iSchool Innovations - December 2019

innovatiONS R E S E A R C H | THE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION STUDIES AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Gig Work Changing Jobs, Marketplace ‘Critical Catalog’ Boosts Diversity in Literature Faculty and Student Research Achievements Dean Liddy Retires, Recalls Early NLP

David Seaman, Ph.D. Interim Dean Kevin Crowston Associate Dean for Research and Distinguished Professor of Information Science

EDITORIAL STAFF Diane Stirling Editor Michael Clarke Katie Rook J.D. Ross Contributors

PHOTOGRAPHY J.D. Ross Steve Sartori

ILLUSTRATIONS Cover Data Visualization: This image was developed by iSchool Assistant Professor Jeffery Hemsley in conjunction with a team of iSchool students, Tajanae Harris, Qiyi Wu, and Sarah Bolden. It was initially visualized in 3D in R, then ported over to the 3D modeling tool Blender to add lighting and materials.

At the top right is a network that characterizes subreddit conversations among members of MGTOW (“Men Going Their Own Way”), a group of men’s rights advocates who comment and share opinions on the social platform, Reddit. The bar graphs on the left and at center illustrate cities where high numbers of iSchool alumni reside, many of whom are using their information degrees to address social issues. The map has been stripped of its outline and tilted horizontally for interest.

Illustrations: Joseph M. Murphy, J.M. Murphy Illustration iStock/Getty Images

GRAPHIC DESIGN Colleen Kiefer Kiefer Creative

Inside Front Cover and Back Cover: A different visualization, “Steel Links,” uses data related to the 2011 Occupy Movement. It shows retweeting interactions (the links) of people (the spheres) on Twitter. Assistant Professor Jeffery Hemsley used advanced network computational methods in R and Python to build the network. It took over 100 hours to render in Blender, an open source 3D modeling program.

innovatiONS iSchool Innovations is published annually. This issue contains highlights of the endeavors of faculty and students over the 2018 calendar year.

For more information about iSchool research visit: ischoolsyr.edu/ research or contact Kevin Crowston, associate dean for research, at 315-443-1676 or crowston@syr.edu.

Welcome!

D E A R F R I E N D S A N D CO L L E A G U E S, It is my pleasure to introduce this issue of Innovations. It is a very exciting time to be part of the information field, and the iSchool at Syracuse University is a robust part of the information technologies research landscape. We are pleased to present this comprehensive look at the extensive examinations that are underway at our school by faculty, research staff, and students alike, and the significant recognitions they have received for their innovative work.

One of the most impressive aspects about the projects being undertaken here is the wide range of topics that our faculty are examining. Students at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels here work in concert with faculty members across an array of research labs and studies. We’re proud that our faculty are globally known for their expertise, and that’s something that benefits our student collaborators every day, in the classroom and in the lab. To­geth­ er, their efforts are making important contributions to the field, shaping the way people think about information, and the way that information technologies are used in our society.

The iSchool at Syracuse University is an innovative, exciting, and inclusive community. If you have an interest in joining our research community as a faculty member, student, or research collaborator, please be sure to get in touch.

Best,

Nothing endures but change, said Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

That’s a proper and potent truth in the information and technology field. It’s a reality we’re familiar and comfortable with at the Syracuse University iSchool, where academicians and students are immersed in discovery and are active researchers, practicing professionals, and information technology entre­ preneurs—and sometimes, all three at once.

As we said adieu to long-serving Dean Elizabeth Liddy, whose research legacy is detailed in this issue, we also welcomed Interim Dean David Seaman, Ph.D., who also serves as Dean of Syracuse University Libraries and as University Librarian.

Many new program and instructional elements were introduced over the past year, as you’ll see in these pages. This look-back showcases a number of the achievements and activities of our faculty, research staff and students. At all levels, they are the innovators who comprise the research heart and soul of this school. We hope you enjoy the read!

Kevin Crowston Associate Dean for Research Distinguished Professor of Information Science

David Seaman Interim Dean THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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insiDE THis WELCOME . . . 1 FEATURES Gig Work: How It Jiggers the Job Marketplace 4 Studying What Drives Children to Innovate 10 A Research Hub With Benefits — For Public Libraries 12 48

Design As Diversity Booster: The Critical Catalog 14 Finding Civility’s Fine Line on Facebook 18 People or Platforms: What Influences Social Sharing? 20 Master’s Students: All In, All Over, In iSchool Research 24 “Dr. Figures”— A Reuse Detection Tool 27 App Helping Work Teams Coordinate 28 Expertise Everywhere: Mapping Our Ph.D.s 30 Students Enjoy Fellowships at Harvard, Oxford 34 Resiliency and ICTs: Taking an Expanded Look 36 Dedicating Time to Research Collaboration 38 Beyond Bitcoin: An Innovative Course Approach 41

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Liz Liddy: Eminent Researcher and Leader 42 LAB REPORTS CENT: Center for Emerging Network Technologies 8 IPLI: iSchool Public Libraries Initiative 12 CCDS: Center for Computational Data Science 16 SMART Grid 32 BITS: Behavioral, Information, Technology and Society 36 METADATA 44

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R E S E A R C H 2 0 1 8 | THE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION STUDIES AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

GRANTS SUMMARY New Awards 46 Incremental Awards 48 CUSE Grants 50 FACULTY AND STUDENT NOTES Post-Doctoral Recognitions 19 Master’s Student Recognitions 23 Awards and Accolades 52 Books, Book Chapters, Journal Articles 54 Presentations, Papers, Posters 56 New Faculty 58 32

Keynotes, Panels, Workshops 59 Ph.D. Placements 59 Doctoral Research and Recognitions 60 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS Visiting Scholars, Research Speakers and Visitors Inside Back Cover

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Jiggering the Job Front: How a Growing Gig-Based Economy Impacts Workers and Flips the Marketplace

F Steven Sawyer

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or those who are part of today’s increasingly “gig”-based work economy, it is hard work finding work, and the playing field of the gig-work marketplace is definitely not a level one, pitched so that many people struggle even more.

The transition of the marketplace to more gig work is also changing how people think about employment, their employers, the concept of work security, and the kinds of career opportunities they can expect in the future.

For those not having a full-time employer (such as contract, temporary, freelance, contingent, or projectbased workers), obtaining work requires additional time and effort in marketing their images and their services.

Many in the gig world also face perpetual concern about their work status and insecurity. And these issues ring especially true for people from disadvantaged and under-represented populations, who may experience differential access to gig work for a variety of reasons.

These are among the early findings of Steven Sawyer, professor at the iSchool and a core faculty member of Syracuse University’s Renée Crown Honors Program.

He pursued his National Science Foundation Earlyconcept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award of $52,000 to study the subject throughout 2018.

Sawyer is interested in not just the recent trends that transition how work occurs, but also in how people who rely on transitory employment, and who are without access to mainstream business and social networks to connect to job-finding, fare in this environment. He and a team of students conducted field interviews with members of the Syracuse, NY refugee and immigrant community in the course of the project to discern how society’s shift from a predominantly permanent, full-time employment to a project, freelance, gig and temp-job workforce is affecting individual workers, families, and the workplace.

The work to date highlights several insights, as reflected in Sawyer’s remarks below (in italics) regarding gig working.

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THE CHANGING EXPECTATIONS OF WORKERS In days past, the workplace environment goal was to get a job and turn it into a career. Now, the goal is just to keep getting jobs, and many of those doing contingent work have no expectation they will ever work full time. n There is an absolute belief by both workers and employers

that loyalty to an organization makes no sense; and gig workers understand that relationships between companies and workers are dead. n Many believe in entrepreneurialism or individualism. n Many like the flexibility to make their work schedule work around their lives.

“Gig work is like the difference between marriage and hooking up. There’s no expectation of a future; it’s more like, ‘If it’s good for me and good for you, we’ll do it.’ But that leads to a different set of beliefs about work, that it’s transactional.”

Professor Steve Sawyer teaches a course on working in the digital economy as part of the Syracuse University Reneé Crown honors program curriculum.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF WORK The American economy is reframing how people work, with between 20 and 50 percent of all jobs are now gig-based. There are fewer full-time employers now, and it is rarer now that someone is a full-time employed worker. Instead, many employment opportunities are of a much more contract-based or short-term nature. n People who work part-time jobs or multiple part-time jobs qualify as gig workers. n Many people are hired into temporary jobs or contracted work where all the

workers are contractees. Many times contract jobs are full-time jobs and are just of a contractual nature. n Gig jobs also may be available working for temporary organizations. n In situations that rely on collaborative efforts to complete projects, the shift to increasingly short-term, individualized work creates a contradiction between employment and work.

“The concept of a permanent part-time job or multiple part-time jobs has become the norm, to where the like­lihood of employment is based on gig after gig after gig, like a carpenter or musician. Gig work even extends into academia; it can include the roles of adjunct professor and graduate research assistant. Research itself is a gig-based job, it’s just never been called that before.”

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GIG WORKERS: ALWAYS REPPIN’ A gig worker is always looking for work. Not only must he or she find the work, then do the work; gig workers must continually put extra (unpaid) time and effort into activities that support the goal of finding future gigs, especially for those who are knowledge workers. n Successful gig knowledge-type workers have to spend unpaid time maintaining a presence and a brand online through blogs, social media and LinkedIn. n They need to develop a community to replace the normal workplace socialization and benefits, often leading to finding meet-up groups and attending professional networking events. n Those activities can be helpful or not, often depending on one’s personality, life position and demographics. For people who are not of the same socio-economic strata or demographic background as those they want to connect with, such activities can be particularly hard. Gig work seems to reinforce social demarcations. n They may have to give away bits of their knowledge in order to draw in future jobs.

“They think about this on weekends and they know that a vacation is really time not working. In this sense, they are small businesses, companies of one, but with few workplace protections to provide them any stability. Maybe what comprises a gig becomes really plastic. It used to be that a gig was a very short-term thing, but in a project-based economy, it could be that a gig lasts six months.”

RISING NUMBERS OF CO-WORKING SPACES Some contingent workers have routine circuits of travel and can rely on coworking spaces, while others are more nomadic. Either way, Sawyer reports, gig workers must organize and reconfigure their work resources, creating mobile offices that provide cognitive space, physical space, communications ability, and direct work resources. n Co-working has grown rapidly in the past decade from a side business to one where there is a whole industry of co-working spaces as business models. n Co-working spaces also serve as job-lead spaces, an instrumental space. n The trend is somewhat of a return to guild-like arrangements. n Service providers are trying to find a place in the middle, offering services to gig workers such as health benefits, payroll, tax forms, negotiations, and arbitrations. However, this service market is unregulated and there is very little protection for the workers.

“The market of co-working is growing up as peoples’ work lives reformat from stable positions to contingent work. Co-working spaces become a new form of working arrangement, providing a resource both as a way to look for jobs and to gain social support that traditional workplaces have previously provided.”

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DIFFERENTIAL ACCESS = FEWER/NO JOBS People having differential access to gig work—such as those from under-represented and disadvantaged populations, and including other categories such as rural workers and single mothers—are less successful at finding jobs than other gig workers. n The reasons why vary. They may not be educated for the specific job sought; their English-speaking skills may not be sufficient; they may not know what jobs exist or how to look for them. n Job posters also aren’t working too hard to make those jobs available. Because it is a labor market, employers are not compelled to do so; it isn’t their problem to find the work. n There is an increasing separation of well-paying work (done by a few) and low-paying work (done by many).

“Immigrants and refugees are very, very aware of how contingent their work lives are, and about living a precarious work life. It’s classic precariousness—they can’t miss work.

If they’re hourly workers, they never get overtime. They have no access to workplace benefits. Working part-time jobs, it’s a precarious lifestyle.” n The children of immigrant and refugee populations having differential (disadvantaged) access to the gig

economy, who are beginning to go to college and starting jobs themselves, have distinct impressions about their work futures.

“All of them are pursuing jobs that are stable. Given the financial realities of their lives, they are unwilling or unable to take risks. More broadly, there is a sense of the precarity.

Even the confident people are still nervous, they just have more of a network of support.”

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n its next phase, Sawyer is expanding the diversity of his team of student interviewers to include more underrepresented individuals in an effort to extend the number of interviews they can achieve and the amount of information the team can obtain from community members being surveyed. A second goal of the research is developing better methods for collecting data on workers and understanding the alternative uses of digital platforms, applications and devices contingent workers use.

“We see our work contributing to policies and programs focused on educating, training, and preparing a more digitally-enabled workforce of the future,” notes Sawyer. “It’s clear that these new digital platforms and gig-work opportunities are only going to get more popular as their adoption steadily increases.” n THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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LAB REPORT

Center for Emerging Network Technologies

T Carlos Caicedo

he mission of the Center for Emerging Net­­work Technologies (CENT) is to understand the future of networking technologies, and to engage students, faculty and industry in the process of defining and shaping that future.

With a focus on emerging network technologies, researchers examine and study the economic and technological trends affecting networking and enterprise data systems, such as new architectures and protocols, wireless technologies, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI).

CENT Director: Carlos Caicedo, associate professor

PROJECTS Internet of Things (IoT) Testbed CENT’s IoT testbed provides an infrastructure for experiential learning and research for IoT. Its management and data processing cluster is set up as an aggregate set of containerized applications for data analysis, storage, and visualization of IoT data.

A new management and automation framework for managing the configuration of a set of sensor boards is being incorporated into the testbed. This framework allows enabling or disabling specific sensor inputs from the boards and/or changing measurement reporting schedules, among other capabilities. The testbed has a connectivity infrastructure that includes a dedicated IoT SSID in Hinds Hall, two LoRaWAN gateways (one in Hinds and the other atop a downtown Syracuse building), and a core network in the CENT lab at Hinds.

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Sleep Experience and Assessment Application (SEAA) With a new one-year CUSE seed grant award, this project is working on development of a wearable smart watch application as an add-on to previous research development work that created a mobile app to monitor sleep disorders.

Called the Sleep Experience and Assessment Application (SEAA), the app helps a team of faculty members from the Syracuse University Psychology Department working together with CENT to monitor the sleep quality of a patient, and plan interventions of interest to the research team.

Researchers are using the improved system to obtain extramural funding for the research and elaboration of an intervention protocol for insomnia and other related sleep disorders.

Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool (SCMBAT) In 2018, the Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool project was awarded a CUSE seed grant under the proposal, “Performance Analysis of Dynamic Spectrum Access Interactions Using Spectrum Consumption Models.”

Its goal is developing a proof of concept implementation of two software-defined radio systems communicating their spectrum use and enabling spectrum sharing interactions via SCMs. The performance of the complete system will be characterized along the dimensions of RF use efficiency, configuration delays and processing load. The implementation and performance findings are being used to apply for research funding and to seek collaborations in the area of dynamic spectrum access.

SCMBAT has been released as an open source tool that aims to incentivize the use of spectrum consumption models, uncover the benefits of their use, collect feedback on their improvement, and contribute to the development of spectrumsharing techniques and standards.

Multi-Agent Simulation for UAV Air Traffic Planning and Management Funding on the project continued for another year, permitting the continuation of work in building a simulator environment to study unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) air space and communication resource management.

Research in 2018 focused on refinements to the simulator to address new UAV air traffic scenarios. Also planned was exploration of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and Deep Neural Network techniques in UAV traffic planning, as well as addressing wireless communication network resource management and design issues for UAV operations. The work continued to involve faculty and students from the iSchool and the College of Engineering and Computer Science, along with air traffic management sector company personnel.

The project is jointly funded by Syracuse University’s Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering (CASE), a NYSTAR-designated Center for Advanced Technology in complex information systems, and the French multinational company Thales.

The cybersecurity testbed provides a practice space for cybersecurity competition student teams, and is an expansion of the original mission of CENT. It also supports the iSchool’s evolving information security curriculum.

Past research areas and projects have included managing a network using SNMPv3, implementation of a WAN emulator, configuration of a SIP Trunk, IPv6 security vulnerabilities, wireless communications–802.11n AP performance, network lab virtualization, and Internet governance issues.

Cybersecurity Competition Base CENT continued to provide a network security testbed base for student teams to practice for national cybersecurity com­petitions. In April, a Syracuse University team won first place and $20,000 in the National Cyber Analyst Challenge at Temple University. The team consisted of Syracuse University iSchool information management graduate students Anil Agrawal, Michael DiFalco, and Dheeraj Menon; and Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science cybersecurity graduate students Priyank Thavai and Sirisha Prakash. Team co-advisor is iSchool Associate Professor Bahram Attaie along with Kevin Du from ECS. A team of iSchool and College of Engineering and Computer Science students won first place and a $20,000 prize in the National Cyber Analyst Challenge at Temple University. From left are team members, iSchoolers Anil Agrawal, Dheeraj Menon, and Michael DiFalco; and ECS students Priyank Thavai and Sirisha Prakash. Faculty advisors are Bahram Attaie, left; and James Enright and Kevin Du, top right.

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What Drives Children to Innovate?

Study Tests Self-Determination Theory, Site Offers Resources for Mentors

T Marilyn Plavocos Arnone

Ruth Small

here’s no question that young children have the capacity and the motivation to create, to innovate, and for many, to become early entrepreneurs. But what drives them to do so? And how can their mentors, including parents, teachers, and librarians, provide guidance and resources to encourage their goals?

Those questions are being examined by Marilyn Plavocos Arnone and Ruth Small in a study that continues similar, earlier research with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. This grant has allowed them to extend their work looking at youth innovators to develop The Innovation Destination website. Their previous work has resulted in some 500-plus video clips by and about young innovators, ideas innovators can use, and resources for children’s educational mentors. Their next project, “Making the Literacy-Innovation Connection for Rural Libraries and their Youngest Patrons,” is supported by IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries programming funds. When completed, it will add another 200 video clips to the site.

Arnone is an iSchool research associate professor and professor of practice. She is principal investigator on the 2018 project. Small is professor emerita at the iSchool and the Laura J. & L. Douglas Meredith Professor at Syracuse University. They have worked together for several years researching children’s innovation and the role that librarians can play supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in young children and teens.

TESTING THEORY In this phase, research was taken a step further by looking at the curiosity triggers and motivations of young innovators, this time with subjects in grades kindergarten through grade 3. (Earlier work included youngsters in grades 4-8.) The researchers also wanted to discover whether self-determination theory is a viable basis for studying innovation among youth. That theory describes three states of motivation: amotivation, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation; and the interaction between external forces and internal motives and needs inherent in human nature. They seek to identify psychological conditions in the innovation experience that support children’s needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

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The researchers interviewed 48 recognized young innovators in grades 4 -8 in the earlier study, equally divided among male and female students. In the next study, they plan to interview 20 additional young innovators in grades K-3.

“We interviewed children to discover what motivated them to participate in invention, design, and creation activities, and what kinds of knowledge and skills they had to master to be successful,” Arnone recounts. “We wanted to know if the selfdetermination theory is viable. The theory has been used across many disciplines and in the area of studying innovative behaviors in the workforce, and more in the case of high school-age student innovation, but not in the context of youth innovation,” she explains.

NEXT CHAPTERS Why examine innovation as a subject instead of simply looking at the concept of creativity in young children?

“Creativity is using the imagination to generate new ideas that could be novel, and improve a novel product or service, with the potential of being implementable,” Arnone explains.

“We are focusing on innovation. Creativity is a part of that, but innovation is the conduit from creativity to entrepreneurship.”

