Faculty of Art
Each year, the School of Information hosts a Research Day, where students and faculty across all of the programs within the School showcase their research in the form of posters, talks and demonstrations. UBC iSchool faculty are provincially, nationally and internationally recognized for their contributions and leadership in Library, Archival and Information Studies research.
By providing students with the opportunity to be directly involved in faculty research, the School seeks to enrich the overall quality of the educational experience. As well, students are encouraged to work independently on research projects that reflect their own interests and career goals. By expanding research opportunities and experiences for all students as they prepare them for their future roles as professional and academic leaders in the information professions. Research Day showcases the contributions of iSchool students and faculty working at the intersections of archival, information, library and children’s literature studies.
Past Research Day Events
The iSchool’s 8th Annual Research Day was held Friday, March 9, 2018.
Keynote Presentation
"Inclusion and diversity by design: lessons learnt from the field"
by Dr. Nadia Caidi, University of Toronto
Dr. Caidi's research focuses on human information behaviour and information policy. Her current research is situated in the context of global migration and the role that information resources, institutions, and technologies play in the everyday lives of migrant and refugee communities.
Abstract: As part of their engagement and their institutional locations at the intersection of information, knowledge, and culture, librarians and other information professionals can and should play a key role in fostering a climate for constructive conversations on difficult but crucial social issues (e.g., reconciliation, global migration). In this talk, we seek to contribute to growing critical conversations within LIS about the shifting roles and responsibilities of LAMs at the intersections of nationalist projects and global processes, and the implications for those who work within these contested institutional spaces. Confronting the limited frameworks in which librarians have operated and looking for alternative modes of engagement with racialized individuals and communities may require an often discomforting reflection on our various roles and relationships (settlers and Indigenous peoples, newly displaced individuals and longer established Canadians). These uncomfortable conversations within our libraries, at our conferences, and in our boardrooms may mean turning libraries and other cultural institutions into sites of potential disruption, but they are essential if we are serious about making space for the ‘other’ in our collections, intellectual tools, spaces and payrolls.
Short talks and presentations
- Exploring the information contexts of young fathers in two British Columbian cities (Master’s thesis), Caroline Mniszak
- Examining citizen media videos records from the perspective of archival records’ characteristics, elements, and components, Hoda Hamouda
- Exploring volunteer moderation in a large online community: motivations and challenges of moderating r/AskHistorians, Sarah Gilbert
- Visualizing linked data in UBC Open Collections, Carolina Roman Amigo, Richard Arias-Hernandez and Paul Joseph
- Emotion detection in social media, Hassan Alhuzali and Muhammad Abdul-Mageed
Poster sessions
- “A mouth is not always a mouth, but a bit is always a bit, and it matters little what it bridles:” The relationship between privacy and transparency in digital records by Darra Hofman
- Automatic Detection of Geographically-Defined Language Varieties by Mohamed Elaraby and Muhammad Abdul-Mageed
- Blocked and chained: blockchain, radical transparency, and democracy by Darra Hofman and Alamir Novin
- Directions for archival interfaces in virtual reality by Devon Mordell
- Records in the Bitcoin blockchain: characteristics, attributes and relationships by Danielle Alves Batista
- Social Media as a source of natural language processing data by Mohamed Elaraby, Hassan Al-Huzali, Muhammad Abdul-Mageed, Mohammed Falogah, Hazem Mslati, Easmael Shawees, Seif Wadi and Ibrahim Saker
- Digital Libraries and primary source use in grade 4-12 environments by Erin Fields and Peter Musser
- Tricky optical disillusion: do participants see the controversy within a science visualization? by Sebastian Nothaft, Shahar Yar, Tengfei Wan, Aziz Alimov, Nicholas Kwan, Mykhailo Rudominskyi, Shabnam Raufi, Erin Lee and Alamir Novin
- "Let’s talk about Dearborn:" the Henry Ford Centennial Library, ESL programming, and Dearborn's Arab population by Salma Abumeeiz
- An evidence-based comparison of Endnote, Refworks, Mendeley and Zotero: an analysis of functionality, usability and interfaces linked to the design of an instructional workshop by Melissa Smith and Angela Doyle
- Augmented Reality for library literacy: collaborating for innovative and sustainable instruction by Alexandra Kuskowski and Wendy Traas
- Children’s film as design fiction: ethics, data, and technology in Big Hero 6 and Zootopia by Bonnie Tulloch and Eric M. Meyers
- Evaluating searching as learning in online search tasks by Amelia Cole, Heather O'Brien, Robert Capra and Jaime Arguello
- Image analysis of social data using convolutional neural networks by Caleigh Minshall, Hassan Alhuzali and Muhammad Abdul-Mageed
- iWords: exploring the interdisciplinary vocabularies of information research by Andrea Hoff, Michelle Kaczmarek, Saguna Shankar and Bonnie Tulloch
- Prior knowledge and information judgment in web searches: a literature review by Vanessa Figueiredo
- Shades of #MAGA: visualizing “Make America Great Again” by Devon Mordell
- The promise of taking PAIN to practice: information practice inquiry and pervasive, algorithmic, intelligent, networked systems by Michelle Kaczmarek, Saguna Shankar and Lisa Nathan
- A Tudor secretariat’s recordkeeping practices by Dan Farrell
- Aspects of enterprise architecture and records management. a use case for the ontology of functional activities for archival systems by Georg Gaenser
- Democratize big data: systematic review of policies and initiatives addressing social injustices related to big data systems by Elizabeth Moyer
- Metro Vancouver's social media presence in a post-truth world by Lois Evans
- Building an online community of care: Tumblr use by Transgender individuals by Blake Hawkins and Oliver Haimson
The iSchool’s 7th Annual Research Day!
