics programs for Illinois Informatics Institute, are working with C-U Connect to map locations in Champaign-Urbana providing free WiFi to people with limited internet access in their households.
iSchool Response to COVID-19
Every day, iSchool faculty, staff, alumni, and students are implementing creative solutions to combat COVID-19 and make a difference in their local, national, and global communities. We are interested in telling these stories! Please send your news to communications@support.ischool.illinois.edu. By promoting the good news of your efforts, we can build connections and share ideas that can be implemented in communities nationwide.
Faculty expertise and impact
Associate Professor
In their article for Nature Medicine, Bashir and Informatics PhD student Tanusree Sharma examine how digital surveillance used to contain the spread of COVID-19 may impact privacy rights.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
In the Copyright Chat podcast, “Fair Use During the COVID-19 Quarantine,” copyright librarian Benson (MS ’17) examines fair use in the age of an epidemic.
Associate Professor, MS/IM Program Director, and Associate Director, Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship
Blake’s Claim Framework automatically identifies explicit (causal) claims, comparisons, and study outcomes directly from biomedical literature, which can be used to reveal the underlying biological processes involved in COVID-19.
Research Scientist
Brooks addresses public health topics, especially disease surveillance; develops information systems to generate data for public health decision making; and collaborates with WHO/PAHO and other public health agencies on multiple service projects.
Associate Professor
The Community Data Clinic, led by Chan, is partnering with the Cunningham Township Supervisor's Office on a 211 online directory that will connect people with crisis response and wellness resources.
Affiliate Professor
Hinchliffe (MS '94) collaborates with a colleague to develop a survey to track the response of academic libraries to COVID-19 and provide real-time data on their actions.
Associate Professor
Kendall is working with students to complete a research project utilizing methods of collaborative autoethnography to document experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Associate Professor
Kilicoglu's research in large-scale information extraction from biomedical literature and knowledge graphs supports drug discovery/repurposing applications for COVID-19. He and his colleagues also developed semantic technologies to address information overload in the management of epidemics and other disasters.
Assistant Professor
Magee and her students are developing a Teens & COVID-19 resource guide (from novels to physical/mental health resources to resources for learning and pursuing fun) that will be shared online with youth services providers in libraries and schools.
Adjunct Lecturer
Mattson shares strategies and resources for information literacy in today's world, as applied to pandemics and fake news, and issues related to student privacy during the remote learning explosion.
Associate Professor
McDowell, a storytelling scholar, connects and engages people of all ages through her Saturday stories, offering valuable insights for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Assistant Professor
Ocepek explores the intersection of food, information, and culture, including grocery shopping decision making; how shoppers navigate the information environment of the grocery store; attitudes toward online grocery shopping.
Professor and Dean
Behavior change during pandemics, including methods to help understand and explain complex group behaviors; societal resilience; and the effects of comorbidity of chronic diseases and socio-economic disparities.
Assistant Professor
Schneider accelerates search and appraisal for optimal information in a pandemic; crowdsourcing COVID-19 information on Wikidata; text and data mining of COVID-19 data; and studying dissemination of COVID-19 misinformation.
Professor and Director, The Center for Children's Books
Schwebel's work with the Channel Islands National Park and other partners to offer an interactive website and K-12 lesson plans on Island of the Blue Dolphins provides a rich learning tool for students (and their parents and teachers) who are now learning remotely.
Senior Lecturer
Weible teaches students to model the spread of infectious disease through a population and inform outcomes, such as the aggregate effects of portions of the population staying isolated, traveling or not, etc.
Lecturer
Wickes (MS '16) is collaborating with the COVID-19 instructional task force of The Carpentries to develop guidelines for adapting methods of teaching in-person workshops to digitally inclusive, online delivery for a global audience.
Adjunct Lecturer
Wong (MS '94), an expert in e-learning and online instructional strategies and techniques, addresses challenges in migrating classes online in a very short time frame; she also was recently highlighted for her response to a student experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
Affiliate Assistant Professor
Wooldridge is part of the User Experience Team of Illinois RapidVent, a working prototype of an emergency ventilator for COVID-19 patients developed in collaboration with Grainger College of Engineering and Carle Health.
The Illinois Center for Health Informatics, a partnership between the Grainger College of Engineering and the iSchool, is involved in more than a dozen COVID-19 projects, working in collaboration with the WHO, PAHO, Mayo Clinic, and other state and local organizations. Key projects include infodemic response, digital health fact sheets, spread of clinical innovations, and informatics support. The center is directed by iSchool Research Scientist Ian Brooks, whose interests include public and global health informatics, epidemiology, and cyberinfrastructure.