2020-2021 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
The Power of Information
Leading research at the intersection of people, information, and technology
Degree programs BS in Information Sciences (BS/IS) MS in Library and Information Science (MS/LIS) MS in Information Management (MS/IM) MS in Bioinformatics (Information Sciences Concentration) PhD in Information Sciences School Librarian Licensure Certificate of Advanced Study Undergraduate Minor in Informatics
The iSchool is dedicated to shaping the future of information through research, education, and engagement. Our mission is to lead the way in understanding the use of information in science, culture, society, commerce, and the diverse activities of our daily lives.
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School researchers leverage the power of information to advance insight and discovery, inform decision making, and create and assess new solutions to society’s
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most pressing challenges. — Eunice E. Santos, Dean
The iSchool at Illinois is known for multifaceted research that pushes the boundaries of innovation across diverse, socially relevant areas of importance. Our faculty are leaders in the field, recognized for their expertise and scholarly contributions, which are achieved through a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach. Researchers at the iSchool are awarded grants from some of the nation’s most prestigious funders, including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation. While our School’s research spans across a range of topics and fields of interest, it converges at the intersection of people, information, and technology. It incorporates a human-centered approach that prioritizes benefits to individuals and communities. Because information is fundamental to all contemporary human activities and services, it is crucial to the ability of our world to function successfully. iSchool researchers leverage the power of information to advance insight and discovery, inform decision making, and create and assess new solutions to society’s most pressing challenges. Drawing on the resources of the University of Illinois, a preeminent public research university, as well as on collaborations with international scholars and corporate sector partners, our School’s research enterprise continues to thrive. Areas of impact during the past year include but are not limited to: • Utilizing artificial intelligence to benefit agriculture • Investigating biases in adaptive learning software • Measuring the value and impact of library makerspaces • Developing cyberinfrastructure to accelerate scientific discovery • Analyzing decision-making for adopting medical guidelines • Creating digital health solutions for promoting COVID-19 vaccination • Digitizing predigital scientific literature in astrophysics • Building health data literacy skills • Demonstrating the link between health literacy and self-care • Assessing the impact of media polarization on public health emergencies • Mitigating the risk of foreign influence on news media • Examining the privacy practices of disaster apps • Identifying privacy protecting technologies in public library systems • Promoting open, reproducible, and reusable research • Reducing the spread of retracted science As the iSchool begins its 129th year, we are growing and advancing at a rapid rate. Our School is now home to Informatics programs, which were transferred from the Office of the Provost last fall. This academic year, we will welcome seven new faculty who will expand the scope of our research, teaching, and engagement. We will increase our campus footprint, expanding into two floors in the soon-to-be-completed Hub Champaign Daniel building, located at the intersection of 6th and Daniel Streets, while investing in our existing building at 501 East Daniel, the longtime heart of our School. We will continue to build on the success of yet another number one ranking among graduate schools in library and information studies, released in the spring by U.S. News & World Report, which also included our top rankings in digital librarianship, information systems, and services for children and youth. I hope you enjoy reading this report, which demonstrates the leadership of iSchool researchers in maximizing the potential and power of information.
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Research Grants
Our faculty and staff are principal investigators on a portfolio of 44 projects totaling $27.4 million and co-investigators or partners on 19 projects totaling $81.9 million.
Measuring the value and impact of library makerspaces Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Emily Knox and Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh received a $100,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for a project to develop an initial framework and future toolkit for measuring the impact and value of public library makerspaces in the lives of users and the communities that libraries serve.
Utilizing artificial intelligence to address agricultural challenges Associate Professor Jingrui He is one of the researchers involved in the new Artificial Intelligence for Future Agricultural Resilience, Management, and Sustainability (AIFARMS) Institute at the University of Illinois. The National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program, a joint effort between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), recently awarded the University $20 million for the institute.
Reducing the risk of foreign influence on news media The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Associate Professor Jingrui He a two-year, $319,568 grant to study how to mitigate the risk of foreign influence on news media by developing algorithms and software tools to detect, predict, generate, and understand disinformation dissemination.
Reducing the spread of retracted science Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider’s research on reducing the spread of retracted science, funded through a $174,981 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, was shared in a case study published in a special issue on scholarly literature mining in Scientometrics and in an online workshop, Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science (RISRS2020).
Creating international cyberinfrastructure networks Anita Nikolich, director of research and technology innovation and research scientist, is the principal investigator of a $3 million project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). FABRIC Across Borders (FAB) will expand FABRIC, a project to build the nation’s largest cyberinfrastructure testbed and accelerate scientific discovery by creating networks to seamlessly and securely move vast amounts of data across oceans and time zones.
