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Author: Diana Floegel

InfoSeeking Administrative Assistant
(Big) Chill(ing) Out

(Big) Chill(ing) Out

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Think the InfoSeekers are all work and no play? Think again!

 

This morning, a team of lab members ran the Rutgers Big Chill 5k Charity Race, a campus tradition that combines fun, exercise, and a good cause. Take a look at Dr. Shah’s view of the crowd:

 

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InfoSeekers past and present came together to run this race…and engage in some quality carbo-loading before they began!

 

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But…would it be a true lab event if some work wasn’t completed? Nope. Matt finished up his race on the computer.

 

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What a start to the fall semester’s home stretch!

Uniting at the UN

Uniting at the UN

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Information science research does not only exist within collegiate and conference walls. Recently, a group of talented InfoSeekers partnered with the United Nations to develop projects that will have a global impact.

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Seekers are working on three data science projects in conjunction with UN. One uses the CLEWS (Climate Land Energy Water Strategies) Model to uncover the human factors involved with energy usage. Understanding these factors could facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Another group of students will investigate how researchers can make informed predictions in voting behavior for the UN General Assembly (GA). The third project analyzes armed conflict data since WWI to hopefully predict the duration of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and identify regions that are prone to future wars. Impressive, no?

If you’d like to read more about these projects and the students who are hard at work with the UN, check out our website.

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Taking ASIST 2016 by Storm

Taking ASIST 2016 by Storm

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Ever wondered what it’s like to attend a major information science conference? Want to know what happened when a group of InfoSeekers traveled to Copenhagen to present their research? This post is your chance to find out.

ASIST–or the Association for Information Science and Technology–held its 2016 conference in Copenhagen this past October. Former and current InfoSeekers attended the conference to present their research, network with both students and prominent data scientists, and even accept some well-deserved awards.

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We had quite a few Seekers present their work during the President’s Reception Featuring Posters. Everyone worked especially hard to create visually pleasing, informative posters and “pitch” their research to other attendees. Topics included accessibility for visually impaired persons, conquering information seeking barriers, social media, collaborative information retrieval, and more.

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Lab members Yiwei Wang and Manasa Rath also each received $500 student travel awards during the SIG USE Symposium.

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And it wasn’t all work and no play! Past and present InfoSeekers were able to get together and enjoy a fun evening.

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We’ll soon show you what happens at the next conference, but until then, feel free to read more about these and other accomplishments on our website.

Directing Information Science

Directing Information Science

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Here at the InfoSeeking Lab, we really try to focus on our students and their accomplishments. With so many dedicated scholars, it’s hard not to.

 

But student lab members need someone to guide them, and we’re more than fortunate to be led by the indelible Dr. Chirag Shah. Haven’t heard of him? Well, if you’re in the world of information science, it’s only a matter of time until you’ll come across one of his publications. In fact, Dr. Shah was named the 11th most productive Library & Information Science scholar from 2008-2013. Check out his distinction from Library and Information Science. 

 

Keep your eye out–Dr. Shah has published a great deal more (often with current and past lab members!) in the past three years, so we can’t wait to see how he ranks next!

Seeking to Succeed

Seeking to Succeed

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Web 2.0. Social media. Collaborative information seeking. Social information seeking. Information seeking technology. Information seeking failures. Social Q&A. Information seeking behaviors.

 

What do the above concepts have in common? They represent only some of the relevant and fascinating topics explored by members of the InfoSeeking Lab. Through various research endeavors, conference presentations, and publications, InfoSeekers pave the way for more efficient and effective information seeking practices to come to life. And, if we do say so ourselves, they do quite an excellent job.

 

So how can you keep track of everything our Seekers are doing? You can visit their individual profiles, our lab’s Accomplishments page, and a list of their current projects. You can also get a retrospective and current updates from our Facebook page. But, for now, here’s a round-up of some exciting events from 2016 conferences that you may have missed.

 

Lab member Long Le, along with Director Chirag Shah and former InfoSeeker Erik Choi, won best student paper at JCDL (Joint Conference on Digital Libraries) 2016  in Newark, NJ for “Evaluating the Quality of Education Answers in Community Question-Answering.”

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Dongho Choi won the best presentation award at the SIGIR (Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval) 2016 Doctoral Consortium in Pisa, Italy for “A Study on Information Seeking Behavior Using Physical and Online Explorations.”

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Keep checking in to find out what we do next!