New project for youth health literacy

New project to boost youth health and data literacy skills in Illinois

Aproject to increase the health data literacy of youth has received funding through the University’s Extension Collaboration Grant Program. Assistant Professor Rachel M. Magee will lead the project, “Health Data Literacy Ambassadors,” with Associate Professors Catherine Blake and Jana Diesner serving as co-investigators. Funded through the Office of the Provost’s Investment for Growth Program and University of Illinois Extension, the grant supports research and partnerships that address critical issues in five key areas: food, economy, environment, community, and health.

In the two-year project, iSchool researchers and Extension staff will build on existing 4-H Ambassadors and Advocate models to create a Health Data Literacy Ambassadors program.

“Our interdisciplinary collaboration connects researchers with expertise in health informatics, data analytics, youth services, and youth community engagement with Extension experts deeply experienced with positive youth development, health, nutrition, and wellness,” said Magee. Fifteen teens from across the state of Illinois will participate as program ambassadors. They will conduct needs assessments of health topics in their communities, develop and conduct data analytics projects to address issues that arise from their assessments, and present their findings to University and local audiences. University of Illinois students and faculty will serve as mentors and support the teens in their projects. “This collaboration has the potential to build a sustainable model for other data literacy ambassador programs for Illinois 4-H, furthering efforts to address critical issue areas across Illinois through the lens of data analytics, continuing to empower youth as change agents, highlighting career pathways, and building connections and new partnerships between local communities and the University,” said Magee.

Informed by her background as a public librarian, Magee is a youth advocate who teaches about and researches youth technology and information practices. She holds a PhD in information studies from Drexel University and a master’s degree in information resources and library science from the University of Arizona.

Illinois researchers to digitally preserve history of live musical performances

Michael Twidale

J. Stephen Downie Aproject to preserve the history of live musical performances and the relationship between live music and communities will use material from Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The project, involving researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will develop an online archive of musical events. “The Internet of Musical Events: Digital Scholarship, Community, and the Archiving of Performance,” known as InterMusE, aims to preserve access to the record of historical live musical performances through digital archiving of concert ephemera such as programs and posters. It also will collect oral history interviews with concertgoers. The project is funded by the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, and it is part of that organization’s UK-US New Directions for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions program. The lead institution is the University of York. Project team members include musicologists, archivists, computer scientists, and performance providers at several institutions, including iSchool professors and co-investigators Michael Twidale and J. Stephen Downie, the latter of whom is also co-director of the HathiTrust Research Center; co-investigator Maureen Reagan, the associate director for marketing at Krannert Center; and graduate student in musicology Kathleen McGowan. They will work with concert materials from various sources, including Krannert Center. The researchers will use the materials to form case studies for exploring music’s role in community life during the past century—particularly relevant as the performing arts recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers will develop tools and techniques to examine the archival data for new patterns and trajectories of change over time, and to help arts organizations understand their musical histories and traditions. They also will create online open-access portals to link with existing collections, providing a widely accessible digital archive of musical events. –courtesy of the University of Illinois News Bureau

Researchers receive awardsat ASIS&T

iSchool researchers were recognized with best paper and poster awards at the 2020 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting.

“Adapting Research Process Models for the Design of Knowledge Engineering Applications,” coauthored by Informatics PhD student Donald Keefer and Assistant Professor Karen Wickett, received the Best Short Paper Award. It addressed how Keefer and Wickett adapted research process models (RPM) to support the information and document needs associated with the design of a knowledge system.

“Good, Bad, and Practical: Exploring Human Memory in Everyday Information Behavior,” coauthored by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek, PhD student Lo Lee, and Stephann Makri (City, University of London), received the SIG USE Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award. For their study, they interviewed and observed arts and crafts hobbyists navigating a creative shopping space designed to spark serendipity. Their findings demonstrate the distinctions between different types of memory and their impacts on everyday information behavior.

Book examines information behavior and home buying

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and William Aspray, senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, have co-edited a new book, Deciding Where to Live: Information Studies on Where to Live in America, which was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield. Their book explores major themes related to where to live in America and shows how “changes in media and information technology are shaping both our housing choices and our understanding of the meaning of personal place.” “Dr. Aspray and I wanted to put together an edited volume to bring in many different and unique voices to help us think broadly about informational questions related to where to live,” said Ocepek. “We wanted a business perspective, a surveillance and privacy perspective, a perspective on race, and a nontraditional perspective that considers a community instead of a resident. In addition to these goals, we wanted to find people who have explored this space or were interested in bringing their approaches to consider how someone decides where to live.” Teaching Assistant Professor David Hopping, Teaching Associate Professor and Acting BS/IS Program Director Judith Pintar, PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel, and Ocepek contributed chapters to the book.