There are several additional areas of inquiry Arn­ one and Small would like to pursue based on the results of this study. They include the differences in processes and outcomes between participation in individual vs. team innovation activities, how and why young innovators learn to face failure and turn failure into success, and

“We are focusing on innovation. Creativity is a part of that, but innovation is the conduit from creativity to entrepreneurship.”

under what circumstances initial interest in innovation turns to deep-level interest —MARILYN ARNONE, RESEARCH and passion.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR “That would be really important if we’re trying to think about how to get more kids into science-related careers,” Arnone adds. “The driving question is, ‘How do we take them from a triggering level of interest to a deep level of interest, and what do we do to support that?’”

Another major question deserving investigation is the absence of participation by those representing some underserved minorities and students with disabilities that this group of subjects illustrated. Arnone would like to assess whether the data illustrates a variant or a norm, and what might cause and remedy lower levels of participation. n

Findings — Grades 4-8 Youth Innovators n Self-determination theory is a viable framework for studying the motivations of youth innovators. n Study participants’ need to demonstrate self-competence was the strongest motivating factor in their success. n The need for feeling supported in their efforts was almost as strong. n Children who reported strong support systems listed those as their parents and mentors, teachers, or an innovation club. n The important connection between perceived competence and autonomy support was evidenced. n The concept of relatedness played a role in the innovators’ motivations, but not as strongly as the need for competence or autonomy. n After competence/confidence, the most frequently tracked concept was that of autonomy/autonomy support. n Themes that came through in interviews relating to autonomy/autonomy support included choice/independence, owning one’s performance, guided coaching and acceptance of support .

The interviews also reinforced findings from Dr. Small’s 2014 study, including: n Young innovators are typically highly interested in and even passionate about innovating. n They express a need for adult mentors. n The support, encouragement and guided coaching of parents and others (particularly during idea generation and preparation for presentation of their innovation at competitions, and for technical and problem-solving issues in their processes) as an important component for building and sustaining innovators’ confidence. n There is strong support for the link between competence and interest/enjoyment of the interest or activity. Those factors are indicators of intrinsic motivation. n The majority of children talked about their parents or other family members when asked who encouraged or supported them the most. n The additional funding received in late 2018 permits the researchers to move ahead on interviews with K-3 youth innovators, prepare an analysis, and compare findings with earlier studies.

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iSchool PUBLIC LIBRARY Initiative

Research Hub for MLIS Students Helps Public Library Staffs, Patrons, Too

A Jill Hurst-Wahl

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s the new iSchool Public Libraries Initiative (IPLI) takes different tacks of inquiry, its efforts are originating a discovery zone for public library innovation, a hub for student research on librarianship topics and a means to circulate new ideas and findings to public library professionals.

The new initiative began officially with the fall 2018 semester. Director Jill Hurst-Wahl, iSchool associate professor of practice and former director of the school’s MLIS program, is joined in the research effort by three MLIS students who are part-time teaching assistants through the school’s Wilhelm Library Scholar Fund.

Though the hub provides an intellectual home for iSchool faculty and students to research public library topics and apply the knowledge they discover, those efforts are providing sign­ ificant public service, as well. The initiative plans to assess needs, collect and catalog existing materials, and develop new segments of informational resources for library staff members working in America’s 17,000 public-library outlets. It is a step those profes­sionals need and can use and which also benefits public library patrons, Hurst-Wahl believes.

Across America, she says, public library staff members support their communities with special, custom programs, despite often facing limited time and resources. They may unintentionally work long and hard creating new programs that other libraries have already developed. As part of its primary goals, the IPLI plans to document and make readily available a cache of tried and tested plans, providing a resource that any library can tap into for inspiration, ideas, and implementation strategies on a wide range of activities and programming.

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Welcoming Innovation At a time when public libraries face mounting operational and community-support challenges, ideas on how to innovate new offerings in the profession are welcome, Hurst-Wahl says.

“Public library staff often lack time and resources, and consequently they may make decisions with a limited amount of information. Many times, especially with smaller libraries, they don’t have the luxury of sitting around and doing deep thinking about what they can offer,” she adds. “I felt that a group of researchers could provide better information and distribute it so that it is available to libraries, providing information about projects and programs that are in use and that are successful.”

IPLI Director Jill Hurst-Wahl, center, meets weekly with IPLI project researchers.

At left is Sabrina Unrein; at right, Georgia Westbrook, both iSchool master’sdegree students.

The IPLI’s defined goals include: n Researching the state of public libraries and their communi-

ties with a focus on information needed by decision-makers and advocates n Compiling and disseminating information about how libraries are innovating and helping them build their capacity to do so n Applying iSchool research (such as issues about information privacy and the use of technology in marginalized communities) to the public library setting n Developing white papers, trade and scholarly articles, webinars, and presentations on innovation for the public library community’s use n Offering classes and professional development programming for library staff, administration and trustees on various topics, including collecting and using data to support public library activities.

Three Student Researchers

information from all 50 states on the legal structures of public libraries. She has used her software development expertise to create a critique of state library websites and provide advice on what a 21st-century library website should contain. The goal is to help libraries design sites that improve public perception, avoid security threats, and provide accessible functionality features. Georgia Westbrook has examined how public libraries originated and spread across the United States. Working with the EveryLibrary Institute, her work provides insights into how libraries that want to change their structures, charters, and legal organization can do so.

In its initial phase, the IPLI already has sparked interaction, engagement, and conversations with library practitioners in the United States and Canada who want to know how the initiative can affect their work, according to Hurst-Wahl. “The circle of people who want to be involved is large, and now we need to develop ways of engaging them in our efforts. From my work as a practitioner, trainer, consultant, and volunteer, I know that these library staff members need more information on what they are doing as a group, so they can learn from each other.” n

Three graduate students are working with Hurst-Wahl on a range of research efforts. Heather Elia has examined inno­vative services and programs that public libraries have offered and has collected documentation on how those efforts were planned and implemented. Sabrina Unrein has gathered THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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Stretching Library Catalog Metadata for Community Diversity Needs

L Rachel Ivy Clarke

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ibrary catalogs can go well beyond their traditional functions in finding materials, identifying entities, selecting entities, and obtaining access to materials, iSchool Assistant Professor Rachel Ivy Clarke believes. With diversity as a core value of American librarianship, she proposes that a differently-structured “critical catalog” can also fulfill the purposes of navigation and discovery, education, social connection and interaction, and expression for libraries.

A paper on that concept, developed by Clarke and MLIS student and research assistant Sayward Schoonmaker, earned honors from the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) at its annual conference in November. They proposed a catalog system that uses metadata to act as an affirmative action system, advocating for diversity and exposing library users and readers to resources from populations traditionally marginalized in literature and publishing. The writing won a best paper proposal award from ASIS&T’s Culture, Com­ munity and Voice in Knowledge Organization Systems subcommittee.

“The Critical Catalog: Giving Voice to Diverse Library Materials through Provocative Design” describes a catalog tool that filters topics differently than through mainstream traditional attributes. The idea was to flip the script on traditional library cataloging systems, Clarke says. Instead of defaulting to findings that characterize “the white heteronormative male author,” the system is mapped to be pre­ disposed to finding materials created by underrepresented and marginalized individuals.

The dichotomy in the current system is what prompted the pair to take a fresh view at how catalogs find information and how they could effect changes in the way that process occurs.

“The number of published resources in the U.S. by and about diverse peoples is disproportionally small. Nevertheless, libraries are charged with promoting diverse materials and advocating for diverse populations. They need to explicitly express such aims in their catalogs in ways that advocate for diverse materials, encourage exposure of such THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

materials to a broader audience, and prevent the unintentional erasure of such materials in library collections,” Clarke contends.

“Instead of user-applied filtering or other traditional attributes, the critical catalog challenges the library status quo by returning only results from marginalized authors. Even as a mere thought experiment, our proposed provocative system offers the possibility to raise awareness of diverse library materials, expose readers to new and different resources, ideas and cultures, alter reading habits, and ultimately provide more equitable representation by preventing the inadvertent and unintentional erasure of diverse library materials, giving voice to marginalized communities,” she explains.

“The system is mapped to be predisposed to finding materials created by under-represented and marginalized individuals, rather than defaulting to findings that characterize, ‘the white heteronormative male author.’”

RACHEL IVY CLARKE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

EARLY DISCOVERY As research progressed, findings included the issue of conflation in metadata. “A lot of concepts are grouped together and that makes it hard to find people by a particular characteristic,” Clarke explains. “The Library of Congress, for instance, lists Langston Hughes’ occupation as ‘Authors, Black,’ but that is problematic for people who are interested in a search for people who are authors, or Black, or both. It’s a term that’s also not consistently applied.

Identities are conflated and tangled, and metadata is highly inconsistent. Maya Angelou’s occupation is listed as a poet, an author, an entertainer, a college teacher, and a political activist, but not identified as Black,” Clarke illustrates.

DESCRIPTIVE DATA NEEDED

DESIGN AS RESEARCH METHOD

With a goal of getting people who don’t ordinarily seek out diverse reading materials to find some they wouldn’t discover on their own, descriptive metadata is a necessary element, Clarke concedes.

To that end, her research has looked at some two dozen traditional and non-traditional metadata schemas, including ones intended to describe zines, poetry, and queer comics databases to see what sort of metadata elements and values they use for search terms.

Clarke and Schoonmaker also looked at whether there are precedents for gender, age, geographic region, intended audiences, and racial, national, and cultural identities within those schemas. Their research began with built-in challenges to test the viability and rigor of their own concept, Clarke says. They have been examining test models and selecting challenging exercises to test the ability of their metadata system to accurately and appropriately filter information. Using the opensource software program Koha, an integrated library system that includes catalog functionality, they have been working to see if they can break their own system. Initial work is being done manually, and they are looking at ways to batch-load and automate the process, as well.

The project’s end result may be more about a concept or an abstract system of cataloging than a marketable product, Clarke acknowledges.

She’d be content with a metadata schema, or a crowdsourcing system that lets authors selfdescribe using hashtags or another means, or the development of a controlled vocabulary for widespread cataloging applications that reflects more accuracy and diversity.

The concept of design as a research method in and of itself is central to Clarke’s research philosophy, and she sees librarianship as a design discipline. Working to get people to think about informational materials they might not normally be drawn to is an important aspect of library function in the community and valuable enough in itself, she says. It is a goal that aligns with the greater good of libraries as reflectors of their communities.

“Those can all be valuable contributions to the library field. Unless you’re seeking out diverse selections, you’re not necessarily going to be exposed to those,” she adds. “Ultimately, I hope this leads to more people reading outside of their comfort zone. There is a lot of research that shows that when we read more diversely, our empathy for others in­creases and our understanding of others increases.” n

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LAB REPORT

A

dvancing social sciences research using advanced computational approaches is the focus of The Center for Computational and Data Sciences (CCDS).

Projects incorporate the iSchool strengths in human language technologies and data science.

Researchers seek to answer pressing problems in the social sciences by collecting large-scale behavioral, interactional, and other data and applying data science processes and human language technologies to address them. They also seek to further the science of data collection, retrieval, curation, analysis, and archiving.

THE TEAM

Jennifer StromerGalley

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Director: Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor n Nancy McCracken, research associate professor n Jeff Hemsley, assistant professor n Jeffrey Saltz, associate professor n Lu Xiao, associate professor n Bei Yu, associate professor n Daniel Acuna, assistant professor n Brian McKernan, research assistant professor n Yatish Hegde, research staff member n Kevin Crowston, associate dean for research n Patricia Rossini, postdoctoral researcher n Brian Semaan, assistant professor Students: Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Feifei Zhang, Brian Dobreski, Yingya Li, Mahboobeh Harandi, Jerry Robinson, Sam Jackson, Olga Boichak and Karen Hawkinson.

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PROJECTS NLP Analysis of Science Communications Katchmar-Wilhelm Associate Professor Bei Yu has been applying natural language processing principles and tools to scientific com­munication to analyze the differences in the ways various people describe similar topics and how those descriptions can potentially skew meaning, particularly when the topics involve health information.

Yu has built a computational model based on the language of certainty and has been gathering and comparing science claims from prior research for the comparisons. She looks at the differences in how members of the general public describe topics (such as health issues) in the news and on social media, versus the type of communication on the same topics as described directly by the involved scientists. The goal is to

monitor the quality of science communication to sort out misinformation and inaccurate analysis of scientific claims. Her work uses biomedical literature and data from the National Institute of Health.

Aware that misinformation can easily be conveyed and harder to detect now, Yu believes that natural language processing may be a way to help sort accurate from inaccurate information. She next wants to apply opinion mining and sentiment analysis tools to the exercise.

Master’s student Jieke Zhang and doctoral student Yingya Li have worked with Yu on the project.

Un-Conference participants enjoyed the informal, peer-to-peer environment.

A First: Un-Conference The Center for Computational Data Sciences hosted its first Syracuse University-wide Un-Conference in September.

The event provided academics from the Syracuse University community space and time for peer-to-peer learning, collab­ oration, and creativity with the goal that they connect to form­ ulate plans for collaborations around research and teaching.

The first event’s broad themes were “Democracy, Digital Media, Decision-Making, Data Analytics.”

The un-conference format is participant-driven, and the agenda is set by those who attend. The format provides for networking, conversation, and brainstorming in an informal setting.

Attendees are encouraged to take part in many different information sessions and lead a discussion focused on one of the event’s themes or a question they’d like to discuss.

A diverse group of faculty representing different disciplines, methodologies, and ontologies were invited, according to CCDS Director Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley, who said the idea was “to get people talking who do not normally get such chances.” Thirty-seven participants attended.

Alexandra Sargent, CCDS project manager and a conference organizer, said the Center was motivated to organize the event following productive discussions around big idea initiatives that led to Syracuse University’s CUSE Grants program.

Deep Learning with TensorFlow Discussion CCDS hosted Roc Myers for a discussion of the uses and strategies for TensorFlow, an open source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs.

Myers serves as subject matter expert for the TRACE project. He has more than 30 years of experience in intelligence systems operation and development. He is the founder of Pertis, a company specializing in consulting and research of artificial intelligence and computer gaming technologies. n THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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Study Defining Civility’s Fine Line In Facebook Political Commenting

W Patricia Rossini

hen does a political comment cross the line from being emotive opinion to uncivil remark, and what elements of that commentary distinguish one characteristic from the other?

That’s the examination that has taken place in the 2018 phase of a project that reviews political conversations on social media. Using start-of-the-art computational approaches for studying unstructured text, researchers are capturing and analyzing messaging of candidates, and public feedback about what political candidates are saying, on the social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

“We launched the Illuminating project to help describe and visualize the avalanche of social media messages being generated by political candidates and talk about the campaigns by the public using algorithms to classify the talk into different categories, like attack and advocacy,” explained Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor and director of CCDS. iSchool researchers first began tracking those discussions in 2014. In 2016, they undertook a comprehensive review of social media messaging of the many candidates in that year’s presidential election.

“What we want to do now with a new coding scheme is to try to classify and disentangle the kind of comments that are attack comments versus those saying something about a policy or issue. Incivility is very context-oriented, so it is hard to classify reliably.”

PATRICIA ROSSINI, POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER

“We’re trying to disentangle attacks apart from heated expressions of opinions, the latter of which are common online,” says Patricia Rossini, a post-doctoral researcher project lead in the Center for Computational Data Science (CCDS) Lab. “What we’ve been trying to do is understand more about how incivility is employed. Saying a remark is uncivil is very meaningful—but the question is, What is it uncivil about? This helps us understand more about the argumentative role of incivility in public discourse around elections.”

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INCIVILITY IN CONTEXT Initially, the research looked at a binary justification of whether or not specific remarks were civil or uncivil in character, Rossini says. “What we want to do now with a new coding scheme is to try to classify and disentangle the kind of comments that are attack comments versus those saying something about a policy or issue. Incivility is very context-oriented, so it is hard to classify reliably,” she explains.

In the study, Rossini and a group of undergraduate students are cataloging and qualifying social conversations, and differentiating between civil and uncivil types of remarks using machine learning techniques. They classify the comments made around candidates in both 2016 and 2018 elections. The review also looks at what types of comments can constitute a different type of conversation, rising to the level of hate speech and violent threats. “This will help to understand what the argumentative role of incivility is in public discourse around elections, while trying to disentangle incivility from intolerant discourse,” Rossini adds.

In 2018, the project worked with undergraduate student researchers to develop a reliable classification system for conversation characteristics. Researchers have analyzed comments made by congressional and gubernatorial candidates online on the social platform Facebook. The project also is on track to do the same for candidates for the 2020 presidential election.

Another part of the study is systematically looking at how the public uses candidates’ Face­book pages to interact with them during elections. Concurrently, the study also examines whether there are any meaningful strategies that candidates’ campaigns use to converse with their audiences and to convey their positions on policies and issues through those platforms, Rossini says.

The effort is part of the iSchool CCDS and the Behavioral, Information Technology and Society (BITS) Labs work, led by Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley and Assistant Professor Jeffery Hemsley.

CLINTON-TRUMP FINDINGS The controversial presidential election of 2016 yielded a rich research environment for the project, and Rossini reports a number of findings that their analysis of social comments revealed: n In interactions between candidates Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, there was a consistent recognition that Clinton was more likely to get uncivil attacks by public commenters n The vocabulary used by Donald Trump, including namecalling tactics (naming other candidates as “crooks” and “liars”), particularly against Clinton, were adopted by public commenters in their own remarks about Clinton n Clinton was consistently the target of negative, uncivil attacks from the media and the public more than Trump was, for these potential reasons: n Because she has been in public life for a long time, including as a first lady, and thus has experienced prior negative media coverage (and the “stickiness” of that negative image appears to have been retained) n Because she is a woman, and female politicians are usually held to a higher standard than their male counterparts, so she may have a “built-in” negative public image.

(There seems to be a consistent standing that female politicians are more likely to be attacked, harassed, and held to a higher standard.) n For female candidates, there seems to be a double-bind: if they are too feminine, that is a poor reflection, yet if they are not feminine enough, that reflects badly on them, as well.

While media coverage emphasized a polarized election, there did not appear to be a correlation between public mirroring of attack comments and strategies employed by various candidates to attack others on social media. Though that seems counterintuitive, the research did not bear out that when candidates are more negative and uncivil, public commenters become more negative and uncivil, too. n

Post-doctoral Awards and Accolades Patricia Rossini, post-doctoral researcher, with Assistant Professor Jeffery Hemsley, doctoral candidates Sikana Tanupabrungsun, and Feifei Zhang, and Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley, published “Social Media, Opinion Polls and the Use of Persuasive Messages During the 2016 U.S. Election Primaries,” in Social Media + Society.

Rossini also had an article published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, “The Relationship Between Race Competitiveness, Standing in the Polls, and Social Media Communications Strategies During the 2014 U.S. Gubernatorial Campaigns.”

Co-authors are Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Kate Kenski, Jeffery Hemsley, Feifei Zhang, and Brian Dobreski.

Research Assistant Professor Brian McKernan, left, works on a CCDS project with postdoctoral researcher Patricia Rossini.

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Testing Moves TRACE App Closer To Patent Application Stage

L Jennifer StromerGalley

Carsten Oesterlund

arge-scale experiments testing a prototype web app that provides a flexible work space and guided analysis tools for complex reasoning and decision-making significantly advanced TRACE research in 2018.

The TRACE (Trackable Reasoning and Analysis for Col­lab­oration and Evaluation) app is being developed as a multi-university, interdisciplinary research project with iSchool Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley as principal investigator.

