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

Kentaro Toyama to deliver iConference Keynote

UMSI WK Kellogg Professor of Community Information Kentaro Toyama will be one of three keynote speakers at the upcoming iConference in College Park, MD, on Monday, April 1. His talk, “Technology’s Law of Amplification and What It Means for iSchools,” will focus on the potential for a discipline-unifying role for Schools of Information. Read more.

Best Paper @LAK

Christopher Brooks received the Best Full Research Paper award at the International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK), held March 4 – 8 in Tempe, Arizona. He and Stephanie Teasley were among the faculty and students from the University of Michigan School of Information who presented workshops, posters and papers at the conference. Read more. 

Employing IT for Pakistani fathers

UMSI clinical assistant professor Mustafa Naseem has piloted a platform to improve paternal involvement in pregnancy and childbirth in Pakistan. Super Abbu (Super Dad) offered a call-in service in which fathers could call to ask questions and get advice from doctors. The service logged over 20,000 calls in its first two months. Read more. 

Guzdial honored for contributions to computer science ed

University of Michigan professor Mark Guzdial is the 2019 recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education.

The annual award recognizes people whose work has had “long lasting impact on, and made a significant difference in, computing education.” Guzdial is a professor in the U-M School of Information and the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Read more. 

White Paper raises awareness of APIs

UMSI assistant professor Florian Schaub and colleagues at Fordham Law presented their white paper on the public’s lack of awareness of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) at the AT&T Policy Forum Symposium on Application Programming Interfaces and Privacy in Washington, DC in February. Read more. 

Technology, data in service of public good.

The University of Michigan is a charter member of the new 21-member Public Interest Technology University Network, established to support the use of technology in the public interest and grow a new generation of civic-minded technologists.  The School of Information is among the partner units on campus to participate in this cross-disciplinary effort. Read more. 

At a Data for Public Good symposium sponsored by U-M, UMSI graduate students presented a study that evaluated the relationships between U.S. members of Congress and the people they retweeted on Twitter. Read more.

MADS in progress

UMSI is offering its first online graduate degree (and one of the university’s first) starting this fall: a Master of Applied Data Science (MADS). Over 50,000 people have expressed interest in the program, which is currently accepting applications for its first cohort starting this September. Application deadline is April 1; costs, curriculum and more details here.

See you at CHI! 

The School of Information, in partnership with Georgia Tech and the University of Washington, will host its annual CHI reception on Tuesday, May 7 in Glasgow. Connect with a UMSI faculty or student conference attendee for an invitation to this convivial social event. We hope to see you there.