The National Science Foundation has awarded Associate Professor Jingrui He a two-year $319,568 grant to study how the risk of foreign influence on news media can be mitigated. Her project, “Towards a Computational Framework for Disinformation Trinity: Heterogeneity, Generation, and Explanation,” will lead to a new suite of algorithms and software tools to detect, predict, generate, and understand disinformation dissemination. Hanghang Tong, associate professor of computer science at Illinois, will serve as co-principal investigator.

He receives grant to study how risk of foreign influence on media can be mitigated

“As the 2020 decade unfolds, there is great optimism on what technology will emerge and how it can make daily life easier. However, the greater the technology, the greater risk foreign influence can have on that technology,” He said. For her project, He will study foreign influence via the lens of disinformation on news media from a computational perspective. She will use Explainable Heterogeneous Adversarial Machine Learning (EXHALE) to address the limitations of current techniques in terms of comprehension, characterization, and explainability. “The proposed techniques are expected to advance state-of-the-art in machine learning and AI. They are also expected to enhance the national resilience to foreign influence operations from multiple aspects, and thus help to mitigate the risk of foreign influence through the identification of messaging, tactics, target audience, and outreach,” she said. He’s research focuses on heterogeneous machine learning, rare category analysis, active learning and semi-supervised learning, with applications in social network analysis, healthcare, and manufacturing processes. She earned her PhD in machine learning from Carnegie Mellon University.

Who are... iSchoolers who appeared on Jeopardy!?

The trivia talents of six iSchool alumni—and a faculty member— catapulted them to one of America’s most popular game shows, Jeopardy! We invited these trivia buffs to recall their appearance on the show.

Nanette Donohue (MS ’12)

January 2002, four episodes

Erin Hart (MS ’19)

February-March 2011, two episodes

How did you get selected for the show?

Donohue: I auditioned in Chicago during the summer of 2001, a couple of months before I moved to Champaign. I had to pass a written test and play a mock game with others who had passed the test. Hart: I auditioned in Chicago my freshman year of high school. I did not advance at that time, but I made it the following year. Because I was a minor, Jeopardy! called my mom with the news first and arranged for the local news station to surprise me with the announcement in my calculus class. Jorgenson: Before I eventually got “the call” to be on the show, I had auditioned four times. Palmer: I took the online test twice and was called to audition in person both times. I didn’t hear anything until August 2012, when I got “the call” telling me that my recording date in Los Angeles was on September 18, 2012. Reisig: After trying to get on Jeopardy! for decades, I took the online test in 2017 and was invited to audition. At that point, they told me if I didn’t hear from them in 18 months, I could try again. Two days before the end of my 18 months, long after I figured I wasn’t getting on, they called me. I had three weeks to arrange things to get to Los Angeles for the taping. Tilley: Sometime in early 2006, I saw an announcement on a library-related listserv that Jeopardy! would be in Indianapolis for testing and auditions. Having been a lifelong trivia geek and avid reader, I decided “Why not?!” The test wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated, and I was invited to stay for taped auditions. While I was delighted to be in the show’s pool of potential contestants, they use less than five percent of qualifying folks in a typical season. I had mostly given up hope of being selected to appear, but I got a call and was invited to come to Los Angeles in January 2007. Willis: I did an online screener test and auditioned in Chicago on Navy Pier.

How much did you win?

Donohue: $53,030 and a trip to Hawaii Hart: As a semifinalist on the teen tournament, I automatically won $10,000. I saved most of the money for college. Jorgenson:$58,800 ($32,800 for the first win, $24,000 for the second win, and $2,000 for the second-place loss) Palmer: $1,000 Reisig: $1,000 Tilley: $1,000 Willis: $1,000

What was your strongest subject?

Donohue: Literature. Also pop culture stuff, especially anything related to pop music. My brain is full of useless information. Hart: The Final Jeopardy in my first game was on American literature. English is my favorite subject (I ended up majoring in it), and I knew the answer, Edgar Allan Poe, right away. My sister said that sitting in the audience, she immediately thought, “Oh, Erin knows this.” Jorgenson: I would have assumed it would be something about literature or films, but my best category turned out to be “Italian Music Terms.” I did, however, do fairly well in “American Writers” and “People Sexiest Man Alive Movie Team-Ups.” Sadly, I wasn’t able to run a category, but I’m relieved that I responded correctly to the “What are libraries?” question (“Evenings in the Stacks’ galas, held in various communities, benefit local ones of these places.”) Palmer: My bachelor’s degree is in history, so I thought historyrelated topics would be my strong suit. However, I missed quite a few questions, including a few that make me shake my head to this day. Reisig:It turns out, it was “Fathers and Daughters.” Shout out to my dad for making me an expert! Tilley: I don’t know that I had a strongest subject for the show: I did OK across categories. Getting the timing for the buzzer is really hard, and that ended up being my biggest failure. My second biggest failure? I joked that if any of the categories had to do with Charles Dickens, I was sunk. I’ve made it a personal goal to never read anything by Dickens (it’s a weird, nonsensical goal). Unfortunately, Final Jeopardy involved a Dickens quote. Willis: I did OK with Old Testament questions, which thrilled my paternal grandmother.