Research Day 2017: Information, Social Media, and Well-Being
Friday, March 10, 2017
The iSchool’s 7th Annual Research Day was held on Friday, March 10th, 2017 at the Golden Jubilee Room in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.
The 2017 Research Day focused broadly on Information, Social Media, and Well-Being.
Keynote speaker: Dr. Lyle Ungar
Dr. Lyle Ungar is a Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also holds appointments in multiple departments in the Schools of Business, Medicine, Arts and Sciences, and Engineering and Applied Science. Lyle received a B.S. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. He has published over 200 articles, supervised two dozen PhD students, and is co-inventor on eleven patents. His current research focuses on developing scalable machine learning methods for data mining and text mining, including spectral methods for NLP, and analysis of social media to better understand the drivers of physical and mental well-being. Dr. Ungar's keynote presentation is titled "Measuring Well-Being Using Social Media."
While the theme for this year's event is “Information, Social Media, and Well-Being,” submissions on any topic related to children's media, library, archival and information studies from iSchool students and/or faculty as well as adjunct instructors are encouraged. Students can submit products from their own research related activities, independent inquiries, or course-related projects.
Questions about Research Day can be directed to: ischool.researchday@ubc.ca
Research Day Team
Faculty: Dr. Muhammad Abdul-Mageed, Dr. Jennifer Douglas, Dr. Deborah Hicks, Dr. Luciana Duranti
Ph.D. Students: Saguna Shankar & Michelle Kaczmarek
Research Day 2016
March 11, 2016
This years’ event was organized by Dr. Richard Arias-Hernandez, Lecturer and by Dr. Jennifer Douglas, Assistant Professor.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Mark Warren
Professor, Harold and DorrieMerilees Chair for the Study of Democracy, Department of Political Science, UBC
presented his talk
"The Participedia Project: Using an Open Source Platform to Mobilize Knowledge about Democratic Innnovations"
Presentations were given by faculty and students from the iSchool including:
Effects of Field Dependence-Independence and Pre-existing Highlighting on Text Comprehension
Samuel Dodson (MLIS Student), Dr. Luanne Freund, and Dr. Rick Kopak
A Solution to Disorderly Backlogs of Digital Files? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Network Analysis in File Reclassification Projects
Kate Chandler (MASLIS Student)
Learning to Listen: Archival Sound Recordings and Indigenous Cultural Property
Allison Mills (MASLIS Student)
Secondary School Students' Perceptions of Risks to Privacy Online: A Study of Students within the Vancouver School Board
Elissa How (MASLIS Student)
Useful Search Engine Results: An Exploratory Study of Information Presentation and Use
Alamir Novin (Ph.D. Student)
Winners of the Research Day 2016 Poster Competition
1st Place
Reflections on Participatory Mapping of Health Information Seeking by Blake Hawkins, Dr. Luanne Freund and Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc
2nd Place
British Columbia Audiovisual Inventory Initiative by Jenny Haddon and Cecilia Rose
Poster Presentations
 The Role of Images & Sketching in Collaborative Information Behavior |
 Information Needs and Practices of Refugee Students |
 Privacy & Threat Modeling Online: App Design for Youth Information Management |
 How to be a #critlib: Reflections on Implementing Critical Theory in Practice |
 Imaginate: A Co-Play Application Design for Child Development |
 Open System Information Sources in Religious Sermons |
 Ontology of Archival Functions and Activities |
 Harry Potter and the Enhanced Editions: the Transmedia Storytelling Experience |
 Questioning Library Neutrality |
 Librarians Connecting Health Practitioners with Cultural Competency Resources: A Conversation |
 Information Engagements of Recently Arrived Immigrants |
 Colonial Legacies and the Design of a Digital Archive of Taumatic Collections |
 (re)designing Information Practices: Decolonizing the Mundane |
 Merging Archival Description and Digital Archives |
 Citing Evidence Emotionally |