The prototype uses principles of human computer interaction and user-centered design, along with structured techniques and smart nudging, to improve the analysis and report writing of intelligence agency analysts such as the Central Intelligence Agency.

As an outgrowth of three major experiments in seven months of rigorous testing, the TRACE team hopes to patent its approach to supporting complex reasoning. In addition, the research team is planning to commercialize TRACE. One of the benefits the TRACE app offers is a suite of tools that supports analytical reasoning, including helping the user to consider different hypotheses and also how to write a report for a lawmaker or other decision-maker.

HCI AS CORE

Nancy McCracken

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Stromer-Galley says that the research team’s awareness of user-centered design was a major factor in its successful technique prototyping.

“We find that user-centered design matters. In building software or interventions that will help support very complex reasoning, the iterative work we did to test early versions of the software with small groups of people, getting input and feedback and observing their interactions with the application, was tremendously effective early on to understanding what we needed to provide analysts to create an effective tool for them,” she says.

The prototyping took into account the social context within which users did their analysis work, in addition to its technical and engineering capacities. The design team looked at users’ work processes, work flows, pain points and team-cooperation aspects. Taking those non-mechanical aspects into account was critical to a good outcome, says the professor.

“I think social science has a lot to offer in terms of helping deal with these complex challenges because they aren’t only engineering problems, they deal with psychological, time management, and other issues,” Stromer-Galley adds. “It’s important to understand social contexts so that we can design with the humans who use these systems in mind, and not just look at the engineering processes.”

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PROCESSES Seven undergraduate students completed all the evaluations using software specifically built to help with that task. They used a systematic codebook and a set of criteria to score all reports. The reports were scored on a 22-point scale focused on a dozen different elements of scoring. The aspects evaluated and scored included these questions: n Did report writers provide reasoning for decisions? n If so, were the reasons coming from source materials? n Did report writers include disconfirming information? n What other hypotheses were considered, and/or rejected,

and why? n Did report writers articulate assumptions brought into the analysis? n Were there potential gaps in information? n If that information had been included, would it have changed the analysis?

Here is a summary of two of the experiments:

Experiment 1 Goal: To understand how to improve the quality of analytical reasoning around complex problems.

The test involved comparing the TRACE technique of analysis—using an app that involves structured techniques and nudging—to a common technique used in intelligence analysis, the analysis of competing hypotheses. (That technique was developed in the 1990s by two intelligence agency analysts as a way to help reduce cognitive biases and help people interrogate a problem they were working with to arrive at a high-quality judgment.)

How: An analyst was given a scenario, such as trying to understand the motivation of an actor. (As an example, the scenario of assessing the motivations of North Korean President Kim Jong-un in meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. Ana­ lysts would then have to assess Kim Jong-un’s motivations in doing so; e.g., Was he using the visit to gain leverage for more U.S. funding aid; was he using it to bolster his status among his own people?) Analysts were given a variety of materials to use in the analysis, such as news reports. A control mechanism (unaided reasoning) was put in place.

Findings:

Goal: To see if through greater use and familiarity with the TRACE process, users’ analysis over time would improve.

How: In a longitudinal experiment, the same set of users were given a series of four situational problems to analyze over a series of time.

Findings:

Co-PIs: Carsten Oesterlund, Syracuse University iSchool; James Folkestad, Colorado State University; Kate Kenski, University of Arizona; Lael Schooler, Syracuse University Arts & Sciences/Psychology; Ben Clegg, University of Colorado State; Brian McKernan, Syracuse University iSchool; Nancy McCracken, Syracuse University iSchool Post Doc: Patricia Rossini, Syracuse University iSchool Support Personnel: Yatish Hedge, Syracuse University iSchool research staff; Alex Sargent, project manager From SRC Inc.: Deborah Plochocki, Lou Nau, and the rest of the SRC Inc. Team Subject Matter Experts: Roc Myers, Sarah Taylor

TRACE Supporting ST-guided Analysis

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Users did not experience an improvement in the accuracy level of their judgment. However, the quality of reasoning improved over the course of the series of times that subjects undertook the process.

As subjects progressed through the experiments, they used fewer features of TRACE (indicating the possibilities of increased knowledge, familiarity with the app and the ability to deduce shortcuts as they learned.)

The TRACE Project has been supported by the CREATE (Crowdsourcing Evidence, Reasoning, Argumentation, Thinking and Evaluation) Program of the Intelligence Ad­vanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). IARPA is an arm of the Office for the Director of National Intelligence that heads the nation’s intelligence services. The project’s first phase is worth $5,215,441. Funds of $1 million were awarded in 2017, followed by $508,263 awarded in 2018.

PI: Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Syracuse University iSchool

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Crowdsourcing User Network

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Experiment 2

THE TRACE PROJECT RESEARCH TEAM:

M ys St tery ru -s ct ol ur vi es ng

The TRACE app prototype, with its more flexible analytical technique, significantly outperformed the other two conditions: the more rigid, classic structure of the competing hypothesis analytical approach and unaided reasoning.

When analysts didn’t use TRACE, they were unable to provide as much information overall and did not remember as many pertinent details to include in their reports.

The rigid and unstructured classic technique was fatiguing to analysts. By the time they finished this process, their fatigue created a reluctance to spend added time writing an extensive analysis.

A variety of memory aids in TRACE were useful in helping analysts to better recall details to add to their reports.

u ct

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Human Factors/Site Factors: What Delineates Social Sharing?

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Jeff Hemsley

here does the line exist between how humans naturally react and communicate, and how they do so because of the nature of the social communication platforms they are using?

That’s the question Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor, is looking at in research that examines the design inspiration and sharing niche website, Dribbble. It’s a platform that’s called a show-and-tell for graphic designers.

“We’ve studied viral events a lot on the big sites, but what we haven’t done is untangle how much of what we’re seeing in viral events is basic human nature and how much of it is a result of the affordances of different platforms,” Hemsley explains.

His research reviews different types of platforms to see what is similar and what is different in the way information is shared on the sites. It’s a way to start understanding the demarcation between information sharing as an outgrowth of natural human behavior versus that which occurs due to unique compositions and characteristics of various platforms and the algorithms of the modern social media landscape, he says.

Hemsley hopes to answer these questions: n Are the same factors that drive viral events on Twitter present and working in the same ways on Dribbble? n Can we computationally detect changes in players’ work that might indicate diffusion? n Do players think about virality when using Dribbble?”

Hemsley has been studying virality for years and coauthored a book on the topic, Going Viral. He’s come to understand some of the qualities about the kind of content that captures the attention of social media audiences and causes them to repost and spread it repeatedly, sometimes many thousands of times over. Virality is particularly interesting and pertinent because the spread of social messages can have tangible social and institutional impact, he believes.

“As viral events spread in our social networks, they can affect organizations, individuals, and institutions. That impact can change the structure of our social networks. And as viral events spread and actually change the social network structures, you can make the argument that those network structures affect our social structures—as in power relationships, class, norms, and culturally related things—and that can change social structures.”

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During the year, Hemsley’s research produced these general findings: n Virality happens within a context; the content being shared has to be contextually relevant in society at any given time. n Viral events happening on the website Dribbble do occur in much the same way viral events happen on the mainstream social site, Twitter. n Virality can be driven by both on-site and off-site events (in Dribbble, as well as in mainstream social platforms). n What spreads on a site like Dribbble isn’t an image or a specific content artifact, but design elements, like color palettes, textures and geometry. n On Dribbble, users go to the site primarily to gain inspiration for their own graphic designs. n Users also save inspiring artwork into content buckets to tap for future inspiration for their own work.

Hemsley also is studying the impact of gatekeepers on social media platforms and their role in promoting virality. His research shows that, while social media is a democratic communication medium offering level access to nearly everyone, content spreads much further and becomes much more viral if “social gatekeepers” become involved in repeating the content.

Traditionally, those acting as gatekeepers on social streams are people in the media, such as editors, but others players can act in that capacity.

“Gatekeepers don’t have to be The New York Times,” says Hemsley. “They could be the top 10 percent of Twitter users.

They also don’t even have to be human. The gatekeeper social communication role can also be fulfilled by the algorithms that shape what we see on the sites we’re on.”

Hemsley’s research on Dribbble is part of a larger research direction where he’s studying niche social sites to determine if interactions and sharing occurs in the same or different ways than they do on mainstream social sites. He has been able to speak with the CEO of Dribbble, Zack Onisko, to explain his project. Onisko is interested in the research and has agreed to make some data from the platform available to Hemsley and his research team in order to further understanding of their questions. n

STUDENT ACCOLADES

Master’s Student Awards and Accolades Smirity Kaushik presented, “Enabling Privacy by Design in GDPR: An Analysis of Industry Tool Support,” co-authored with Assistant Professor Yang Wang, at the CHI2018 workshop titled, “The General Data Protection Regulation, an opportunity for the HCI Community.”

Five iSchool graduate students, Suchitra Deekshitula, Anish Nair, Ashmin Swain, Rahul Sarkhel, and Shikhar Agrawal, won third place in the Plowing Through the Data Hackathon in March. It was organized by the iSchool, the City of Syracuse, and AT&T. They crafted a project that examined the analytics related to plowing, focusing on how much work the trucks were doing at different periods of time, to try to build a route optimization algorithm for the trucks. Their team won a $1,500 prize. There were more than 90 participants, including community members and Syracuse University students, who worked across 36 teams who worked with datasets from the City’s fleet of snowplows.

The team of Shama Kamat, Shubham Bhatia, Aditya Chauhan, Alan Nguyen, and Anmol Handa. all master’s students in the Information Management and Applied Data Science programs, took top prize in the IBM Call for Code Hackathon held at the Blackstone LaunchPad in September. Their winning concept was a Disaster Recovery as a Service (DR-a-a-S) program as a plan to help execute disaster relief in a transparent and fast way. The competition was part of IBM’s global Call for Code initiative.

The IBM Call for Code Hackathon event winning team, in black shirts from left, are graduate students Shama Kamat, Shubham Bhatia, Aditya Chauhan, Alan Nguyen, and Anmol Handa.

Assistant Professor Rachel Clarke, left, and MLIS Student Sayward Schoonmaker accept their ASIS&T recognition certificates.

The Plowing Through the Data Hackathon third-place winning team consisted of graduate students Suchitra Deekshitula, Anish Nair, Ashmin Swain, Rahul Sarkhel, and Shikhar Agrawal.

A paper describing a proposal to create a new type of library catalog that uses metadata to act as an affirmative action mechanism won honors as “Best Paper Proposal” for iSchool MLIIS student Sayward Schoonmaker.

The recognition came from the Association for Information Science and Technology subcommittee, Culture, Community, and Voice in Knowledge Systems Organizations. It was awarded to Schoonmaker and Assistant Professor Rachel Ivy Clarke, who presented the topic at a workshop at the ASIS&T annual meeting in Vancouver. The paper is titled, “The Critical Catalog: Giving Voice to Diverse Library Materials through Provocative Design.”

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The iSchool: ‘Open Arms’ for Undergraduate and Master’s Student Research

I

n 2018, Syracuse University announced a new institutional emphasis on undergraduate research that included a sharpened focus, a dedicated office, and $1 million in new annual funding. At the iSchool, though, the welcome mat for undergraduates and master’s-level students to be part of leading-edge, faculty-led research work has been out for many years.

Involving undergraduates in research early and often is simply part of the iSchool’s inclusive nature.

Most of the time, undergrads who work on projects are funded through school programming monies or are covered on funding lines in grants. iSchool faculty invest full faith and scholarship in these young researchers, providing them with roles in their labs and on teams with doctoral students. They give them support to build apps and do field interviews, attend conferences, present posters, and co-author papers. Undergrads here enjoy a full-fledged, researchenvironment experience.

What does it take for young students to begin to think of themselves as research professionals?

How do they find research opportunities? How does the experience benefit their career goals? Several students who are involved in research at the iSchool in 2018 reflect here on their experiences.

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I

James Lu

S&T senior James Lu grew up hearing his father, who came to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D., talk about his research, so the idea of being a researcher was always a part of Lu’s own plan. At the iSchool, he was able to launch that goal in his junior year.

It wasn’t hard to find a research opportunity or a welcoming faculty member to work with at the iSchool, he says. Lu only had to email Bryan Semaan about joining the assistant professor’s human-computer inter­action effort. Semaan “was very friendly. He emailed back, and we started meeting, and he just took me in. He’s always looking for students and anyone interested in this field. He’s always big open-arms.

I want to be a professor one day, and he’s a very good model for that,” Lu adds.

Lu’s early research involvement has been key to the doctoral program he plans to undertake someday, parti­ cularly because he initially struggled a bit deciding what to do with his IS&T major. “You go to iSchool. You become a consultant; that’s often the expectation,” he says. “But there’s more than

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“Don’t be afraid to ask a professor, particularly an iSchool professor, for research opportunities. They’re very nice and very open to young undergraduate students.

Start early, and if you see any research you like, email the professor and ask about it.

They’re more than willing to talk to you.”

JAMES LU, IS&T SENIOR

just consulting in the technology world.

I knew I wanted to go into research and I’m very grateful I was able to get the opportunity to do this research here.”

Lu and his team are part of Semaan’s work designing a mobile app to help veterans transition to civilian life. That’s led to an opportunity for Lu to co-present findings at the iSchools Organization iConference. While Lu is considering an information school for a doctoral program, he’ll be gaining professional experience too, taking a job upon graduation in the government.

“Working with people and projects where I can employ the kind of thinking that I characterize as connective and associative, and incorporating both form and content for any system or structure or institution, satisfies my default for deep thinking. It means I have a place. There’s also a dominant practical component: I’ve talked about it in every cover letter I’ve written and I’ve talked about it in job interviews.”

L

Sayward Schoonmaker

ibrary and Information Science student Sayward Schoonmaker describes herself as a bit of an outlier, so doing unconventional research involving critical design and metadata analysis suited her just fine. She joined Assistant Professor Rachel Ivy Clarke in a project to develop a new type of library catalog. It uses metadata as an affirmative action system to advocate for diversity and expose library users and readers to resources from populations traditionally marginalized in literature and publishing.

“I like working with Rachel because we’re never simply looking at content.

We’re looking at metadata, but not just as, ‘Here it is. What does it mean?’ We’re looking at it in context, and all the structures that construct the project are as meaningful in themselves as the information itself or the content that populates those structures. I come into this field not only from an arts background but also a lifelong allegiance to art and art-making. I was concerned about not being able to be an artist within it. So finding a research opportunity where the professor appreciates and embraces that is my way of thinking is really important.”

SAYWARD SCHOONMAKER, SECOND-YEAR MLIS STUDENT

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Shanyah Saunders

rom her sophomore year on, Shanyah Saunders focused on skill-building courses for a web development and design career. When her senior year schedule left her more free time, she looked at rounding out her iSchool experiences with a volunteer research project.

As an Information Management and Technology (IM&T) major with double minors in public communication at Syracuse’s Newhouse School and global security at its Maxwell School, she was drawn to Professor Jennifer StromerGalley’s work analyzing social media conversations. She’s on a sub-team of four students cataloging emotions expressed on Facebook posts around the time of the 2016 presidential election.

Taking a social media course with Stromer-Galley helped Saunders become aware of unique research possibilities. “I think subconsciously I’ve

always been attracted to research, but I was unaware that it was possible to do it in my field. I’m very interested in how humans navigate different spaces and how people interact with technology. That course helped me recognize I could apply my global security and IM&T interests to research.”

Her project has been a good change of pace, Saunders says. “It’s more about providing knowledge than about coming up with a solution. It showed me that you need a diverse team so people can see things differently. It taught me that even though machine learning and robots are the future, humans will always be needed to do the research and create the systems.”

“Professor Stromer-Galley incorporated news of her research into her class, so I felt very comfortable reaching out to her for a research opportunity. She’s great about facilitating undergraduates and doctoral students working together and about providing the input we need—a lot of interesting reads, real-world examples and resources.”

SHANYAH SAUNDERS, SENIOR IM&T STUDENT

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Alaina Caruso

H

er honors program class provided the entrée for Alaina Caruso to obtain a campus job as a paid research assistant in the second semester of her freshman year. Impressed with her skills in his class, Professor Steven Sawyer emailed the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications PR major asking if she would be interested in being part of his Gig Economy project.

“As a freshman, I had no idea you could really do this; I thought research work was just for upperclassmen,” Caruso says. “I didn’t really know anything about behavioral research.

I’m definitely getting something out of this. It’s teaching me how to research professionally—that’s a huge part of PR. It’s letting me stay one step ahead of the other students in my class.”

The sophomore has been conducting research about how people find freelance work and will begin interviewing them about their experiences. She now advises other freshmen students to search for research opportunities by contacting professors and exploring possibilities outside of their own school.

“I think it’s the best job on campus.

And when I apply for internships, employers are very interested. They ask me about it and they admire that I’m a researcher,” she says.

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“Because of my Newhouse COM 117 class, I’m completely comfortable with interviewing. Other team members felt like that was something they had to practice. I don’t know about coding, and I don’t have the same kinds of knowledge that the other iSchool students have, but I bring something to the team that others may not have that much experience in.”

ALAINA CARUSO, SOPHOMORE RESEARCH ASSISTANT

F

Tajanae Harris

or Tajanae Harris, seeing herself as a researcher was more a matter of finding good opportunities than developing a researcher’s mindset.

The junior anthropology major at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citi­zenship and Public Affairs is completing a minor in data analytics at the iSchool. She plans to enter a doctoral program in human computer interaction someday. As an undergraduate, she became a Syracuse University McNair Scholar in order to pursue independent research.

THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

An email that the iSchool sent to students who had done well in data science classes provided a new research lead for Tajanae. She has worked with iSchool Associate Director of Research Kevin Crowston and Associate Professor Carsten Oesterlund on Gravity Spy, a crowdsourcing citizen science project with the Laser Interferometer Gravi­ tational-Wave Observatory. The multiyear project is funded by a million dollar grant from the National Science Foun­ dation. She is the only undergraduate on the research team. She has worked with Assistant Professor Jeffery Hemsley on a data visualization project, too.

“My anthropology background has helped to make me a better researcher,” Harris observes, noting the interpersonal aspects of her research work. “That’s something that you don’t get with hundreds of thousands of data points.

But I see myself as a data scientist, as well.

There needs to be more critical thinking about who collects data and how, and my social science training better allows me to address those questions.” n

“Research is not like a ‘Capital R’ type of thing. I think research is curiosity, and I’ve always been a curious person, but research has allowed me to formalize that. I don’t see it as an academic thing; I see it as a way of life.”

TAJANAE HARRIS, JUNIOR ANTHROPOLOGY/ DATA SCIENCE MAJOR

THE SCIENCE OF SCIENCE

Figure Re-Use Detection Tool Advances in Speed, Sophistication

D

aniel Acuna’s research looks at how machines can digitally examine documents and images to determine their authenticity, and whether the images have been falsified, plucked from other sources, or have had their content manipulated. In 2018, Acuna developed a boosted level of scalability and built a web tool for use in bioscience-scale automated detection of figure element reuse.

Acuna, an assistant professor at the iSchool, filed a patent application late in the year for what he believes will become a new software product that uses the thinking ability of computers to digitally analyze images at finely-tuned levels. The tool detects fine elements and unique compositional aspects of scientific figures—their visual “fingerprints”—to determine if the images are authentic, or whether they’ve been re-used, reconfigured, or otherwise “doctored.” He has named the tool, “Dr. Figures.”