Digitizing astrophysical literature Teaching Assistant Professor Jill Naiman received a $506,912 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to digitize predigital scientific literature. The project is a collaboration with Harvard University and the Astrophysics Data System (ADS), a digital library portal operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. With over 15 million records, ADS is one of the most important archives in the scientific field of astronomy.
Identifying privacy measures in public libraries Associate Professor Masooda Bashir received a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to identify the existence and absence of privacy protecting technologies in public library systems, determining adherence to American Library Association (ALA) digital privacy guidelines. Associate Professor Yang Wang serves as key project staff.
Creating a digital health solution for promoting COVID-19 vaccination
Preserving the history of live musical performances Professor and Associate Dean for Research J. Stephen Downie and Professor and PhD Program Director Michael Twidale are coinvestigators for InterMusE, a collaboration with partners at the University of Illinois Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and colleagues across the United Kingdom. Funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project will preserve the history of live musical performances and the relationship between live music and communities by developing an online archive of musical events.
Analyzing digital collections for marginalized texts and communities The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), cohosted at Indiana University and codirected by Professor and Associate Dean for Research J. Stephen Downie, received a $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop new methods for creating and analyzing digital collections. In collaboration with the University of Kansas, the project will focus on content related to historically under-resourced and marginalized texts and communities.
Investigating potential biases in adaptive learning software The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Assistant Professor Nigel Bosch a three-year, $987,015 grant to study potential biases in K-12 mathematics adaptive learning software related to the identities expressed by students.
A new project led by Assistant Professor Jessie Chin aims to develop a “Motivational-Interviewing Conversational Agent (MintBot)” for increasing COVID-19 vaccination among vulnerable populations, especially those with compromised health conditions. The project is funded through a $74,992 grant from Jump ARCHES, a partnership between OSF HealthCare and the U of I’s Grainger College of Engineering and College of Medicine in Peoria.
Empowering youth to build health data literacy skills Assistant Professor Rachel M. Magee, Professor and MS/IM Program Director Catherine Blake, and Associate Professor Jana Diesner received funding from the Office of the Provost and U of I Extension to build on existing Illinois 4-H ambassadors and advocate models to create a Health Data Literacy Ambassadors program, which will empower youth as change agents and build connections and new partnerships.
Studying the impact of scientific research on society Associate Professor Jana Diesner is a member of a research team that received a $1 million, three-year grant from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany) for the collaborative project, “TextTransfer: Assessing Impact Patterns in Research Texts Applying Corpus Driven Methods.” The main goal of this project is to advance, validate, and apply methods to study the impact of research on society at large across different dimensions of possible impact of science on people. The team also is developing and validating new taxonomies and methods for this purpose.
Improving access to restricted digital collections HathiTrust Research Center Associate Director Glen Worthey was one of the first recipients of new grant funding to advance digital scholarship in cultural institutions. His project, AEOLIAN (Artificial Intelligence for Cultural Organizations) will bring together a team of experts to develop and examine new approaches—particularly artificial intelligence and machine learning—for improving access to and use of digital collections that are currently restricted due to privacy concerns or copyright protection. It is a collaboration with Loughborough University in the UK and led by the HathiTrust Research Center, which is cohosted by the iSchool.
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Featured News
Informing decisions about housing choices Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek coedited a new book, Deciding Where to Live: Information Studies on Where to Live in America which explores major themes related to where to live in America and shows how changes in media and information technology shape housing choices and an understanding of the meaning of “personal place.”
iSchool researchers address key societal challenges at the intersection of people, information, and technology, drawing on cross-disciplinary expertise and collaborating with scholars around the world.
Reframing story as a fundamental information form Associate Professor Kate McDowell proposed a new framework that connects story to common information concepts—data, information, knowledge, and wisdom—in a framework for researching storytelling as collective information experience. Her article, “Storytelling Wisdom: Story, Information, and DIKW,” was published in the March 2021 issue of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST).
Contributing to research in children’s literature
Understanding the nature of creative works Teaching Associate Professor David Dubin gave the talk, “Games as Works,” at the inaugural Resources and Visibility in Digital Humanities Conference. He examined how the essential properties of a work of authorship or design are preserved when the work is translated into a different medium, considering the role of U.S. copyright law in determining what constitutes any work of art, design, or authorship.
Professor Sara L. Schwebel, director of The Center for Children’s Books, presented a keynote lecture, “Children’s Literature as Public History: Bridging Divides Within and Beyond the Academy,” at the inaugural Resources and Visibility in Digital Humanities Conference. She also chaired a panel at the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA) annual conference, “The Newbery Centennial: Who is Seen in the U.S. South,” drawing on research to be published in her forthcoming coedited book, Dust Off the Gold Medal: Rediscovering Children’s Literature at the Newbery Centennial.