Charlie Jorgenson (MS ’12)

July 2019, three episodes

Ana Palmer (MS ’07)

December 2012, one episode

Becky Reisig (MS ’07)

June 2019, one episode

Associate Professor Carol Tilley

April 2007, one episode

Clare Gaynor Willis (MS ’10)

October 2007, one episode

Have you always been a trivia buff?

Donohue: Yes! Growing up, one of our house rules was that nobody could come over to play until Jeopardy! was over. We wagered on Final Jeopardy, and you always have to answer in the form of a question. Hart: I was on the quiz bowl team in high school, and I’m a regular pub trivia participant, frequently with one of my friends who was also on Jeopardy! when we were both in college. I love crossword puzzles and Sporcle quizzes. Recently I wrote and hosted a virtual trivia program for teens at my library. Jorgenson: After appearing on Jeopardy!, I’ve gotten to “meet” a fairnumber of trivia buffs online, and compared to them, I’m just not that intense. I was a senior in high school when the Trebek-era Jeopardy! premiered, and Trivial Pursuit was still culturally a hot item. Both of those outlets rewarded my general knowledge of middlebrow subjects. Palmer: In eighth grade, my best friend predicted that I would one day be on Jeopardy! She was right. Reisig: Always. I was captain of my Knowledge Bowl team for three years in high school. When we could hang out in bars and restaurants, I was the anchor of my work’s Geeks Who Drink team. I really miss that a lot and hope I can get the band back together when we can all do normal things again. Tilley: Yes! I was four when a family friend gifted me a set of a 1960s Ladies Home Journal children’s encyclopedia, and that set me on a long path of trivia geekery. For Christmas when I was six, I received my first copy of the Guinness Book of World Records, and the following year I was given my first World Almanac and Book of Facts. When I wasn’t buying comics and paperback cartoon collections as a kid, I bought trivia compendiums. Willis: Absolutely.I still love trivia. I would play Jeopardy! again with no cameras and no money at stake all day every day if I could.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your Jeopardy! experience?

Donohue: I was an iSchool student when I appeared on Jeopardy!, and I used some of my winnings to support myself during grad school. Also, in true librarian fashion, I researched buzzer techniques before I went on the show. It ended up being very helpful! Hart: People watching the show at home see Alex Trebek and Johnny Gilbert, but they don’t see all the wonderful behind-the-scenes staff who make the show possible. Pretty much every Jeopardy! contestant will sing the praises of the contestant coordinators. They’re the ones who run auditions and select contestants and, during taping, go over the rules, run the practice games, and give you pep talks during commercial breaks. Jorgenson: If you’re still in the contestant pool at lunchtime, you’re escorted to the commissary and given a couple of vouchers. After buying my meal, I had so much credit left that I took the cashier’s suggestion and stocked up on candy bars. Upon returning to the seating area, I saw that apparently no other contestants were given that advice. On the one hand, that was slightly embarrassing; on the other hand, well, free candy bars. Palmer: It was wonderful, and I wish I could do it again. I am glad I got the chance to do it. It was a lifelong dream, and it gives me some extra credibility with my students. Reisig: You tape your episode(s), and then they don’t air for three months. Everyone was asking me if I had to play against James Holzhauer, and I couldn’t say a word because I was under an NDA until my episode aired. I got very good at saying “I can neither confirm nor deny. . . .” A lot of Jeopardy! is down to luck. If you’re lucky enough to be on a game when you are good at the categories, great! If the categories are against you, it can be a bad day. I had been telling everyone as soon as I knew I was going to be on the show, “If I get Opera, I’m screwed”—and then I got Opera. Tilley: Even though I didn’t win anything, I had a great time. I’m still in touch with the person who beat me and went on to win a couple more games. She’s a producer for the Rachel Maddow Show, and we often meet up for a meal when I’m in NYC. My dad was super excited that I got to audition for the show, but unfortunately, he died in May 2006, so he didn’t get to see my appearance. Willis: My maternal grandmother was an enormous Jeopardy! fan, so it was a huge thrill for her when she heard that I was going to be on the show. She got to see my episode air in October 2007, and we had several fun conversations about how it went. In November 2007, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, passing away just after Thanksgiving. I served for several years on the Young Professionals Board of the Rolfe Pancreatic Cancer Foundation, raising money and awareness for pancreatic cancer early detection research. I’m grateful for everything that Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek did to raise the profile of pancreatic cancer and help people understand the symptoms.