ONE SECOND PER IMAGE The application works at extremely fast speeds, typically analyzing images at a rate of less than one second per image.

It detects whether an image submitted via PDF format has been rotated, stretched, changed in color, contrast, or blurring, or previously used elsewhere. The tool works no matter how an image may have been manipulated. Its distinctive fingerprint composition remains intact, remaining as a telltale signature of its origin. The tool then compares the fingerprint of the figure in question to those of other similar images to discern its authenticity, or whether there may be a potential breach of integrity.

Acuna now plans further refinements of the tool to optimize it for faster speeds and the ability to work even more quickly within an extensive database of some three million images.

WORK-WORLD FEEDBACK In this “science of science” arena, Acuna’s research has led him to work with academic journal editors, research integrity officers at post-secondary colleges and medical institutions, and many offices of academic research. He also is in contact with journalists whose focus is revealing fraud and errors in research, academic, and medical disciplines. While those folks are well-meaning, the task of verifying images in publications is labor- and time-intensive, cumbersome process-wise, and quite costly. Though resources for detecting similarities and falsifications in text submissions have been in use for several years, the field has lacked a technological solution to finding duplicate

Daniel Acuna, assistant professor, has his web tool online and is obtaining feedback on it while it is in beta stage. He calls the figure re-use detetection tool “Dr. Figures.”

images across research literature, he adds. Many times a figure re-use can be verified within a publication, but less so across different publications and most certainly not across years of published materials.

Acuna says he has been enjoying collaborating with the editors of journals and scientific articles who use scientific images in their publications. Their feedback is helpful, he says, and they are giving him ideas on how to improve and fine-tune the tool, as well as ideas on other kinds of analysis they would like to see.

“I think that a great deal of scientific fraud will be, sooner or later, detectable by automatic methods,” Acuna comments.

“Right now, most of the detections are within the figure, and they go figure by figure, but it is difficult to detect figure re-use across pages, and even more impossible to do that across papers. I know cases where people have published fraudulent figures that have resulted in faulty operations that ultimately led to terrible medical problems,” he explains.

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Stigmergic Coordination How a New Custom App Could Support Improved Online Task Collaboration

I Kevin Crowston

f humans had a natural gift for working in an autonomouscoordination fashion, the way ants in their colonies seem to do, the online work being done by distributed teams would be that much easier to understand, track, and complete.

Examining the ways that work occurs online among geographically-dispersed individuals who coordinate over time towards a common goal was the gist of Kevin Crowston’s National Science Foundation-funded study, “Supporting Stigmergic Coordination.” He received a grant of $499,931 to conduct a two-part study. Now in its second phase, the research continues in beta-testing and refinement.

In the project’s first part through 2017, Crowston and his team of researchers identified socio-technical affordances enabling stigmergic coordination in FLOSS (free/libre open source software) development teams and similar settings.

Throughout 2018, the team built a custom web application to support R program development for data science analysis.

They have been testing it via experiments in iSchool graduate data science classes at the iSchool.

Crowston is the Associate Dean for Research and Distin­ guished Professor of Information Science at the iSchool. The project research team also includes iSchool faculty member Jeffrey Saltz, associate professor; Yatish Hegde, research analyst; and Amira Rezgui, post-doctoral researcher.

CODE SHARING INSPIRATION Early on, Crowston recognized that the separation of distributed work generally made it harder for team members to work together effectively, but FLOSS developers had been spectacularly effective. In trying to explain this success, he noticed that the emails of FLOSS developers would often refer to specific

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

details about the code those developers were jointly creating.

Because the code was shared via a computer system, team members could see the work produced by remote colleagues as easily as that of those located locally. In the online environment, the work itself provided pertinent clues as to recent team member activity, he says. That’s when inspiration for the study struck.

MODULARITY KEY As the research team sought to support the work of distribu­ted team members, Crowston, Saltz, and Hegde first tried to customize an existing system to support sharing code. After facing a number of challenges, they recognized that it would be simpler to build a new system rather than conduct an awkward retooling. As they started the design of their new system, two elements were key, Crowston says— creating a modular system, where work could be broken down into smaller task segments; and providing the ability for all team members to see the code as an essential mechanism driving development.

For the first, the custom app makes it easy for a team to divide its work into pieces connected by a data flow. The value of modularity, according to Crowston, is that, “It makes the elements more logical and more organized, because the tasks are much more easily defined. The definition makes it easier for some­one to know what is expected when they start working on a project. The modular elements also force team members to be a little cleaner about how they break up the work, which permits different people to work on different parts of the pro­­ ject simul­taneously.” The resulting code is better structured and easier all around to understand, to share with others, to use and to update and maintain.

For the second, as team mem­bers work on their part of an analysis, they can share the status of their work and the code they’ve written. “Because the code updates to the latest activity that has been completed when it is shared, team members can quickly get a sense of the most recent work done or project status,” Crowston adds.

TESTING IN DATA SCIENCE CLASSES Saltz, a data science expert, provided a testing ground for the prototype tool in sections of graduate-level introductory data science classes, both on campus and online. Because most data science students aren’t programmers, there was a neutral floor for app testing, he notes.

“The students acted as a proof of concept, and the ability of the tool to help in coordination became important. At the highest level, we were able to explore how teams do data science. One of the key aspects this work enables us to explore is how teams break up logical chunks of work to coordinate their tasks. That’s a fundamental question we have not yet explored in data science. We took high-level concepts and made them actionable, starting with a mental model of how people describe how they do data science,” Saltz says.

The experiments will continue with online data science classes. Saltz says these tests “might produce some thoughts on next-generation interactive development environments, as well as some best practices on how teams should collaborate in data science work. We’ll also get some fundamental understandings of processes to improve stigmergic coordination.”

LONGER-TERM IMPACTS The study’s potential broader impacts include: n Implementing a novel mode of coordination that could be transformative for the conduct of online work and computer-supported work n Releasing the software system, once developed, as open source code, for use in future research and potentially for actual use by distributed workers. n

What is Stigmergy? n The phenomenon of intelligent behavior emerging from seren­dipitous collaborations that occur from shared information that is deposited by many sources in a repository that is accessible to service actors and agents

n

Method of indirect communication between simple agents by altering their environment.

(Ants use a chem­ical called pheromone to com­municate with each other, as an example) n A method of indirect communication that occurs when one individual modifies the environment, and another responds to that environment at a later time. n A concept introduced in the 1950’s to describe the indirect communication taking place among individuals in social insect societies, now used to explain many emergent phenomena that arise from individuals interacting only by modifying local parts of their shared virtual environment.

Wikipedia is an example.

(FROM: IGI GLOBAL: WWW.IGI-GLOBAL.COM)

Academic Papers Research reports on the topic written through 2018 includes: n Bolici, F., Howison, J., & Crowston, K. (2016). Stigmergic coordination in FLOSS development teams: Integrating explicit and implicit mechanisms. Cognitive Systems Research, 38, 14–22. n Crowston, K., Howison, J., Bolici, F., & Østerlund, C. (2017). Work features to support stigmergic coordination in distributed teams. Academy of Management Annual Meeting. n Rezgui, A., & Crowston, K. (2018). Stigmergic coordination in Wikipedia.

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Expertise Everywhere: iSchool Doctoral Graduates Live and Work Across the Globe DOCTORAL PROGRAM GRADUATES, CLASSES 2014-2018

G

raduates of our Syracuse Uni­versity School of Information Studies doctoral programs are unique in their origins, their career intentions, their thesis questions and their professional pathways. In many cases, they initially found their way to Syracuse from points and places afar.

In all cases, they have progressed great lengths in their academic growth and their professional paths. It’s a certainty that they’ve all come a long way in their professional pursuits since the first days of their doctoral programs.

This illustration shows where iSchool doctoral graduates of the last five years are living, working, continuing research and conducting distinguished careers, the world over, today. Some have stayed in Syracuse. Others have returned to their roots and home regions. Many have taken exciting new careers in new locations. However you look at it, it’s clear that the iSchool has benefited from their presence and that our doctoral graduates are passing along their knowledge and skills for the benefit of others all over the globe.

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18

29

Wash ing

ton Montana

on

Idaho

Neva

16

Califo

Colorado9

rnia

Kansas 1

Arizona

6 TYSON BROOKS, DPS ’14

Boston, MA 3 KEITH BRAND, DPS ’14

Baltimore, MD 7 MARK COSTA, PhD ’16

Fayetteville, AR 4 GREG BRIERLY, DPS ’14

Syracuse, NY 8 DANE DELL, PhD ’17

Huntsville, AL 5 LAUREN BRITTON, PhD ’17

Syracuse, NY 9 RENATA CURTY, PhD ’15

Ithaca, NY

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N15 ew Mexico

Oklahom

31

2 DAWN BOVASSO, DPS ’15

Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Park School of Communications Ithaca College

17

Utah

Riverside, CA

IT Specialist NASA - Marshall Space Flight Center

Nebraska

da

25

Scholarly Communication Librarian UCR Library University of California,

Operations/ ERP/ Project Management Senior Executive Newell Coach Corp.

South Dakota

Wyoming

1 SWATTI BHATTACHARYYA, PhD ’14

Creative Director/Head of Design Northeastern University

North Dakota

Oreg

Cyber Researcher, U.S. Dept. of Defense Adjunct Professor, iSchool at SU

Research Assistant Professor M.I.N.D. Lab – Newhouse School Syracuse University

Director of Library Information Systems Onondaga Country Public Libraries

Assistant Professor School of Information Science Universidade Estadual Londrina

Londrina, Parana, Brazil

THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Texas

ma

10 FATIMA ESINOZA-VASQUEZ, PhD ’16

14 DAVID JAMES, PhD ’17

Lexington, KY 11 GRACE GIRALDO, DPS ’14

Atlanta, GA 15 MIN-CHUN KU, PhD ’15

Assistant Professor College of Communication and Information University of Kentucky

Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences Spelman College

Vice President, Global Technology JP Morgan Chase

Assistant Professor Dept. of Information and Library Science Tamkang University

Philadelphia, PA

New Taipei City, Taiwan 16 ANDREAS KUEHN, PhD ’16

12 DELICIA GREENE, PhD ’15

Assistant Professor Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning State University at Albany

Senior Program Associate Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Program East West Institute

Albany, NY 13 NAYBELL HERNANDEZ, PhD ’17

San Francisco, CA

17 CLAUDIA LOUIS, PhD ’15

Adjunct Professor Computer Science Dept.

Utica College

Castries, St. Lucia 18 VERONICA MAIDEL, PhD ’14

Maine

Wisconsin

26 27

k New Yor

Michigan

ania Pennsylv

Iowa 28

Illinois

Indiana

Ohio 21

Missouri

10

West Virginia

Alabama

Virginia lina

Tennessee

Mississippi

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North Caro

3 4

nt ire Vermo Hampsh w e N 22 2 usetts h c a s s Ma Rhode Island Connecticut 33

y New Jerse

6d

Marylan

Kentucky

Arkansas

11

Delaware

Washington, DC 21 CHARLES MILLHOLLAN, DPS ’15

Senior VP, Operational Process Excellence Farm Credit Mid-America

Louisville, KY 22 GABRIEL MUGAR, PhD ’17

Alexandria, VA 24 ANGELA RAMNARINE-REIKS, PhD ’15 Postdoctoral Researcher and Adjunct Professor School of Information Studies Syracuse University

Syracuse, NY 25 JERRY ROBINSON, PhD ’18

User Experience/ Accessibility Researcher Facebook

Menlo Park, CA 26 SUSAN ROTHWELL, PhD ’15

Post-Doctoral Researcher EMPOWER STEM Workforce Project Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester, NY 27 MICHAEL SCIALDONE, PhD ’14

Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer & Information Sciences SUNY Fredonia and Chair, University Senate

Fredonia, NY 28 JOHN STINNETT, DPS ’17 Executive Director, Home Lending PMO JP Morgan Case

Columbus, OH 29 SIKANA TANUPABRUNGSUN, PhD ’18 Data Scientist Microsoft

South Carolina

14

20 32

Partner, IT Practice Ridge-Lane Ltd. Partners

Adjunct Professor, Computational Linguistics School of Information Studies Syracuse University

Ramat Gan, Israel

13 7 8 19 12 24 5

Morrisville, NY 20 DALE MEYERROSE, DPS ’14

Cambridge, MA 23 NORMA PALOMINO, DPS ’18

Data Scientist EarlySense

Minnesota

IT Project Manager/Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer and Information Technology Morrisville State College

Design Researcher - IDEO Affiliate Faculty Member Emerson College

Planning Officer Ministry of Education

Utica, NY

19 JANET MARSDEN, PhD ’15

Redmond, WA 30 MATT WILLIS, PhD ’16

Georgia

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Oxford Internet Institute - Oxford University

Oxford, England 31 JASY LIEW SUET YAN, PhD ’16

Louisiana

Lecturer School of Computer Sciences Universiti Sains Malaysia

Pulau Pinang, Malaysia 32 JOHN M. YOUNG, DPS ’14

a

Florid

Assistant Professor, Clinical Research and Leadership & Health Care Quality George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Washington, DC 33 YOU ZHENG, PhD ’17

Research Associate NYC Labor Market Information Service Research Foundation – CUNY

New York, NY

THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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LAB REPORT

G R I D

S Jason Dedrick

mart Grid Lab researchers look at the impact of merging information technologies with the electric grid, the challenges integrating smart meter technologies, and the impact of those actions on consumer perception and behavior.

Projects include three National Science Foundation-supported research efforts, plus efforts assisted by the Syracuse Center of Excellence and the Sustainable Enterprise Partnership/U.S. Green Building Council. Funding also comes for specific projects from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Professor Jason Dedrick is lab director.

PROJECTS Smart Grid Adoption Adoption of Smart Grid Technologies by Electrical Utilities: Factors Influencing Organizational Innovation in a Regulated Environment.

This continuing project has explored issues regarding innovative technologies and development and testing of a new model of organizational adoption. (NSF funded.)

Principal investigator is Professor Jason Dedrick; co-PIs are Professor Jeffrey Stanton and Associate Professor Murali Venkatesh.

Big Data Analysis: Household Electricty Use iSchool researchers are continuing their analysis of big data sets from the Pecan Street Research Consortium for the potential to launch industry-wide changes in the way consumers use and pay for energy, and how utilities plan peak usage, plus how the grid system can be optimized. The initiative uses the huge opensource data sets of time-stamped electricity records from the project’s original field research. Participation is facilitated by the iSchool’s on-site IBM System Z mainframe capacity.

Principal investigator is Professor Jason Dedrick; co-PIs are Professor Jeffrey Stanton and Associate Professor Murali Venkatesh.

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Professor Dedrick (right) chats with a presenter at an iSchool Poster Day presentation.

Secure And Trustworthy Cyberspace The Smart Grid team continued work on the privacy project, Cybersecurity Risk of Dynamic, Two-Way Distributed Electricity Markets (NSF funded for $344,184 for work through 2019).

This research identifies potential security and privacy risks associated with distributed electricity markets and defines acceptable levels of risks and trade-offs between risk reduction and the performance of distributed markets. The goal is to provide guidance to utility regulators and others regarding balance of robust market structures with security and privacy protection for individuals.

During 2018 the team built out five different simulations for testing that illustrated different energy markets and energy flows, checking them for security and privacy risks and issues.

Scenarios included having situations where data was encrypted and also where it was not, having hackers take over thermostats, having hackers sending out false signals, etc. The team has been testing those scenarios and composing articles from the findings.

Principal Investigator is Jason Dedrick; Co-PIs are Professor Peter Wilcoxen (Syracuse University’s Maxwell School); Associate Professor Steve Chapin (Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science), and Keli Perrin (Syracuse University’s College of Law Institute of National Security and Counterterrorism).

Stakeholder Survey Shows Positives For Mueller Community Energy Concept

T

he next stage of a National Science Foundation-funded project on the concept of community energy has provided positive results for researchers completing the first round of survey data collection for the Mueller neighborhood project in Austin, Texas.

The effort, “Community Energy: Technical and Social Challenges and Integrative Solutions,” has been awarded funding under the NSF Smart and Connected Communities program of $99,965 for work through June 2020. Additional support comes from the Syracuse Center of Excellence.

Principal investigator and iSchool Professor Jason Dedrick says the study meets an urgent need to improve the reliability and resilience of the electric grid and to integrate new technologies, such as rooftop solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles.

While newer technologies can strain an aging grid not designed to handle them, they also can provide valuable grid resources, such as demand response and load shifting, if managed properly, he notes.

The community energy-use concept involves integrating small-scale solar power, demand management, and energy storage at a community-wide level to create economic, environmental, and social value for individuals and communities, while simultaneously improving the reliability and resilience of the electric grid.

Resident Input Key Though the project has great potential benefits, it raises issues that must be addressed in order to capture the highest potential, Dedrick says. These include determining how economic and behavioral incentives are perceived and valued in a community context, how residents and other stakeholders regard the project and what factors are key to their participation, and how highly granular data can be analyzed, visualized, and communicated to encourage acceptance and facilitate participation in the program at the community level.

Purposeful involvement of residents and stakeholders at each study stage has been key to maximizing the likelihood of participation success, according to Dedrick. In its first stages, researchers interviewed community leaders and Austin Energy representatives and conducted community workshops

regarding the community energy concept. Participants also were shown various dashboards displaying individual and community-use scenarios regarding renewable energy to obtain feedback on the design process.

The research project works in collaboration with the Pecan Street Institute in Austin, which collects detailed household electricity data on over 300 homes in the Mueller neighborhood there.

Positive on Concept

Response to the community energy idea from Mueller Community members has been good so far, Dedrick reports. Initial results show that Mueller residents have high levels of rooftop solar, electric vehicles, and smart thermostats, and that they are excited about the community energy concept. That’s not surprising, he adds, because of the neighborhood’s “green” status and its home to the Pecan Street Institute.

“Enthusiasm for community energy is encouraging, as the community has participated in a number of commercial and academic studies, and there was some concern about ‘study fatigue,’” he says. “Feedback on our energy dashboard also was very positive, possibly because we involved the community in the design through workshops. Overall, we learned a great deal from this planning grant and are looking forward to developing a working version of the energy dashboard and testing its acceptance and use by residents.”

Next, the survey expands to other Austin households not currently affiliated with the Pecan Street energy data program to provide a good comparison data sample.

Dedrick is principal investigator on the interdisciplinary project, working with Assistant Professor Elizabeth Krietemeyer of the Syracuse University School of Architecture and Tarek Rakha of Georgia Tech as co-principal investigators. iSchool doctoral student Ehsan Sabaghian has conducted the community workshops, designed the survey and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data.

THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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Going Old-School for New Knowledge with Harvard, Oxford Opportunities With flexibility in their program formats, support from added research roles and dovetailing research interests, two doctoral program students were able to pursue unique career-expanding fellowship opportunities.

S

arah Bratt, a third-year doctoral student, and Bryan Dosono, in his final Ph.D. program year, studied at venerable academic institutions Harvard University and The University of Oxford, respectively, over the summer. Bratt attended the week-long on-campus Laboratory for Innovative Science at Harvard (LISH) through a Sloan Foundation-supported program. Dosono traveled to Oxford, England, for two weeks at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Their short-term stays were long on dividends, they report, helping them round out their research perspectives, build their professional communities and engage with knowledgeable and renowned senior investigators outside of their own universities.