Uncovering the historical relevance of how things were made Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem analyzed “production stories,” a genre of books and media that teach how everyday things are made, in “The Progress of Sugar: Consumption as Complicity in Children’s Books about Slavery and Manufacturing, 1790-2015,” a paper published in Children’s Literature in Education (CLE). Her related web resource takes a critical look at this popular genre, encouraging librarians, educators, and readers to look for production stories “that faithfully tell the human story behind making things.”
Investigating the origins of gender roles in STEM education Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem presented research investigating the historical origins of how STEM education is gendered today by examining Victorian books about technology at the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA) annual conference.
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Advancing research sharing for reproducibility and reuse Professor Bertram Ludäscher, director of the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship, was the keynote speaker for “Toward Open, Reproducible, and Reusable Research,” a webinar hosted by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). His keynote, “Computational Reproducibility vs. Transparency: Is It FAIR Enough?,” examined what information is gained by conducting a reproducibility experiment.
Strengthening the reliability of research findings Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and PhD student Linh Hoang presented their research at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium, addressing the use of text mining and machine learning on clinical trial publications to automatically identify study characteristics that have a major effect on the reliability of their findings.
Promoting better health outcomes Assistant Professor Jessie Chin and fellow researchers demonstrated the link between health literacy and selfcare by examining “actionable memory,” or memory for medication purposes, among patients with diabetes. The resulting paper, “Health Literacy, Processing Capacity, Illness Knowledge, and Actionable Memory for Medication Taking in Type 2 Diabetes: Cross-Sectional Analysis,” was published in the January 2021 Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Analyzing decision-making toward adopting medical guidelines Dean and Professor Eunice E. Santos led a research team, including PhD students Suresh Subramanian and Vairavan Murugappan, that developed a computational modeling and simulation framework to analyze decision-making for adopting Type 2 diabetes medical guidelines. The framework will allow policymakers to study barriers to disseminating medical guidelines, identify the factors contributing to guideline adoption, and create targeted strategies to improve communication about the guidelines. The team reported their findings in the cover article for the June issue of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
Exploring the relationships between privacy, governance, and knowledge Assistant Professor Madelyn Sanfilippo coedited Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons. The book explores the complex and dynamic relationships between privacy, governance, and the production, cultivation, and sharing of knowledge.
Examining the privacy practices of disaster apps Assistant Professor Madelyn Sanfilippo and fellow researchers examined the privacy practices of popular disaster apps in the paper, “Disaster Privacy/Privacy Disaster,” which was the lead article in a special issue of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (volume 71, issue 9) addressing information privacy in the digital age.
Promoting usability for everyone, everywhere Professor Michael Twidale and coauthors presented a new paradigm to address the persistence of difficulties that people have in accessing and using information in “Everyone Everywhere: A Distributed and Embedded Paradigm for Usability,” an article published in the March 2021 issue of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). The researchers noted that awareness of usability could lead to improvements across disciplines, such as politics (e.g., better ballot design) and medicine (e.g., user-friendly medical devices).
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Other Noteworthy Items
iSchool faculty are leaders in the information sciences, recognized for their expertise through scholarly contributions and engagement that advance the field.
Comstock named to the Public Library Data Alliance Senior Lecturer Sharon Comstock was named to the first roster for the Public Library Data Alliance (PLDA) and selected for a second term. PLDA emerged from Measures that Matter (MtM), led by the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). PLDA engages diverse stakeholders to propose strategic actions around data that reflect the impacts of public libraries.
Chan selected as Provost Fellow Associate Professor Anita Say Chan shared her expertise with campus as the Provost Fellow for International Affairs and Global Strategies for the 2020-2021 academic year, assisting with the development of a campus global strategic plan and sharing insights into how knowledge institutions and cultures can advance inclusive innovation economies.
Ocepek and Lee receive ASIS&T best poster award Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and PhD student Lo Lee were among the coauthors of “Good, Bad, and Practical: Exploring Human Memory in Everyday Information Behavior,” a poster that received the SIG USE Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award at the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting.
Wolske textbook offered in launch of Illinois Open Publishing Network A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology, authored by iSchool Teaching Assistant Professor Martin Wolske, was one of the first offerings in the Windsor & Downs Press series OPN Textbooks, which seeks to publish high-quality open access textbooks for higher education across the disciplines.
Diesner selected as IAspire Leadership Academy Fellow Associate Professor Jana Diesner was selected as a fellow for the IAspire Leadership Academy, a program aimed at training the next generation of underrepresented leaders in STEM higher education. IAspire is a program of the National Alliance for Inclusive & Diverse STEM Faculty.
8 Schneider presents JCDL workshop keynote Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider presented “Methods Pyramids as a Knowledge Organizing Structure for Evidence-Based Medicine,” the keynote for the Workshop on Conceptual Modeling at the 2020 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). The event brought together international scholars focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, practical, organizational, and social issues.
