Welcome to UMSI WIRE, a quarterly compendium of news and research from the University of Michigan School of Information for educators and information professionals.

UMSI researchers gain record number of awards at 2019 CHI Conference

University of Michigan School of Information faculty and PhD students have earned three Best Paper and five Honorable Mention designations at the 2019 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Best Paper awards go to the top one percent of accepted papers at ACM CHI, the premiere international conference on Human-Computer Interaction. This year’s conference takes place May 4-9 in Glasgow, Scotland. Read more.

CHI Best Paper: Addressing food desert issues with grocery delivery (Dillahunt, Simioni, Xu)

CHI Best Paper:  Ditching the stale PDF for interactive research papers (Kay, Sarma)

CHI Best Paper: Beyond the sticky note: Incorporating augmented reality in affinity diagrams (Subramonyam, Adar) 

CHI: Reducing impulse purchasing online (Moser, Schoenebeck)

CHI: Data privacy research front and center at human computer interaction event (Schaub)

See you in Glasgow? 

UMSI, Georgia Tech and the University of Washington are co-sponsoring a reception at the CHI Conference on Tuesday, May 7, from 1900-2100h. Stop by the SWG3 Studio Warehouse, 100 Eastvale Pl, Glasgow G38QG if you’ll be in town.

WaPo Op-ed: Indian Prime Minister’s savvy use of social media 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken full advantage of the expanding use of social media since his rise to power. In a Washington Post editorial, Joyojeet Pal tracks Modi’s evolving social media strategy, and how he has used it to develop a cult following among young, middle-class Indians. Read more.

Hedstrom delivers keynote at Iowa State

In a keynote address at Iowa State University’s Research Day, Margaret Hedstrom discussed the importance of information – and the infrastructure and policies needed to make that information accessible – in a functioning democracy. Read more. 

Small changes can make a big difference for network security

UMSI PhD student Edward L. Platt and assistant professor Daniel Romero examine the inherent vulnerability of several of the internet’s subsystems and propose solutions to guard against attacks. Read more. 

Brooks bags best paper award at LAK conference

A paper co-authored by University of Michigan School of Information research assistant professor Christopher Brooks received the Best Full Research Paper Award at the International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK) Conference in Tempe, Arizona.

The paper, “Evaluating the Fairness of Predictive Student Models Through Slicing Analysis,” describes a tool designed to test the bias in algorithms used to predict student success. Read more. 

Online civic engagement not always positive

Libby Hemphill and her team, including UMSI postdoctoral fellow A.J. Million and Anders Finholt, presented research on online civic engagement at the annual iConference in Washington, D.C. Read more.

Eglash honored with diversity service award

Ron Eglash, professor of information and of art and design, has received a 2019 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Awards from the Office of the Provost. The award recognizes faculty members whose service contributes to the development of a culturally and ethnically diverse University of Michigan community. Read more.

Honorable mention for Rieh at CHIIR conference

Soo Young Rieh took home an honorable mention award at the ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) for a paper on search as learning.

Rieh’s paper discusses the benefits of including information-rich content in search engine results pages that can help the searcher develop critical thinking skills. Read more.