Who: Sarah Bratt | Third-year doctoral student, Syracuse University | iSchool | MLIS degree, Syracuse University iSchool, 2014 What: Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard The LISH and the Science Production Function Society, with support from the Alfred T. Sloan Foundation, award doctoral fellowships for social science Ph.D. students whose research focuses on the questions and processes involved in the production of science knowledge in university laboratories.

When/When: June, July, August 2018 One on-campus week in Cambridge, MA and three months of follow-up work via distributed teams. (A National Bureau of Economic Research extension continues the project for another three months and Bratt planned a return visit over Summer 2019.

Why: To spur the development of a science of innovation in the areas of crowdsourcing and open innovation; data science and AI development, science of science, technology commercialization, and the business of sports.

To develop an interdisciplinary community of scholars to understand the science production function and to look at the macroscopic level of research—everyday routines and practices of scientists in the lab, their transfer of information and their human interactions and dynamics at a large scale and across disciplines—to help scientists work and collaborate better.

How: The LISH and the Science Production Function Society, with support from the Alfred T. Sloan Foundation, award doctoral fellowships. Bratt was one of five fellows on this project.

Sarah Bratt discusses her work at this Research Day poster session.

Outcomes: An article in the journal, Research Policy, is anticipated. Fellows present findings at Science Production Function Society meetings. Project data is available in an open repository, so Bratt can use it in her own dissertation.

Takeaways: “At home [in the iSchool], you’re doing work in a small lab with smart people, but you don’t connect that to larger impacts until an institution like Harvard acknowledges the work’s scholarship and relevance on a larger scale.

This gave me confidence in my own work and in the importance of the work we’re doing here, and it reinforced what I already knew about Syracuse—that we have superstars in our research faculty who are just so visionary. I’ve also learned how to use qualitative research methods through interviews and field work,” Bratt says.

Information: httdps://lish.harvard.edu

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Bryan Dosono spent two weeks with a cohort of student researchers at Oxford University.

Who: Bryan Dosono | Final-year doctoral student, iSchool at Syracuse, graduating May 2019 | B.S., University of Washington Information School, 2013 | Teaching Fellow and research advisor, University of Pittsburgh iSchool Inclusion Institute | E3 Ambassador for the White House Initiative on Asian American Pacific Islanders, 2015-16 | As of August 2019: full-time experience researcher, Airbnb, San Francisco What: Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, England When/Where: Summer Doctoral Program 2018 A two-week residency on the Oxford University campus with continuing interaction and follow-up.

Why: Intensive teaching and learning involving international networks of up to 30 participants. These advanced doctoral students engage in dissertation research relating to the internet and digital technologies in an experience designed to enhance their thesis work. A multidisciplinary approach provides them with new ways of thinking about their topics, encouraging effective research design and safe spaces to talk through research problems.

How: Students come from an array of disciplines. Involving OII faculty from multiple disciplines and guest speakers from other institutions, daily seminars on the latest research issues are presented by leading faculty and scholars focusing on substantive and methodological research issues.

Outcomes: “I highly recommend this program to all doctoral students who want to get increased feedback on their research dissertation. You’ll be supported not only by peers all over the world, but you will have a great support system among faculty and staff at Oxford. They really look after those who participate in the program.”

Takeaways: “One of my biggest takeaways was understanding the importance of cohort building—especially an interdisciplinary cohort. I’m blessed to have a wonderful cohort here in Syracuse, but it’s important to build a cohort outside your own institution. When you’re very focused within your own institution, you can get tunnel vision if you’ve been thinking about things a certain way for a long time. Involvement from others really helps you broaden your view of how to present your research, and oftentimes, these are going to be your colleagues for the rest of your life, so cementing these relationships while you’re a doctoral student is really valuable. I’m definitely a stronger researcher because of my experience there.”

Bryan Dosono

Information: www.oii.ac.uk/study/summer-doctoralprogramme/

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LAB REPORT

Behavior, Information, Technology & Society Lab

B

ITS Lab researchers examine how people use information and communication technologies and how the use of diverse technologies affects society.

Projects focus on human computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, cultural issues in computing, crisis informatics, disruption, resiliency and normalcy; serious games, social movements and information diffusion; and civic engagement, e-participation, and digital politics.

Investigations result in the development of cutting-edge applications, tools, and software to manage the issues people and society have regarding technologies, as well as impactful design, mobile and social media apps, and online learning platforms.

Lab Directors: Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor; Bryan Semaan, assistant professor; Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor.

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Life Resilience Research Expands, Resets to Include Other Marginalized Populations

T

he more his study of veterans’ transitions from military to civilian life progressed, the more Bryan Semaan recognized that additional groups of people experience similar difficult life passages and that they turn to technology to help build a more resilient life and resolve their issues. So Semaan took a step back, reset his research perspective, and expanded the evolving examination of the topic from a larger societal context.

Semaan, an assistant professor at the iSchool and a socialethnographic researcher, has been looking at how veterans and veteran families tran­sition from highly structured military lives to less-organized civilian settings since 2014. He also has been studying refugee migration and resettlement. He was awarded a National Science Foundation grant of $173,205 to support the research through 2019.

In 2018, Semaan expanded his studies to other groups he recognized as isolated and marginalized populations in society: new mothers, people who identify as LGBTQ, gig workers and those employed project-by-project, and disadvantaged college students.

“Thinking transitions are experienced by many people,” Semaan explains. “They’re often very messy situations. I decided to take a step back and situate more broadly, while also thinking about the systemic issues that make people’s life transitions so difficult.”

THE ROLE OF ICT Semaan’s longitudinal studies explore how people express resilience through the information and technology tools they adopt to recraft a sense of self. He also examines how the design of existing social-technical systems can further affect identities, and how people develop and implement their own sociotechnical systems to support more resilient lives, regardless of the ways mainstream society’s structures may fail them.

Assistant Professor Bryan Semaan researches how ICTs help a variety of people with thinking and coping during different transitions in life.

He and his team of students follow a process of emergent ethnographic research to obtain their findings. So far, they have interviewed a significant number of subjects: 90 veterans, 13 refugees, 16 new mothers, 34 people who identify as LGBTQ, and a few disadvantaged college students (the newest of the populations to be added to the study).

DISCOVERING TRENDS Semaan has discovered a number of consistent trends that occur across the varied subject groups.

People band together to find resources, assistance and like-mindedness online—sometimes creating new resources for themselves—using various forms of information and communication technologies. n Among transitioning veterans, who find that mainstream social systems don’t serve them particularly well, people develop their own systems that run in parallel to or subvert the mainstream systems n New mothers come together online to create community, such as Facebook Mom groups, because the structures of society—health care, workplaces and educational systems— have historically been designed around the needs of men, subverting the needs of women and mothers. The new moms take care to create systems that are often superinvisible, or closed groups, helping to ensure participants have safe spaces online

n Among those identifying as LGBTQ, many have found that

online FanFiction sites provide narratives that help them face life difficulties and trauma. The medium can provide guidelines that help them face issues, such as coming out as gay to their parents, defining what queer romance looks like, or constructing identities apart from those society defines as normal or as masculine or feminine.

Almost every study subject starts using ICTs to address personal issues and build their own resiliency. Then, their interests evolve into a communal posture, later addressing societal issues as a whole. n At the outset, people are focused on themselves and how they are going to get through their issues. They look at what technology practices will help them build resiliency and often turn to online information and diaries n They eventually move from a self-healing focus to ideas about helping others in their community n Eventually, their focus shifts to a broader social perspective, almost like a social movement, with many often collectively trying to reframe society or change how society thinks about issues.

Semaan is now studying disadvantaged college students and the way those at Syracuse University have institutionalized some systems. They’ve used platforms such as GroupMe to connect incoming disadvantged students to more senior student cohorts for mentorship. From a research perspective, he says, that helps him glimpse “how individuals, groups, and communities build resiliency, bottom-up.” n THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

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Sharing the Wealth: iSchool Researchers Showcase the Breadth of Their Investigations The First Dedicated Day for Knowledge-Sharing and Collaboration Was A Success

S

chool of Information Studies faculty, doctoral students and graduate and undergraduate scholars opened up about their research in a special school- and universitywide showcase for fellow researchers and associates for the first time in 2018.

Planned by doctoral students Mahboobeh Harandi and Sarah Bratt in conjunction with Associate Dean for Research Kevin Crowston, the inaugural iSchool Research Day provided a half-day, off-campus setting and dedicated time to put focus on the breadth and diversity of topics that Information School researchers are investigating. Forty-four projects were presented in face-to-face fashion, either as table talks or in poster form. The function boosted overall awareness of the range of investigations that are underway, helped researchers

find potential new collaborators, allowed new researchers the opportunity for feedback about their approaches, and offered insights into ways to articulate and tailor scholarly presentations to diverse audiences.

Organizers said their goals were achieved—having the space and the time for informal intellectual discussions about research and providing opportunity for interaction among those who usually don’t exchange ideas or aren’t typically aware of others’ projects. Syracuse University Vice President of Research Zhanjiang (John) Liu provided support from the SU Office of Research by attending the event.

This listing illustrates the presenters who participated and the broad approaches taken to an array of topics.

Table Talks

Posters

Radhika Garg* and Subhasree Sengupta An Affordance-Based Model of Technology Use Qiyi Wu Those Discussions That Change Peoples’ Minds Tajanae Harris Folksonomy in Gravity Spy Citizen Science Project Yuan Liu Is Your Message Persuasive? A Web-Based Tool

Akshay Badge An Analysis of Anonymous Behaviors on Users in Citizen Science Carlos Caicedo* Information Models for Radio Frequency Spectrum Management Erin Bartolo Understanding Technology Non-Use as Potential Response to Interruptabilty Han Zhuangan Most Published Research Might Be False but Some Worth Doing: The Case for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science Jeff Hemsley* #digitalnomad & #remotework—Exploring Trends in Mobile Work on Twitter Lu Xiao* Understanding Privacy Dichotomy in Twitter Kevin Crowston* Gravity Spy: Humans, Machines and the Future of Citizen Science Kevin Crowston* A Capability Maturity Model for Scientific Data Management Michelle Kaarst-Brown* “IT Culture” Theory: Exploring Universal Archetypes and Localized Symbols for Anticipatory Design Jay Park Knowledge of Citizen Scientists-Preliminary Research on Gravity Spy Sarah Bratt Science of Science—How Digital Technology Practices Support and Reflect Specialization in Contemporary Molecular Biology Jean-Philippe Rancy Studying Emerging Work: Co-Working, Digital Nomadism, Using Scholarly Infrastructure Jeff Hemsley* Viral Diffusion of Political Topics—A Look at the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Kevin Crowston* Work in the Age of the Intelligent Machine

Yun Huang* Empowering Smart Campuses via Hybrid Location Sensing Across Academic and Social Spheres Subhasree Sengupta Boundary Management Practices in Social Media Jeff Saltz* and Yatish Hegde Data Science Team Coordination and Modular Development Yang Wang* and SALT Research Team Inclusive Privacy and Security Carsten Oesterlund* Crowdsourcing Reasoning Support Ayse Dalgali and Jay Park Is It Full of Gold? Argument Mining on Reddit Bryan Semaan* Transition Resilience with ICTs Carsten Oesterlund* Methods for Studying Distributed Work (VOSS) Daniel Acuna* and Priya Matnani Eileen Recommendation System Natã Barbosa Empowering Users to Recognize Data Privacy Threats Yaxing Yao Designing Privacy Mechanisms for Smart Homes Jennifer Sonne Understanding Emotions

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Enterprise Risk Community Resiliency

R

U

PT AB I LT Y

O

LO CAT I O N S E N S I N G I N C L U S I V E P R I VA C Y ARGUMENT MINING DISTRIBUTED WORK M O B I L E W O R K D I G I TA L N O M A D I S M

RADI

Dead Science

Twitter Bots DATA PRIVACY

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M

FR

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CY SPEC

TE IN

Science of Science

Citizen Science

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Q

N UE

Social Media

Message Strategies Privacy Dichotomy Data Management Anticipatory Design Viral Diffusion Intelligent Machine Elastic Workers Knowledge Work

S MA RT HOME S

Scientific Peer Review Anonymous Behaviors Social Interaction

Mengyu Liu Optimizing Scientific Peer Review Olga Boichak Mobilizing Diasporas: Using Semantic Networks to Understand Discourse on Social Media Smirity Kaushik Privacy and GDPR Yun Huang* Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons Alone Didn’t Work Michelle Kaarst-Brown* The Placement Evolution of Information Systems Graduates Tong Zeng Dead Science: Most Resources Linked in Scientific Articles Disappear in Eight Years Dhruv Kharwar Language Model in Gravity Spy Citizen Science Project Raghav Raheja, Deepti Menezes, Thanushree Shetty and Ingrid Erickson* Elastic Workers: Evolving Beyond Flexible Practice in Knowledge Work Kevin Crowston* Recruiting Messages Matter: Message Strategies to Attract Citizen Science Michelle Kaarst-Brown* Meredith Project: Learning, Teaching and Building Community Resiliency through Enterprise Risk Management Workshops Olga Boichak Twitter Bots Across Election Campaigns Mahboobeh Harandi Talking the Talk in Citizen Science Projects Qunfang Wu and Yisi Sang Danmaku: A New Paradigm of Social Interaction via Online Videos Ayse Dalgali Sharing Open Deep-Learning Models *iSchool Faculty (Others listed are students.)

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LAB REPORT

Research efforts throughout 2018 follow.

BIG METADATA ANALYTICS: n Discovering Collaboration Network Structures n Dynamics in Big Data n Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Collaboration Network

METADATA MODELING AND LINKING: n Metadata modeling for gravitational wave research

data management

n Metadata portability and relation typology

Principal Investigator: Jian Qin, professor

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Big Metadata Analytics Workshop at ASIS&T:

Jian Qin, professor, Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor, with others, organized a day-long workshop at the 2018 ASIS&T conference to share the challenges, methods, datasets, and findings in metadata analytics and to produce a research agenda for big metadata analytics.

Panels of researchers discussed how using big metadata in data repositories might provide new insights and challenges facing termbased document representation in metadata assignment. Advances in data science have promise in detecting knowledge nodes and their relations accurately and correctly and codifying complex knowledge assertions from full-text documents (human intelligence) into the format of “machine intelligence” (computer-process-able knowledge assertions).

A Relation Typology in Knowledge Organization Systems: Case Studies in the Research Data Management Domain; Jian Qin; in proceedings of the 15th International ISKO Conference in Portugal.

This research looks at metadata characterizing for different types of research, which generate different types of data and terminologies varying between practitioners and basic science researchers even within the same disciplinary domain. It notes how interactions between datasets, between datasets and documentation, and between datasets and computing code can result in different types of relations.

The framework studies concept relation types in the research data management domain through GenBank annotation records and data and artifact collection from gravitational wave search. In demonstrating types of relations existing in and between datasets, publications, computing codes, and workflows, the report shows that relations are one of the key components of AI applications for functioning as part of KOS for indexing data and publications in the next AI era. It also shows that these also are needed to function as codifiable knowledge for machine consumption.

Unique Blockchain Course Focuses on Management Tactics Beyond Bitcoin: Concepts, Labs, and Business Demos

B Lee McKnight

itcoin first captured popular interest in Blockchained cryptocurrencies, but Lee McKnight, associate professor at the iSchool, envisioned more far-reaching distributed ledger technology applications. He understood that students could benefit most from that widened pers­pective, too.

As a verified ledger of all transactions, the technology could create trusted, secure, and virtually impenetrable records, making it perhaps the most significant innovation since the dawn of the Internet, he recalls thinking.

“Malware and social engineering make it too easy to crash into a system that is not architected properly. We already know we can’t trust 50% of the devices out there and we can’t trust many applications. Some fraction of solving these complex issues is using Blockchain for verification of trust,” he explains.

“Going to a cloud operating model where Blockchain is one of the back-office solutions used for trust automation won’t be the only thing, but it will be one of those key tools that makes sense for many new applications.”

McKnight began teaching Blockchain Management at the iSchool in 2017 as experimental pedagogy, even though Blockchain platforms were still extremely unstable and decent textbooks were unavailable, he says. He improvised by teaching core technology concepts, conducting hands-on labs in Ether­ eum and Hyperledger, and guiding students to ideate new Blockchained business applications for presentation at a Shark Tank-style final class session with high-level industry guest judges. One first-year student startup, Joshua Jackson’s “Promptous,” presented to angel investors after the course ended then partnered with IBM to leverage Hyperledger to simplify dental benefits.

While many universities now teach Blockchain courses, most still heavily focus on cryptocurrencies. Uniquely, the iSchool’s courses always centered on managing Blockchains for enterprise applications. The courses were ready to be regularized and entered into the curriculum for undergraduate and graduate students by the end of 2018, “making these the

first-in-the-world Blockchain Management courses taught at any university anywhere,” McKnight adds. He and IBM Business Executive Phil Evangelista now teach the graduate and undergraduate courses, respectively.

Arthur Thomas, associate dean for academic affairs, notes that with the support of its Board of Advisors and corporate and community partners, the iSchool consistently offers students opportunities to quickly tool new learning experiences that involve direct, hands-on application of prototype concepts well before they become commonplace. “Courses in the areas of Blockchain Management, Cloud Architecture and Management, Leading Issues in Information Security, Financial Systems Architecture, Network Virtualization, Digital Forensics and others keep our students ahead of the curve,” he says.

Meanwhile, news of McKnight’s ideas on how Blockchain could remedy unstable and insecure Internet and IoT connectivity ‘cloud to edge’ soon spread. He spent much of 2018 presenting around the world, at MIT, Boston, and Fordham Universities, the University of Alaska, at the U.S. Congress, UN-IGF 2018 at UNESCO in Paris, and VMware in Palo Alto, as well as the First Liberian Inter-Agency Task Force and Advisory Group Meeting, the Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America, and Smart Cities Connect Conferences.

McKnight continues his research for the “the Open Specifications Model v0.5 for Blockchaining IoT,” designed to create authenticity in Internet and Internet of Things appli­ cations by closing the gap between the usefulness of IoT and its insecurity by making data and devices safer and less easily manipulated. Several volumes of his research are on tap to be published by 2020. n

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Liz Liddy: Closing the Book

Dean Retires After 35+ Years of Research, Entrepreneurship and Academic Innovation—and Thousands of iSchool Graduates

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lizabeth DuRoss Liddy retires from her career at the iSchool with a tremendous record of academic and professional achievement.

Over more than three decades at Syracuse University, with her positive outlook and her pragmatic, “everything’s possible,” “let me try” style, she’s had an immeasurable impact in her field of research, on the stature of Syracuse University in the information technology field, on the future of the school that is both alma mater and one she led to record growth and influence, and on thousands of graduates who are breaking new ground in information and technology careers.

Her research-field achievements alone are impressive: l One of the earliest researchers in the field of natural language processing for search l Led 70 projects; authored 110 papers l Presented at hundreds of conferences around the world l Dissertation research that received three excellence awards: l ISI Dissertation Proposal Award l ASIS&T Doctoral Dissertation Award l ALISE Doctoral Dissertation Award l A chapter on NLP in the Encyclopedia of Library & Information Science (2001) that’s used in many computer science courses around the country.

Liddy had the oars at the iSchool for a dozen years, a period that coincides with how iSchools in general and information management and technology degrees have come into their own.

Her efforts have helped catapult Syracuse University School of Information Studies to the top rungs in national and global

popularity, prominence, and recognition. Her initiatives for a heightened profile, a “bleeding edge” take on entrepreneurship, a penchant for academic innovation, and a dive into broad opportunities for experiential, immersive learning have helped bring the Syracuse University iSchool to national and international prominence. Her steady attention to academic integrity and her focused encouragement for young women to enter the field have brought further distinctions. The attraction of such a place has generated huge enrollment growth, significant research dollars, and dozens of leading industry innovators as friends and supporters.