Nikolich selected as Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow Anita Nikolich, director of research and technology innovation and research scientist, was selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as an Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow for the 2020-21 academic year. She was one of twelve researchers in the area of artificial intelligence chosen nationwide for leadership, research excellence, and an interest in promoting meaningful dialogue between science and society.
Wickett selected as recipient of ASIS&T Best Short Paper Award
Sanfilippo and coauthors awarded iConference best research paper
A paper authored by Assistant Professor Karen Wickett and Informatics PhD student Donald Keefer, “Adapting Research Process Models for the Design of Knowledge Engineering Applications,” received the Best Short Paper Award at the 2020 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting.
Assistant Professor Madelyn Sanfilippo coauthored “Data and Privacy in a Quasi-Public Space: Disney World as a Smart City,” which was selected as the Lee Dirks Award for Best Full Research Paper at iConference 2021.
Huang awarded honorable mention for coauthored ACM paper Assistant Professor Yun Huang and PhD student Si Chen coauthored a paper that received an Honorable Mention Award at the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020). “I Was Afraid, but Now I Enjoy Being a Streamer!: Understanding the Challenges and Prospects of Using Live Video Streaming for Online Education,” examines how Chinese teachers and students addressed challenges transitioning from face-to-face to online learning due to COVID-19.
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Student Accomplishments
Gabriel delivers keynote PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel gave the opening keynote address at the Critical Pedagogy Symposium, a collaborative project of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Greater New York Metropolitan Area Chapter, Library Information Literacy Advisory Committee (LILAC) of The City University of New York, and METRO. In “Let’s Get Critical: Thinking Expansively about Criticality in LIS Scholarship,” Gabriel discussed what criticality in LIS looks like and how critical theory, critical pedagogy, and critical action can and should be applied to research, teaching, and practice.
Combating the effects of gentrification through library programming
With innovation and enthusiasm, our students turn ideas into action by implementing research and projects that garner praise and recognition.
Student research addresses broad themes in information sciences Four MS/LIS students were recognized for excellence in presenting research at the iSchool’s annual Student Showcase, which addressed four themes—information users, information practitioners, information objects, and COVID-19. Topics and presenters included (top to bottom): “Protect Trans Kids: Serving Trans Students in PK-12 School Libraries,” by G Trupp; “Deconstructing Euro-American Centered Catalogue Systems in Libraries and Archives,” by Matialyn Munton; “A Case for Zines in (LIS) Instruction,” by Lily Murray; and “Perspectives on E-Books in the Age of COVID-19: The Case of the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library,” by Olivia Palid.
MS/LIS student Anthony Martínez presented his research at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Division IV webinar. He discussed his proposal, Porch Stories, a storytime partnership combating the effects of gentrification by bringing library programming to African American children in local communities, investing “long term in the power and significance of Black folks reading Black books to Black children in Black spaces.”
BIG wraps up another successful semester of student consulting Students in the Business Intelligence Group (BIG), a student consultancy group led by Associate Professor Yoo-Seong Song, worked with clients in the areas of facial recognition technology, digital healthcare, telemetry-based marketing automation, cybersecurity, and market entry strategy.
10 Dissertations Natã Barbosa, “Exploring Algorithmic Realism in the Data Economy” Beth Bloch, “The Values and Ethics of Biomedical Engineering Practices in the Design of Novel Biotechnologies”
Illinois study tracks evolution of SARSCoV-2 virus mutations In a new study, University of Illinois researchers and students, including iSchool PhD student Tre Tomaszewski, demonstrate how the SARS-CoV-2 virus is honing tactics that may make it more successful and stable. The study originated as part of a Bioinformatics and Systems Biology class that tracked the mutation rate in the virus proteome through time.
Yun Hao, “Towards a Better Understanding of Music Playlist Titles and Descriptions” Joo Ho Lee, “Using Grant Applications to Measure the Evolution of Collaborative and Non-Collaborative Research” Kinyetta Nance, “African Americans and Mobile Video: Exploring Black Cultural Practice on Vine” Kirstin Phelps, “Collective Leadership for Community Action: A Case-Based Inquiry into Supporting Digital Literacy Initiatives” K.R. Roberto, “Description Is a Drag (and Vice Versa): Classifying Trans Identities” Noah Samuel, “Socio-Physical Characteristics Influencing Collaboration Among Startup Firms in Four Business Incubators”
Preserving and understanding the cognitive benefits of video games In her video game preservation research, MS/LIS student Hanna Dahlstrom explores subtopics such as bit-rot, emulation, migration, abandonware, databases, metadata schema, and fan-based communities while focusing on the obstacles in video game preservation versus other digital mediums. One of her goals is to help researchers understand the cognitive benefits that games have provided throughout history.
DeAnza Williams, “BlackBoyYALit: Seeing Black Boys in 21st Century Young Adult Literature”
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