She has presided over a School with a family-like culture.

The warmth and authenticity of that “Faculty of One” atmosphere has spilled over to encompass staff, students, and visitors. Her continual encouragement of pursuing new things, new ideas, new programs, and new risks, is what began the Syracuse Student Sandbox and Information Technology, Design, & Startups programs. The “Why not try?” theme has been ever-present and effervescent. And her North Star has always been “How could she help students to flourish and succeed?”

The iSchool is very well positioned for the future with a legacy that’s decidedly “Liz.” As she retired in May 2019, this Q& A provides a retrospective, in her own words, on the research focus that gave her the start on her 30-plus career highlighted by challenges, rewards, and outstanding academic, personal, and professional achievements.

LIZ LIDDY:

35+ Years of Achievement and Impact in Academic, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership Roles Academic Credentials

● Graduated Daemen College, 1966, B.A. in

English Language & Literature

● Earned M.L.S. degree, Information Studies,

Syracuse University, 1977 ● Earned Ph.D. in Information Transfer from iSchool Syracuse University, 1988 ● Her drive and academic promise earned specially-granted status as one of the iSchool’s first part-time doctoral students

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NLP Innovation

Faculty Leadership

field of natural language processing and text mining ● Started her faculty career as a visiting assistant professor/research associate in 1983 ● Dissertation research received three awards: ISI Dissertation Proposal Award; and years later, both the ASIS&T Doctoral Dissertation Award and the ALISE Doctoral Dissertation Award for proving the utility of NLP for information science

researcher and administrator at the iSchool and Syracuse University ● Her chapter on NLP in the Encyclopedia of Library & Information Science in 2001 is used in many computer science courses around the country ● Founded and directed the iSchool Center for Natural Language Processing

● One of the earliest researchers in the

THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

● Spent 35+ years as faculty member,

Research Dissertation: The Discourse-level Structure of Natural Language Texts: An Exploratory Study of Empirical Abstracts

Q

What was the essential question, from the time of your master’s-student years, that led you to undertake more expansive research through the iSchool’s doctoral program?

“It was: ‘Why is it so hard to find information you need and want?’ Back then, researching was really structured.

The only way you could look things up was to use Library of Congress keywords. I wanted to make it easier and more natural for people to be able to think, search, and find inform­ ation on whatever they were looking for.”

A

Q

How did you become interested in the field of Natural Language Processing, especially in its earliest stages?

“I discovered there’s a field in linguistics involving semantics, structure, and word meaning, and another area called discourse, which was more about the structure and organization of communication and how we actually convey things.

I learned there was a professor at Cornell University, Joseph Grimes, who was one of the few in the country who at the time taught what was then called Automatic Language Processes.

I was in the doctoral program at Syracuse University, but I called him, shaking and nervous, to ask if I could be in his course. He said, ‘Sure, come on down.’ I told him I wasn’t sure how I’d pay for it. He said ‘Never mind, just come.’ So I ended up taking two courses with the founder of the field. There were only five of us in his doctoral seminars at Cornell, and it was perfect. He ended (continued on next page)

A

Entrepreneur/CEO

Academic Excellence

1984 ● Holder of eight software patents ● Her NLP company grew to 50 employees before she sold it ● Continued doing confidential research work for U.S. Government intelligence agencies

51 library and information science schools in the U.S. News and World Report - 2018 Best Graduate Schools Rankings ● Led the iSchool to standings as second for information systems, fourth in school library media, and fourth in digital librarianship in the library and information science category specialization rankings—U.S. News and World Report 2018 rankings. ● Led the school to its place as No. 17 for best online degree programs for graduate computer information technology and No. 6 in information technology programs for veterans

● Founder of startup company TextWise,

● Led the iSchool to its place as No. 4 among

Momentum for Growth

● Boosted iSchool undergraduate

enrollment by 71% ● Increased graduate student enrollment by 66% ● Initiated New York state’s first graduate certificate program in Data Science ● Initiated a new undergraduate minor in Data Analytics ● Raised $26.2 million for funding research and development

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up being on my dissertation committee. At that time, no one here knew anything about discourse linguistics. No one had heard about it.”

Q

What was the essence of your research and discovery?

“It dawned on me. There’s syntax, there’s a structure to text, and if you could realize what the structure was, then you could understand. So I did a study using abstracts as material to search to find what kind of information was in there. And I developed a way to do a search. You wouldn’t just ask for a concept. You’d know what role it was playing in the abstract. That was in the “good old days” before there was much full text online.”

“After looking at hundreds and hundreds of abstracts, I realized there was predictability, so I developed a structure.

Then I developed the technology that would be able to use keywords. Enumerating enough keywords and getting all the variants that could be developed then by computer, you’d

A

get a predictable structure. It was a structured representation of the material, all diagrammed out.”

Q

What was your next step after earning your Ph.D.?

“I taught discourse linguistics for the first time here at the iSchool. My doctoral advisor then, Dean Jeff Katzer, and several other professors took my class. He was head of the Ph.D. program. There’s nothing more anxiety producing than having the head of the Ph.D. program sitting in your class!

I needed to get a job, for the health insurance and to help take care of my three children. They offered me a faculty position. So it was wonderful that it all worked out as if it were intended.”

A

Q

When did you realize that your research was both groundbreaking and patentable?

“It was awhile. I remember I was asked to give a talk at the Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering (CASE) Center. I presented my dissertation work, and Bruce Berra, faculty director of the CASE Center then, said to me, ‘You know, this isn’t just an academic piece. Patent it because you’ve got a great business idea.’ This was before anything was searchable at all.”

“He introduced me to Mike Weiner, and Bill Manning, an investor from Rochester, who said, ‘Let’s think about a company.’ So we started the company called TextWise. Mike did the marketing, and I did the pitching. We grew here in the University and reached 50 or so people, analysts working on the linguistics side and tech folks who kept improving the search engine. The U.S. Patent Office started using our product and the European Patent Office started using it, and those are great signs

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Promoting Women in IT

Leading-Edge Entrepreneurship

female iSchool enrollment and success ● Led eight years of IT Girls Overnight Retreat, an annual weekend to interest high school junior and senior girls in tech educations and careers ● Achieved Class of 2022 female undergraduate enrollment of 47%

tion and connections to leading innovators/ entrepreneurs in the IT industry ● Championed student entrepreneurship competitions and hack-a-thons ● Began the Syracuse Student Sandbox and Information Technology Design & Startup programs

● Founded Women in Technology to promote

● Pioneered the iSchool’s foray into innova-

● Supported the creation of an array of

iSchool immersion-learning programs: AsiaTech, EntreTech NYC, EuroTech, Innovate Ireland, MLB Challenge, Peak2Peak Pacific Northwest, Spring Break in Silicon Valley, TechTrek Chicago, and several regional road trips.

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

something and reducing it to common semantics, pulling the meaning out of words. It was cross-language retrieval, and we did it for whoever had lexicons available. There was a Russian one, other ones. Now, things like this are readily available, but they just weren’t at that time.”

Q of success. The program was a document retrieval system using linguistic knowledge. We called it DR-LINK, standing for “Document Retrieval Using Linguistic Knowledge).”

Q

When—and why— did you go back to academia?

“There was too much frustration in business for me.

And the U.S. intelligence agencies were funding me to do a lot of stuff that was a lot cooler. We were working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was more interesting, and closer to the areas that I was thinking about than the corporate world was.”

“Then-Dean Ray VonDran was wonderful to me. I met him on a Saturday to tell him I had just left the company the day before and that I wanted to return to teaching. He went right to the provost for me. Both were very supportive of my return to the faculty. And then I started the Natural Language Processing Center here.”

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How do you regard your contributions to the field of Natural Language Processing?

“Discourse is a huge field now. It wasn’t then because search was all based on controlled vocabulary. But I thought people should be able to say what it is they’re looking for, and the system should recognize it, the same way you could say something to a person, even if you use different terminology. Today, Alexa, Siri, they’ve just turned the process into vocal. They employ tons of people who are building everything into it, like a big brain.

It just made so much sense. We understand each other, so why can’t the system? It’s all words, and the words mean things, if you can just map them into the system. It wasn’t called machine learning or AI then. But it eventually became that, and, in many ways, that’s what AI is now… a system that can understand language the same way as a human.”

A

Q

What kind of work did you do for the intelligence agencies?

“We did a lot of it around 9/11, tracking discourse, deciphering how you recognize what someone is conveying. A lot of it was recognizing various ways of saying

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Administrative Leadership ● Served as Interim iSchool Dean,

2007-2008 ● Named Dean, serving from 2008-2015; and from May 2016 to May 2019 ● Served 17 months as Syracuse University Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost, fall 2015 to May 2016, selected by Chancellor Syverud ● Received Chancellor’s Citation for Lifetime Achievement upon retirement

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GRANTS SUMMARY

2018 External Awards to iSchool Faculty:

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total of $3,714,310 in external funding was awarded for new and continuing projects to iSchool faculty in 2018.Their innovative new and ongoing research includes the following projects:

2018 NEW AWARDS Grant title:

Methods and Tools for Scalable Figure Reuse Detection with Statistical Certainty Reporting

Grantor: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Award: $149,310 PI: Daniel Acuna, assistant professor The fraudulent reuse of scientific figuresis an increasingly common problem that damages the public perception of science. This research proposes to dramatically scale automated detection of figure reuse across articles and to collaborate with the Office of Research Integrity and active researchers to develop statistical methods to support conclusions regarding figure reuses. The goal is that the tools and techniques developed become standard practice in significantly reducing the acceptance of publications with image manipulation as one of the most damaging instances of scientific misconduct.

Grant title: Grantor: Award: PI: With Others:

Optimizing Scientific Peer Review National Science Foundation $531,339 Daniel Acuna, assistant professor James Evans, University of Chicago; Konrad Kording, University of Pennsylvania

Scientific peer review, as a central process to deciding who gets published, promoted, or awarded a prize or grant, may have tremendous impact on the career of scientists and the direction of science.

However, several researchers have shown that scientific peer review can be slow and low-quality. It sometime can contain biases against certain ideas or inconsistencies in the way the same work is received and reviewed by different groups of peers, which may delay or truncate the dissemination of important research. This project analyzes factors that affect the outcomes of peer review, uses these to improve reviewer selection, develops software that optimizes reviewer assignments, and evaluates the resulting models in the real-world context of a scientific journal, major scientific conferences and massive open, online courses.

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

$3.7 Million Grant title:

Making the Literacy-Innovation Connection for Rural Libraries and Their Youngest Patrons Grantor: Institute of Museum and Library Services Award: $248,616 PI: Marilyn Arnone, research associate professor and professor of practice With Others: Ruth Small, iSchool Laura J. & L. Douglas Meredith professor and professor emerita/research professor This research recognizes that rural communities across the U.S. face significant challenges that can affect future economic growth and solutions to problems. The goal is to concurrently support both literacy and innovation skills in grades K-3 children by creating and evaluating a replicable after-school project in six public libraries.

The literacy component features a collection of paired literary and informational texts that inspire creativity and innovation and that builds on the existing resources of a successful effort funded by IMLS for Grades 4-8 that resulted in the creation of The Innovation Destination website. The team is also developing a collection of videos using “Inventor Mentors,” older innovators who can inspire younger children. Once developed, the materials will provide the basis for the model after-school program in the six pilot rural public libraries.

Grant title:

Grantor: Award: PI:

The Critical Catalog: Understanding Metadata for Access to and Promotion of Diverse Library Resources OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grant Program $24,957 Rachel Ivy Clarke, assistant professor

This project investigates means to develop wider, more systematic approaches to promoting diverse reading materials in libraries, and furthering encouragement of and advocacy for diverse reading and media consumption, especially by people who might not otherwise pursue such resources. It asks how libraries can move beyond the artisanal, curation-based approaches to promoting diverse media through the provocative approach of critical design. It aims to allow library users to think in new and unexpected ways about resources from populations traditionally marginalized in literature and publishing through new developments in knowledge organization.

Grant title:

REU Supplement to Glitch Zoo: Teaming Citizen Science with Machine Learning to Deepen LIGO’s Grantor: Northwestern University/ National Science Foundation Award: $16,000 PI: Kevin Crowston, associate dean for research and distinguished professor of information science With Others: Carsten Oesterlund, associate professor This supplement funds undergraduate involvement in research that continues the development of a citizen science system to support the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (aLIGO). This project is the most complicated experiment ever undertaken in gravitational physics. The research involves coupling human classification with a machine learning model that learns from citizen scientists and guides how information is provided to participants. It involves research on the human-centered computing aspects of this social-computational system, inspiring future citizen science projects and making volunteers engaged partners in scientific discovery.

Grant title: Grantor: Award: PI:

Workshop: The iConference 2018 Doctoral Colloquium National Science Foundation $14,389 Kevin Crowston, associate dean for research and distinguished professor of information science

This funding partially supports participation by the PI and five U.S.-based doctoral students who have completed their dissertation proposals in a doctoral colloquium on information science research in conjunction with the 13th iConference at the University of Sheffield, U.K. The workshop features a focused peer-research critique and career development event in coordination with iCon­ ference technical programs. Participants can discuss their research efforts, gain feedback, make new professional connections, and gain help launching their careers.

Grant title: Beacon-Enabled Smart Location-Based Service Grantor: National Science Foundation Award: $50,000 PI: Yun Huang, assistant professor With Others: Michael D’Eredita, iSchool adjunct professor and faculty, LeMoyne College This I-Corps project explores implementation and commercialization opportunities of beacon-based technologies in airports, business conferences, and retail stores. This project will lead to a better understanding of varying requirements for beacon-based location services and how they might be customized to potentially service a variety of market verticals. It also identifies the commercial potential for Bluetooth low energy beacon technology to provide new and lowcost location-based services at scale so a large number of beacons can be supported by different mobile platforms.

Grant title: Grantor: Award: PI: With Others:

Enabling Accessibility and Linking Digital Media Collections in Academic Libraries Institute of Museum and Library Services $249,911 Yun Huang, assistant professor Jian Qin, iSchool professor

Accessibility of digital collections has become a critical issue for academic libraries. Video captioning is a relied-upon method not only for providing essential accessibility for the deaf and hearing-impaired community but also for improving students’ comprehension when consuming visual content. Because the cost of providing captions for a large volume of videos is prohibitive, researchers at the iSchool and Indiana University’s School of Informatics and Computing, partnering with Syracuse University’s Bird Library, the IU Wells Library, and the Onondaga Community College Coulter Library, propose to create tools to provide a cost-efficient captioning service using Automatic Speech Recognition and crowdsourcing closed captions. This will promote easy sharing, searching and discovery of library resources by linking captioned videos with digital collections.

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GRANTS SUMMARY

Grant title: Grantor: Award: PI:

Connecting Libraries and Learning Analytics for Student Success Institute of Museum and Library Services $50,000 Megan Oakleaf, associate professor and director of instructional quality

The grant funds planning for pioneering the integration of library data in institutional learning analytics and developing detailed proofs of concept and models to guide academic libraries as they prepare to engage in use of data to support student success. It provides for three task teams working at two face-to-face meetings and progress and documentation shared with the academic library and higher education community via a formal white paper and conference presentation proposals. Syracuse University is joined by advisory group members and project participants from ACRL, Blackboard, CNI, DePaul University, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, IMS Global Learning Consortium, JISC Lewis and Clark Community College, OCLC, Susquehanna University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and Unizin.

2018 CONTINUATION / INCREMENTAL AWARDS Grant title: Grantor:

Award: PI: With Others:

Trackable Reasoning and Analysis for Collaboration and Evaluation IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Two awards: $1,707,178 and $508,263 Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor Carsten Oesterlund, iSchool associate professor; Nancy McCracken, iSchool research associate professor, and Lael Schooler, Colorado State University and University of Arizona and SRC Inc. experts

TRACE Supporting ST-guided

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t ar ng Sm dgi Nu ic lyt

S Te truc mp tu lat red es

d te s ma te to pla Au em T

M ys St tery ru -s ct ol ur vi es ng

Analysis

Re p

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Prod

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Crowdsourcing User Network

The TRACE (Trackable Reasoning and Analysis for Collaboration and Evaluation) Project aims to improve reasoning and intelligence analysis through a web-based application that leverages structured techniques, crowdsourcing, and smart nudging to enhance analysts’ problemsolving abilities and foster creative thinking. The CREATE (Crowdsourcing Evidence,

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Reasoning, Argumentation, Thinking and Evaluation) Program goal is to create a reasoning and reporting application that is effective and appealing to users by making the process intriguing and fun while not interfering with natural reasoning and writing abilities. The project is unique in that it makes use of rigorous testing at every phase using experimental research methods. The effort involves a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Syracuse University, the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, and SRC Inc. Grant Title: Grantor: Award: PI: With Others:

Inclusive Cloud and Web Computing Carnegie Mellon University/Dept. of Health and Human Services $66,823 Yang Wang, assistant professor Yun Huang, assistant professor

This project generates strategically important outputs addressing highpriority needs of end users and increasing the adoption of universal design within industry. The team is leading two sub-projects to design and evaluate accessible, secure, usable, and privacy-preserving authentication schemes. They plan a lightweight utility infrastructure, CAN (Composable Accessibility Infrastructure), where software developers share their functional modules and website or mobile app developers can easily find and integrate suitable accessibility modules into their sites or apps.

Grant title:

Inclusive Privacy: Effective Privacy Management for People with Visual Impairments (CAREER Award) Grantor: National Science Foundation Award: $97,524 PI: Yang Wang, assistant professor

Grant Title: Grantor: Award: PI:

This research involves the designing, implementing and evaluating of novel inclusive authentication methods for cloud and web computing for people with disability conditions as well as people without disability to provide better computer-based privacy tools to people with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments.

Researchers are generalizing earlier studies and designs to other populations, including older adults who might have different privacy expectations than younger people, as well as people with cognitive impairments. The evaluation phase includes formative and summative evaluations of the new authentication mechanisms with end users and implementing the accessibility open platform in collaboration with the investigators at Carnegie Mellon University. The work will lead to a better understanding of privacy needs across the population, as well as “inclusive” designs for privacy management tools that can be better not just for underserved populations but for all people.

Cooperative Agreement between Effat University and Syracuse University Effat University $192,332 for continuation in 2018 (Total awarded 2013 – 2018: $644,155) Paul Gandel, professor

This award continues the successful partnership between the School and Syracuse University and Effat University that began in 2013. The iSchool has helped Effat University with its digital literacy and information science course offerings, reviewing curriculum, coursework and programs to assure their offerings are on par with international information field standards. Effat is an all-women’s under­graduate college in Jeddah and the first private, nonprofit female university in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Grant Dollars Received FY 2014 – 2018 by the iSchool at SU 5

Amounts Awarded (in Millions)

$4.14

4

$3.71 3 $2.57 2 $1.78 1

2014

2015

A student at Effat University shows her design for a new bicycle technology.

$1.64 2016

2017

2018

Fiscal Year

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GRANTS SUMMARY

Syracuse University Internal CUSE 2018 Grants:

S

$155,445

yracuse University’s Office of Research announced the awarding of $1.67 million for 90 projects in May 2018 as its inaugural round of funding for a new internal grant program.

The new Collaboration for Unprecedented Success and Excellence (CUSE) program is designed to be highly interdisciplinary, to spur growth in the research enterprise and to support the University’s standing as a pre-eminent and inclusive student-focused research university. The grant program employed a peer review process, vetting awards across 12 major university units and more than 40 departments, centers and institutes. STEM projects received 37 of the first 90 awards. Faculty at the iSchool received eight CUSE grants as principal investigators and were co-principal investigators on five other awards.

iSCHOOL FACULTY ARE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS ON THE FOLLOWING CUSE GRANT AWARDS: Grant title:

Performance Analysis of Dynamic Spectrum Access Interactions Using Spectrum Consumption Models PI: Carlos Caicedo, associate professor Award: $4,998 This project aims to develop a proof of concept implementation of two software defined radio systems communicating their spectrum use and enabling spectrum sharing interactions. The implementation and performance findings will be applied to research funding and collaborations in the area of dynamic spectrum access for wireless communication.

Grant title:

Work Transitions in a Dynamic Labor Market PI: Martha Garcia-Murillo, senior associate dean With Others: Radhika Garg, assistant professor Award: $30,000 Globalization, as well as advances in transportation, logistics, information technology, and automation have created dynamic markets with potential negative impacts on labor markets. This study analyzes how high- and low-skilled workers transition from one employment status to another and how they decide among alternative jobs, including personal, infrastructure, and policy challenges, as well as new opportunities.

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Grant title: Preparing for a Post-Work Future PI: Martha Garcia-Murillo, senior associate dean With Others: Ingrid Erikson, assistant professor; Radhika Garg, assistant professor, and Ian MacInnes, associate professor, as co-PIs. Award: $10,000 The award funds the organization of a two-day seminar designed to highlight and raise awareness of external academics and collaborations with various entities while developing groundwork for consideration of research funding from outside resources. Contributions of participants will be published in an interdisciplinary open peer-reviewed journal.

Grant title:

Continuance Decision of Technology Use in Smart Personal Environment PI: Radhika Garg, assistant professor Award: $29,227 This project aims to understand the factors that contribute to technology overload in personal spaces, and how technology overload and advantages cumulatively affect users’ decision to use or abandon a technology. Its long- term goal is examining the design implications and policy issues around developing new technologies.

Grant title:

The Information Integration and System Architecture for Smart Products Lifecycle Management PI: Jeffrey Saltz, associate professor Award: $11,226 The proposal seeks to develop an integrated Smart Products Lifecycle Management platform, including formal methodologies and toolsets, as well as effective collaborations between product engineers and data scientists to address the issue of the functionality of complex systems that combine physical products with data products.

Grant title:

Building Livable Places While Advancing Smart and Sustainable Communities PI: Steve Sawyer, professor Award: $10,000 With Others: Ingrid Erickson, assistant professor, as Co-PI Funds provide for a campus-wide seminar series as a vehicle for drawing together faculty students and other stakeholders who share interest in building capacity in this broad area of “smart” living across Syracuse University and beyond.

Grant title:

The Effectiveness of Logos, Pathos, and Ethos in Three One-to-One Communication

Settings: Face-to-Face, Video Internet Chat, and Text Internet Chat PI: Lu Xiao, associate professor Award: $29,994 The project aims to help clarify what makes online messages persuasive through conducting lab experiments measuring the power of three persuasion acts in online and face-to-face persuasion processes. It aligns with the initiative “Truth in Social Media.”

Grant title:

Tracking Omissions of Research Targets in Health Research News PI: Bei Yu, Katchmar-Wilhelm Associate Professor/ Faculty Lead, CAS Data Science With Others: Jian Qin, professor Award: $30,000 The grant funds a preliminary study of developing computational methods and metadata standards for tracking omissions of research targets in health research news. Scientists rank omissions of research targets as a major type of misinformation in health research news that can result in a profound negative impact on public health and undermining of public trust in science.

ISCHOOL FACULTY ARE CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS ON THESE PROJECTS: Grant title: Co-PI:

Identifying Susceptible Individuals in Online Social Media Lu Xiao, associate professor

This project focuses on predicting the susceptibility of individuals in an online social network. It is based on a number of important topics, such as understanding the spread of information, including so-called “fake news.”

Grant title:

Co-PI:

Development and Testing of the Smart WatchConnected Sleep Experience and Assessment Application Carlos Caicedo, associate professor

Recognizing that insomnia is a prevalent and significant public health concern that is associated with numerous problematic mental and physical health consequences, the project team has developed a smartphone application that records real-time pre-sleep cognitive activity and sleep status of the user. This project develops a Smart Watch that decreases the distance from the user to the device as a way to improve clarity of the recordings.

Grant title: Co-PI:

Northeast Residential Energy Use Pilot Study Jason Dedrick, professor

This effort conducts a pilot study of residential electricity consumption by households in the Northeast. It uses high resolution metering enabling near real-time monitoring of electricity use at the level of individual circuits. Data would help design policies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing peak load electricity demands and other uses in an area of the country where use varies considerably by region.

Grant title:

Co-PI:

Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Post-9/11 Veterans’ Reintegration: Interdisciplinary Social Science Research for Understanding Veterans’ Transition Experiences Bryan Semaan, assistant professor

This award proposes to build innovative, interdisciplinary and crosscultural knowledge of reintegration challenges for current cohorts of Post 9/11 and Gulf War U.S. military service members and veterans.

The goal is to identify and assess current mechanisms for reintegration and to identify successful mechanisms used in other contexts, to contribute to literature on veteran transition challenges, barriers to civilian reintegration, changing civil-military relations, health and wellness research, new warfare/new battlefield security conditions and other areas.

Grant title: Co-PIs:

Social Media and Democracy: How We Connect and Communicate Influences Public Discourse Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor, and Lu Xiao, associate professor

This grant provides funding for an interdisciplinary seminar series for academics and professionals to speak to Syracuse University audiences about their experiences, research and insights about social media’s direct and indirect influence in the U.S. elections as far as creating notable winners and losers and influencing mindsets.

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Selected Awards and Accolades Carlos Caicedo , associate professor, was reelected as secretary of the IEEE Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks Standardization Committee. He serves on the 1900.5 standard Working Group on Policy Language and Policy Architecture for Managing Cognitive Radio for Dynamic Spectrum Access Applications.

Carlos Caicedo

Rachel Ivy Clarke

Kevin Crowston

Michael D’Eredita

Martha Garcia-Murillo

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Rachel Ivy Clarke , assistant professor, was presented with the Garfield Doctoral Dissertation award by the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) at its annual conference in February 2018. Her dissertation explores how reconceptualizing librarianship as a design discipline offers opportunities for em­powering and supporting the continued relevance of libraries in the 21st century.

Kevin Crowston , Associate Dean for Research and Distinguished Professor of Information Science, was presented with a lifetime service award at the annual meeting of the Organizational Communication and Information Systems (OCIS) division of the Academy of Management. The recogni­tion was presented at the division’s 78th annual meet­ing in Chicago. The honor recognizes an individual’s sustained contribution to the OCIS community through significant leadership roles, as well as scholarly impact and influence in the OCIS community.

Michael D’Eredita , an adjunct faculty member at the iSchool since 2000, was named director of the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship at the Madden School of Business at LeMoyne College.

He serves as a faculty member there and continues teaching his popular course, “What’s the Big Idea,” at the iSchool.

Martha Garcia-Murillo was named Senior Associate Dean of the iSchool in August. She holds an M.S. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Public Policy from the University of Southern California and has taught at the iSchool since 2000. She specializes in regulation of information and communication-related industries, and her areas of interest include institutional and information economics, the impact of regulation on business behavior, and factors that affect infrastructure deployment. In her role, she works on a variety of school-wide initiatives, serves as a deputy to the dean, and represents the school on campus-wide committees and task forces.

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Garcia-Murillo also served as moderator for a “Women in Tech” panel discussion organized by the Syracuse University Women’s Empowerment Project.

Radhika Garg

Yun Huang

Jill Hurst-Wahl

Michelle Kaarst-Brown

Radhika Garg , assistant professor, was invited to serve on the program committees of the 2018 10th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science.(CloudCom).

Yun Huang , assistant professor, with iSchool doctoral student Qunfang Wu, took the Lee Dirks “Best Paper” Award at the 2018 iConference. The award is considered the highest award presented at the event. Their paper was titled, “Understanding Interactions Between Municipal Police Departments and the Public on Twitter.”

Jill Hurst-Wahl , professor of practice, received a Dewey Fellowship from the Library Administration and Management Section of the New York Library Association (NYLA) at its annual conference. As a tribute from peers, the honor recognizes a record of accomplishment in the library pro­fes­ sion and involvement in activities to advance the library community.

Hurst-Wahl also joined the board of directors of the EveryLibrary Institute. The Institute’s focus is educational and charitable activities on behalf of U.S. public, academic, and school libraries that strengthen the civic life of communities, bridge social and societal gaps, and promote the future of the profession of librarianship.

Michelle Kaarst-Brown was named a 20182021 Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith professor, a lifetime appointment bestowed by Syracuse University. The professorship recognizes and rewards outstanding teaching and scholarship at the University while offering new opportunities for professional development and student engagement. Her special Meredith research project is titled “Action Research: Learning, Teaching, and Building Community Resiliency through Enterprise Risk Management Workshops.”

Frank Marullo , an adjunct professor, was honored at 2018’s graduate convocation as the recipient of the Jeffrey Katzer part-time “Professor of the Year Award.” The honor is presented annually by students who select the part-time teacher they believe represents teaching excellence.

Frank Marullo

Lee McKnight

Jeffrey Saltz

Steven Sawyer

Lee McKnight , associate professor, was named editor of the Journal of the British Blockchain Association. The journal is based in London and is the first European peer-reviewed blockchain journal.

McKnight also was named to the board of directors of Imcon International, Inc., a company that provides immediate connectivity solutions for global emergency response, worldwide education, and remote community network applications through its Internet Backpack technology.

Jeffrey Saltz , associate professor, served as co-chair for the 2018 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Big Data Conference workshops, coordinating 40 workshops and mini-tracks. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology.

Saltz also chaired the agile and lean mini-track and was co-chair of the big data/data science and governance and compliance mini track at the 2018 HICSS conference.

Steven Sawyer , professor, and director of the iSchool’s doctoral program, was appointed as a core faculty member of Syracuse University’s Reneé Crown Honors program. Honors Core faculty help to shape the University’s honors program curriculum and policy and assist with strategic planning. Saywer is teaching an honors course related to his research on the gig economy, “Working in the Digital Economy, or My Boss is a Bot and All My Coworkers Are, Too.” The course analyzes the changes in what it means to work and to be a worker, and explores the centrality of work relative to how society is organized.

Sawyer also is continuing another term as senior editor for the Journal of Information Technology. He also serves as a senior editor at The Information Society and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, and New Technology, Work and Employment.

Bryan Semaan , assistant professor, was selected by the undergraduate class of 2018 as full-tme “Professor of the Year.” The award is made annually at Commencement to recognize a full-time professor for teaching excellence.

Semaan also was selected for the Best Reviewer Award at the 2018 International Conference on Web and Social Media.

Bryan Semaan

Ruth Small

Jeffrey Stanton

Arthur Thomas

Murali Venkatesh

Ruth Small, iSchool professor emerita and Syracuse University Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor, was invited to join the Invention Education Research group of the Lemelson-MIT Program. The program is composed of researchers committed to advancing invention education through research and evaluation that “celebrates outstanding inventors and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention.”

Jeffrey Stanton , professor, earned status as among the most influential authors in Organizational Research Methods by designation of the ranking and popularity of his article examining the first 20 years of organization research methods. His article ranked among the top 20 of 484 Web of Science citations a year, or the top 4.13%, the ORM said.

The article is at: http://www.hermanaguinis.com/ pubs.html.

Arthur Thomas , associate dean for academic affairs and professor of practice, was named by 2018 graduate students as the recipient of the Jeffrey Katzer graduate “Professor of the Year” award. Students select a graduate-level recipient annually in recognition of teaching excellence.

Murali Vekatesh , associate professor, program director, IM/ADS/EDS, and director, Community and Information Technology Institute, was recognized with the Ambassador Award from the Refugee and Immigrant Self-Empowerment (RISE) organization of Syracuse. The group promotes self-sufficiency through employment, education, social support, and economic independence for members of the refugee and immigrant communities in the Syracuse region. Venkatesh has been involved with RISE for many years, providing technology guidance and infrastructure support, and has worked with Syracuse University students to design and deploy systems for social good in support of RISE’s mission and programs.

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F A C U LT Y & S T U D E N T N O T E S

Books, Book Chapters, Journal Articles

Jeffrey Saltz

Jeffrey Stanton

Jeff Hemsley

Daniel Acuna

Kevin Crowston

Radhika Garg

BOOKS Jeffrey Saltz , associate professor, signed a contract to co-author a data science text book with co-author Jeffrey Stanton, professor, for Sage Publishing. Its working title is “Using Data Science for Business Insight.”

BOOK CHAPTERS Jeffery Hemsley , assistant professor, authored a chapter, “The Role of Middle-Level Gatekeepers in the Propagation and Longevity of Misinformation.” It appears in the book, Misinformation and Mass Audiences, by B.G. Southwell, E. Thorson, and L. Sheble (Eds), (2018), University of Texas Press.

Hemsley also authored a chapter in that book with Jaime Snyder, a 2012 iSchool doctoral graduate. It is titled, “Dimensions of Visual Misinformation in the Emerging Media Landscape.”

JOURNAL ARTICLES Daniel Acuna , assistant professor, had an article, “The Sociology of Scientific Validity: How Professional Networks Shape Judgment in Peer Review,” authored with MishaTeplitskiy, Aïda Elamrani-Raoult; Konrad Körding and James Evans, published in the journal Research Policy.

Additional articles he published in 2018 include: “Intellectual Synthesis in Mentorship Determines Success in Academic Careers,” written with Jean F. Liénard, Titipat Achakulvisut, and Stephen V. David, published in the journal, Nature Communications; “Limiting Motor Skill Knowledge Via Incidental Training Protects Against Choking Under Pressure,” with co-authors Taraz G. Lee, Konrad Kording, and Scott Grafton, published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review of the National Center for Biotechnology Information; and “Bioscience-Scale Automated Detection of Figure Element Reuse,” with co-author Konrad Kording and Paul S. Brooks, which appeared in BioRxIv.

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Kevin Crowston, associate dean for research, had his article, “Stages of Motivation for Contributing User-Generated Content: A Theory and Empirical Test,” published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Co-author is Isabelle Fagnot.

Radhika Garg, assistant professor, had her article, “Open Data Privacy and Security Policy Issues and Its Influence on Embracing the Internet of Things,” published in the May 2018 issue of First Monday.

Garg, with co-author Jenna Kim, also had the article, “An Exploratory Study for Understanding Reasons of (Not-) Using Internet of Things,” published in Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems for the ACM. Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor, had a paper, “Studying Celebrity Practices on Twitter Using a Framework for Measuring Media Richness,” published in Social Media & Society. Co-author is Sikana Tanupabrungsun.

Additional articles he published in 2018 are: “Social Media for Social Good or Evil: An Introduction,” published in the journal Social Media & Society; “Expanding Information Flows Theory: The Diffusion of Universal Basic Income Policy Innovation Tweets,” authored with iSchool Senior Associate Dean Martha Garcia-Murillo and iSchool Associate Professor Ian MacInnes, published in Policy & Internet; and “Tweeting the Attack: Predicting Gubernatorial Candidate Attack Messaging and its Spread,” authored with iSchool Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley and doctoral students Feifei Zhang and Sikana Tanupabrungsun, published in the International Journal of Communication.

Yun Huang, associate professor, and co-authors Pi Xidong Pi, Zhen Qian, and Aaron Steinfeld, had their article, “Understanding Human Perception of Bus Fullness: An Empirical Study of Crowdsourced Fullness Ratings and Automatic Passenger Counter Data,” published in Transportation Research Record, the journal of the Transportation Research Board.

Michelle Kaarst-Brown

Lee McKnight

Megan Oakleaf

Michelle Kaarst-Brown, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor, served as lead guest editor for a special issue of the MIS Quarterly Executive newsletter, “Optimizing the Digital Workforce,” published by the Association for Information Systems. The issue was co-authored with Jeria Quesenberry, Fred Niederman, and Tim Weitzel.

Lee McKnight, associate professor, contributed his opinions on the changes coming to the artificial intelligence field in a recently published Pew Research Center report, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans.” Published as a joint effort by the Pew Research Center and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University, the report is the result of a large-scale canvassing of technology experts, scholars, corporate and public practitioners, and other leaders who shared their answer to a question about how advancing AI and related technology systems will or will not enhance human capacities and empower them.

Megan Oakleaf, associate professor, along with Jackie Belanger and Maggie Faber, published, “3,000 Library Users Can’t Be Wrong: Using One Open-Ended Survey Question to Demonstrate Your Library’s Value,” in Academic Libraries and the Academy: Strategies and Approaches to Demonstrate Your Value, Impact and Return on Investment. The publication is produced by the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Oakleaf also had these articles, chapters and papers published in 2018: “Academic Library Value: The Impact Starter Kit,” by the American Library Association; “Assessing Learning with Rubrics,” in Research Methods for Librarians and Educators: Practical Applications in Formal and Informal Learning Environments; “The Problems and Promise of Learning Analytics for Increasing and Demonstrating Library Value and Impact,” published in Information and Learning Science.

Bryan Semaan

Lu Xiao

Carlos Caicedo

Brian Semaan, assistant professor, had his paper, “Challenges in Transitioning from Civil to Military Culture: Hyper-Selective Disclosure Through ICTs,” published in the Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction. Co-authors are Bryan Dosono, Yasmeen Rashidi, Taslima Akter, and Apu Kapadia.

Semaan also had the piece, “Information Affordances: Studying the Information Processing Activities of the Core Occupy Actors on Twitter,” published in First Monday.

Co-authors are Jeffery Hemsley and Sikana Tanupabrungsun.

Additional articles Semaan published in 2018 are “Social Media is Polarized, Social Media is Polarized: Towards a New Design Agenda for Mitigating Polarization,” published in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems; “Identity Work as Deliberation: AAPI Political Discourse in the 2016 US Presidential Election,” in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018); with co-author Bryan Dosono; and “Detecting and Visualizing Crisis Events in Human Systems: An mHealth Approach with High Risk Veterans,” published in Proceedings of the Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM 2018), Rochester, NY, with several co-authors.

Lu Xiao, associate professor, had two journal articles published this year. They include “The Effect of Pre-Discussion Note-Taking in Hidden Profile Tasks,” co-written with Hao Zhou, Yongmei Liu, and Xiaohong Chen, published in the Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology; and “Twitter Users’ Privacy Concerns: What Do Their Accounts’ First Names Tell Us?,” published in the Journal of Data and Information Science (co-author D.F. Espinosa).

OPEN SOURCE Carlos Caicedo, associate professor, released version 1.2 of his open source tool, SCMBAT, the Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool. The open source code is available at https://github.com/ccaicedo/SCMBAT. He released version 1.0 in 2016.

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Selected Conference Presentations, Papers

Carlos Caicedo, associate professor, had his paper, “Standard Method for Modeling Spectrum Consumption–Introduction and Use Cases,” accept­ed for publication in the IEEE Communi­ cations Standards magazine. Co-authors are John A. Stine, Anthony Rennier, Matthew Sherman, Alex Lakpour, Mieczyslaw Kokar, Richard Schrage.

Caicedo’s refereed paper, “On the Applica­tion of Blockchains to Spectrum Management,” was accepted for the Research Conference on Com­munications, Information and Internet Policy 2018. Co-authors are M.B. Weiss, Kevin Werbach, Douglals Sicker, and Amer Malki.

Kevin Crowston, distinguished professor and associate dean for research, hosted a day-long Doctoral Colloquium at the 2018 iConference in the United Kingdom. The event provides doctoral students the opportunity to present their work to senior faculty and receive feedback on their dissertations, career paths, and other topics.

Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor, presented a paper, “Bot Interventions: Identifying Patterns of Orchestrated Activity across Election Campaigns on Twitter,” at September’s Internet, Policy and Politics Conference at the University of Oxford, England. Co-authors are Olga Boichak, Sam Jackson, Rebekah Tromble, and Sikana Tanupabrungsun.

Hemsley also presented the paper, “Collaboration Capacity: Measuring the Impact of Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Collaboration Networks,” at the SciTS 2018 Conference in Galveston, Texas.

Hemsley presented several papers at conferences in 2018: “Viral Design: User Concepts of Virality on the Niche Social Media Site, Dribbble,” and “Political Issues That Spread: Understanding Retweet Behavior During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,” both published in Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media & Society at the ACM in Copenhagen; and “Opinion Polls and Presidential Candidates’ Use of Persuasive Messages During the 2016 Election,” with Patricia Rossini, Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Feifei Zhang, and Jennifer StromerGalley; presented at the 68th annual conference of the International Communication Association in Prague, Czech Republic.

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Carlos Caicedo

Kevin Crowston

Jeff Hemsley

Yun Huang

Michelle Kaarst-Brown

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Hemsley also presented two papers in Proceedings of the iConference 2018 in Sheffield, United Kingdom: “Dribbble: Exploring the Concept of Viral Events on an Art World Social Network Site, in Springer Lecture notes, from Proceedings of the IConference, and “Automated Diffusion? Bots and Their Influence During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,” a paper he authored with Olga Boichak, Sam Jackson and Sikana Tanupabrungsun.

Yun Huang, assistant professor, with co-author doctoral student Qunfang Wu, had the paper, “Understanding Interactions between Municipal Police Departments and the Public on Twitter,” published in Digital Worlds.

That paper also took first place, the Lee Dirks Best Paper Award, at the 2018 iConference.

Huang also presented these papers: “Our Privacy Needs to Be Protected At All Costs: Crowd Workers’ Privacy Experiences on Amazon Mechanical Turk,” in the Proceedings of ACM, Human-Computer Interaction; “Danmaku vs.

Forum Comments: Understanding User Participation and Knowledge Sharing in Online Videos” in Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork with co-authors Qunfang Wu; Yisi Sang, and Shan Zhang.

She also presented two additional papers in 2018: “Examining Q&A of Peer Tutoring Learning via Online Videos,” in Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018, co-authored with Qunfang Wu, and “Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons Alone Didn’t Work!” published in Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 2018, with co-authors Qunfang Wu and Yaxing Yao. Michelle Kaarst-Brown, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor, co-organized the 2018 SIM Connect Live Annual Meeting’s PractitionerAcademic track. She worked with Mary Sumner and Ulrika Schultze to host the April event.

Kaarst-Brown’s poster, “The Placement Evolution of Information Systems Graduates,” appeared in Proceedings of 2018 ACM SIG­MISCPR Conference on Computer and People Research. Her co-author is Indira R. Guzman.

and Posters

Megan Oakleaf, associate professor, presented a poster on the topic, “Critical Information Literacy and Outcomes Assessment: Mutually Supportive, Not Mutually Exclusive,” co-authored with Josh Hughey, at the Library Assessment Conference in December.

Oakleaf also presented a peer-reviewed paper, “What Could We Do, If Only We Knew? Libraries, Learning Analytics, and Student Success” at that conference. Co-authors are Malcolm Brown, Scott Walter, Joe Lucia, and Dean Hendrix.

Jeffrey Saltz, associate professor, presented his paper, “Thoughts on Current and Future Research on Agile and Lean: Ensuring Relevance and Rigor,” at the 2018 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. It was co-authored with John Tripp and Dan Turk.

Saltz also presented a paper, “Improving Data Science Projects by Enriching Analytical Models with Domain Knowledge,” co-authored by Heng Zhang and Uptal Roy, at the IEEE Big Data Conference. Additionally, he presented “Helping Data Science Students Develop Task Modularity,” a paper co-authored with Bob Heckman, Kevin Crowston, Sangseok You, and Yatish Hegde, at the 2018 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences conference.

Impairments,” with co-authors Bryan Dosono and Jordan Hayes, from the IEEE Internet Computing 2018 conference.

Megan Oakleaf

Jeffrey Saltz

Bryan Semaan

Bryan Semaan, assistant professor, had the article “Narrating Resilience with Technology: Healing from Moral Injury” published in Proceedings of the Veterans in Society Conference.

Yang Wang, assistant professor, presented at UbiComp 2018, in coordination with co-author Corey Jackson, doctoral candidate, on “Addressing Privacy Discrepancy through Personalized Notifications,” published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.

Wang had several additional conference presentations in 2018: “Inclusive Security and Privacy,” presented at the 2018 IEEE Security and Privacy Conference; “Our Privacy Needs To Be Protected At All Costs: Crowd Workers’ Privacy Experiences on Amazon Mechanical Turk,” presented in Proceedings of the ACM (PACM): Human-Computer Interaction: Volume 1: Issue 1: from the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), 2018 conference. Co-authors are Xia Huichuan, Yun Huang, Anuj Shah; plus “Towards Accessible Authentication: Learning from People with Visual

Yang Wang

Lu Xiao

Lu Xiao, associate professor, presented papers at several industry conferences. They include: “Understanding Privacy Dichotomy in Twitter” at the 29th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media; co-authored with Taraneh Khazei, Robert E. Mercer, and Arif Khan; “A New Time Series Model for Text Mining,” presented at the International Conference on Information and Communications Technology in Indonesia (co-authors Zhang Guandong and Hao Yu) and “Online Persuasion Mechanisms and Processes–A Research Agenda,” a short panel paper (co-authors R.E. Guadagno, Jeff Hemsley, and Anabel Quan-Haase), which was included in Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Xiao also presented “Sentiments in Wikipedia Articles for Deletion Discussions,” authored with Niraj Sitaula, which appeared in Springer via proceedings of the 2018 iConference; and “Keywords and Sentiments in Survivor Interviews — Nanking Massacre,” presented at the 3rd Digital Humanities Discussion Forum in Beijing, China with co-authors L.Q. Jiang, Y.H. Zhong, W.C. Zhai, X. Hua, and X.H. Zhong.

Bei Yu, Katchmar-Wilhelm associate professor, and co-author Shi Yuan had their paper, “An Evaluation of Information Extraction Tools for Identifying Health Claims in News Headlines,” included in Proceedings of the EventStory Workshop, held in affiliation with COLING 2018.

Yu, with Jian Qin, iSchool professor, and Liya Wang, presented on the topic of knowledge node and relation detection at the Networked Knowledge Organization Systems Workshop at the Dublin Core International Conference in Portugal.

Yu’s paper, “Auto-Tracking Social Discussions on Corporate Facebook Page: A Case Study on Starbucks,” was included in the Proceedings of the 2018 iConference held in the United Kingdom, published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

She also gave an invited talk at Sichuan University in July on “NLP for Assessing Health News Quality.”

Bei Yu

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F A C U LT Y & S T U D E N T N O T E S

New Faculty Joining the School of Information Studies faculty in the 2018 academic year were the following new members: Beth Patin

for BizLitics, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in business analytics-based solutions and services.

He also has taught courses on data mining and analytics as an adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Assistant Professor Beth J. Patin joined the iSchool in August as an assistant professor in a tenure-track faculty capacity.

Patin graduated from the University of Washington with a Ph.D. in Information Science in 2018.

She has a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from that University (2012) and an additional master’s degree in school media administration from Louisiana State University (2004).

She also earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Loyola University in New Orleans and taught in New Orleans public schools.

In 2007, Patin was named an American Library Association Emerging Leader. She has been nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Washington and has served as a member of the advisory board for the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries.

Beth Patin

Brian McKernan

Research Assistant Professor Brian McKernan joined the Center for Compu­ tational and Data Science at the School of Information Studies as a research assistant professor in June.

Stephen Wallace

Her research focuses on the equity of information in two areas: crisis informatics and building cultural competence. She currently researches how public libraries make their communities more resilient in times of crisis.

Stephen Wallace

Professor of Practice Stephen Wallace joined the iSchool in August as a professor of practice to teach courses for the data science and data analytics programs.

Wallace received his Doctorate of Professional Studies in Computing from Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. He holds an M.B.A. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management and a bachelor of science degree in operations management from Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

His career has spanned more than 30 years across the information technology spectrum in roles of increasing responsibility from IT director to vice president and CIO. For the past five years, Wallace worked as founder and managing partner

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THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Wallace’s research looks at healthcare analytics and cognitive systems development, where he seeks to improve engagement and outcomes by how providers and patients synthesize and interact with health information.

Brian McKernan

He previously was an assistant professor of sociology at The Sage Colleges in Albany, NY, and taught courses at New York University, Mount Holyoke College, and the State University of New York at Albany.

At CCDS, McKernan will work on Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley’s TRACE (Trackable Reasoning and Analysis for Collaboration and Evaluation) project. The web-based application aims to improve reasoning through the use of techniques, such as debate and analogical reasoning, along with crowdsourcing, to enhance analysts’ problem-solving abilities and foster creative thinking to provide support and guidance where human reasoning falls short.

McKernan worked with Stromer-Galley and other researchers on the CYCLES project from 2013 to 2015. That federally funded research program involved designing an educational video game to teach players about cognitive biases and reduce the likelihood of players committing those biases in the future. He is active in the Different Games Collective, which organizes events and resources to support marginalized voices in gaming spaces, and is a faculty fellow at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology, a research center devoted to studying the cultural dimensions of social life.

Keynotes, Panels, and Workshops Carlos Caicedo, associate professor, presented an invited talk on the subject, “Technical Standards and Regulatory Trends for Future RF Spectrum Sharing Environments” at the Wireless Information Network Laboratory at Rutgers University in November.

Radhika Garg, assistant professor, was invited to participate as a program committee member for 2018’s 10th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science.

Jeffery Hemsley, assistant professor, was part of a refereed panel, “Online Persuasion Mechanisms and processes—A Research Agenda,” at the 9th International Conference on Social Media & Society in Copenhagen.

Hemsley also participated on a panel, “Social Media Bots, Trolls and Cyborgs Round Table: Implications for Research,” at the 19th annual meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers.

Additionally, he was a member of discussion panels at the Association for Information Science and Technology conference, “Big Metadata Analytics: Setting a Research Agenda for the Data-Intensive Future,” with Jian Qin and others; and an AoIR Early Career Scholars Workshop, “Internet Research 19,” at the 19th Annual Meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers” in Montreal.

Michelle Kaarst-Brown, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor, organized and chaired the Association for Information Systems MIS Quarterly Executive Journal’s special issue workshop on the topic “Optimizing the Digital Workforce” at the Hawaii International Conference on System Science.

Kaarst-Brown also co-planned and co-chaired an inaugural two-day workshop track for the Society for Information Management’s CONNECT Live conference in Dallas, titled “Practitioner-Academic Research,” a two-day track.

Megan Oakleaf, associate professor, was invited to present a practicum, “Critical Information Literacy Instruction: Using Outcomes to Teach and Assess Big Ideas that Matter,” along with Josh Hughey, at the December Library Assessment Conference. Oakleaf also was invited to present a workshop at that event, titled “Learning Analytics and Academic Libraries: Getting Started, Gaining Traction, Going Forward.”

Bryan Semaan, assistant professor, participated as a lead discussant on the panel “Media, Technologies, Cooperation— Rethinking Publics and Publicness in the Middle East and North Africa Region” for the event, “Technological Imperialism: From ‘Designing For’ to ‘Empowering Design’ in the Middle East and North Africa.

2019 Ph.D. Placements Graduating from the iSchool’s doctoral program in May were two candidates. They are now working in the industry as follows.

Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Ph.D.

Jerry Robinson, Ph.D.

Data Scientist Microsoft Redmond, WA

User Experience/ Accessibility Researcher Facebook Menlo Park, CA

The iSchool Ph.D. Program Our doctoral program (Ph.D in Information Science and Technology) is innovative and interdisciplinary.

Learn more about our curriculum, learning outcomes, recruiting faculty and how to apply to the program at: ischool.syr.edu/phd.

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Doctoral Student Awards and Accolades Sarah Bolden was among the coordinators of a second Smart Cities Seminar that showcased student work on smart city topics. The CUSE grant-supported event showcases the work of Syracuse University students from several colleges through a series of workshops that draw together faculty, students, and others into smart-city oriented projects and scholarship. Three iSchool faculty members, Steven Sawyer, Murali Venkatesh, and Ingrid Erickson, are among eight faculty on campus who are involved in presenting the seminars.

Bolden also was awarded a grant in 2018 from the Syracuse University Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies to travel to Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library, for archival thesis research.

Sarah Bratt, with co-authors, presented the paper “Col­ laboration Capacity: Measuring the Impact of Cyberinfrastructure-enabled Collaboration Networks” at the SciTS Conference.

Bratt was selected as one of five fellows to attend the Science Production Function Society project at the Laboratory for Innovation and Society at Harvard, where she conducted field work on molecular sequence data production and submission practices.

Brian Dobreski and Bryan Semaan had the paper, “Blogging as Recovery: The Use of Blogs by Survivors of Military Sexual Trauma,” published in Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Dobreski also was recognized with the Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the American Library Association’s Beta Phi Mu International Library and Information Studies Honor Society.

Bryan Dosono a nd co-author had their paper “Challenges in Transitioning from Civil to Military Culture: Hyper-Selective Disclosure through ICTs,” accepted in the Proceedings of the ACM Journal: Human-Computer Interaction: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Dosono, with Bryan Semaan, published “Identity Work as Deliberation: AAPI Political Discourse in the 2016 US Presidential Election,” in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. He also presented a paper, “Diversifying the Next Generation of Information Scientists: Six Years of Implementation and Outcomes for a Year-Long REU Program,” at the iConference.

Maboobeh Harandi presented posters at two conferences: “Talking the Talk in Citizen Science,” presented in companion papers at the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing; and “Organizing Data in Dynamic Flexible Tagging Systems,” at the Ninth International Conference on Complex Systems.

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Yingya Li and Katchmar-Wilheim Associate Professor Bei Yu h ad a paper accepted for presentation at the 2018 iConference. It was titled “Identifying Finding Sentences in Conclusion Subsections of Biomedical Abstracts.”

Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Jeffery Hemsley and Bryan Semaan had the paper “Information Affordances: Studying the Information Processing Activities of the Core Occupy Actors on Twitter,” published in First Monday.

Tanupabrungsun, with co-authors Jeffery Hemsley, Bryan Semaan, and Jennifer Stromer-Galley had the paper, “Tweeting to the Target: Candidates’ Use of Strategic Messages and @ Mentions on Twitter,” published in the Journal of Information Technology and Politics.

Tanupabrungsun also presented at the Social Media track at the iConference on “Dribbble: Exploring the Concept of Viral Events on an Art World Social Network Site.”

Qunfang Wu, Saurabh Gupta, and Yun Huang had the paper “Examining Conversations Between Police Agencies and the Public on Facebook” accepted for the 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research.

Wu also presented two papers at the iConference.

“Understanding Interactions Between Municipal Police Departments and the Public on Twitter,” co-authored with Assistant Professor Yun Huang, won the iConference’s Lee Dirks Best Paper Award. She also presented “Automated Diffusion? Bots and their Influence During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”

Wu, with Yisi Sang and Yun Huang, authored, “Danmaku: A New Paradigm of Social Interaction via Online Videos,” as an initiated submission to the Special Issue of 2018 GROUP at ACM Transactions on Social Computing.

Yaxing Yao, with co-author Assistant Professor Yun Huang, published the paper, “Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons Alone Didn’t Work!” in the Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Joint Conference and 2018 International.

Feifei Zhang had several papers presented in 2018. They include: “Tweeting the Attack: Predicting Gubernatorial Candidate Attack Messaging and Its Spread,” in the International Journal of Communication; authored with Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Jeff Hemsley, and Sikana Tanupabrungsun; and “The Relationship Between Race Competitiveness, Standing In The Polls, and Social Media Communication Strategies During the 2014 U.S. Gubernatorial Campaigns,” published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics.

Zhang’s paper, “Social Media, Opinion Polls, and the Use of Persuasive Messages During the 2016 U.S. Election Primaries,” written with Patricia Rossini, Jeffery Hemsley, Sikana Tanupabrungsun, and Jennifer Stromer-Galley, was published in the journal, Social Media + Society.

Visiting Scholars 2018

G

uest scholars—both at the graduate student and faculty level—add new perspectives, support research and teaching efforts and expand the iSchool’s interschool, interinstitution and intercontinental reach. During 2018, we welcomed the following scholars for stays at the iSchool and greatly appreciated their research efforts, insights, and academic contributions.

JUAN GUILLERMO TORRES HURTADO Doctoral student Faculty Sponsor: Carlos Caicedo Home Institution: Universidad de los Andes, Department of Electrical Engineering Country: Colombia XIAOLEI MA Visiting faculty Faculty Sponsor: Bei Yu Institution: National University of Defense Technology, College of Arts and Sciences Position: Professor

RUOJIA WANG Doctoral student Faculty Sponsor: Yun Huang Home Institution: Peking University Country: China

LU ZHANG Doctoral Student Faculty Sponsor: Yang Wang Home Institution: Peking University Country: China

SHI YUAN Doctoral Student Faculty Sponsor: Bei Yu Home Institution: Beihang University Country: China

HAICHEN ZHOU Doctoral Student Faculty Sponsor: Bei Yu Institution: Nanjing Agricultural University Country: China

Research Speakers and Visitors The iSchool was pleased to host a number of scholars and visitors, as well as its own faculty and alumni, as event speakers.They were: Loren Terveen, distinguished McKnight University professor of computer science at the University of Minnesota, who spoke on “Peer Production Systems: Promise, Perils, and Paths Forward,” March 8.

Joshua Introne, assistant professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University, discussed “Collective Narrative Dynamics: Towards A New Understanding of Disinformation.”

Mike Lucero, global director of client strategy for Twitch, discussed the technology behind the Twitch platform and the rise in its use for eSports streaming and promotion on April 13.

INVITED PRESENTERS

Kristen Shinohara, assistant professor, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology and co-director of the Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research Lab there, presented a talk, “Incorporating Social Factors in Accessible Design,” on September 25.

Lee Rainie, director of internet and technology research for the Pew Research Center, presented a talk November 1 on his project’s research about the role of social media in people’s lives and how a “techlash” is showing up in Pew’s surveys of Americans.

Jill Rothstein, chief librarian at New York Public Library’s Andrew Heiskell Braille & Talking Book Library, presented “Seeing the Whole Community: Serving Patrons with Print Disabilities Ages 0 - 100,” on September 20. Her talk was co-hosted by the iSchool as part of the Syracuse University Libraries’ Ongoing Issues in Digital Scholarship Forum Series. She also participated in a panel discussion on that topic moderated by Kate Deibel and Nicole Westerdahl of Syracuse University Libraries and John Mangicaro of Syracuse University Makerspace.

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