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Research Projects

Current and recent research projects are listed alphabetically by project title. Use this drop-down menu to sort by researcher last name.

BeeSpace: An Interactive Environment for Analyzing Nature and Nurture in Societal Roles

Abstract

This project will analyze social behavior on an unprecedented whole-genome scale, using Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee, as the model organism. Honey bees live in a complex society governed by an age-related division of labor, with each individual assuming many roles during her lifetime. Both genetic heredity and environmental conditions determine what role a bee performs, and when she performs it. The biology research will generate a unique database of gene expressions for all social behavior, recording brain gene expression for hundreds of individuals, each with a specific societal role. These microarray experiments utilize the recently sequenced genome, supported by state-of-the-art statistics. The informatics research will develop an interactive environment to analyze all information sources relevant to bee social behavior. These include genome databases from honey bee and related organisms, linked to complete scientific literature relevant to insect behavior. New text mining technology will integrate molecular description with information from physiology, behavior, neuroscience, and evolution.

Website

http://www.beespace.uiuc.edu/

Principal Investigator

Chip Bruce

Funding

$4,999,999, National Science Foundation

Better Repositories Are Information Networks (BRAIN)

Abstract

About 40% of US universities have or are building institutional repositories, and another 40% are planning them. About 80% of all journals now permit authors to self-archive (on a personal web site or in an institutional repository). About 15% of faculty publishing new scholarly articles actually do this. BRAIN aims to raise the rate of voluntary participation in institutional repositories.

Website

http://brain.lis.uiuc.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Principal Investigator

John Unsworth

Biological Information Specialist

Abstract

The objectives of this NSF funded project are to develop curriculum, establish internships, integrate course work with informatics research, share the educational approach, and expand understanding of the role of informatics in scientific progress. The BIS program is aimed at making progress toward the problem of "getting past the prototype" by educating information professionals responsible for the implementation, evaluation, continual improvement, sustainability, and integration of information and data systems about biology. BIS professionals are trained to exploit existing data standards and work toward "long-lived data" and interoperability, and to build and integrate the increasing number of digital libraries, repositories, indexing systems, ontologies, taxonomies, vocabularies, and tools associated with digital data and products.

Website

http://sci.lis.uiuc.edu/index.php?page=BISInfo

Co Principal Investigator

Bryan Heidorn, Carole Palmer

Funding

National Science Foundation

Funding

$249,189, National Science Foundation

Centuries of Knowledge

Abstract

The primary goal of the Data Curation Education Program (DCEP) is to design a program of graduate study that can serve as a model for training data curators (DCs) within the context of a larger LIS education. Secondarily, we intend to integrate this graduate training with ongoing research and practice to produce specialists that understand the research culture and can make substantive contributions to the mission of scientific, humanities, social science, and cultural heritage institutions and libraries.

Principal Investigator

Bryan Heidorn

Funding

$852,502, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Chicago Community Informatics: Places, Uses, Resources

Abstract

In this Early Career Development project, Dr. Williams will use a social capital/social network model to research actual and potential IT use in six disadvantaged communities across Chicago. The research will analyze how people and communities are already using computers and the Internet, and how their own lives and identities might be represented as part of our nation's cyberinfrastructure.

Principal Investigator

Kate Williams

Funding

$199,796, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Community Funds of Knowledge

Abstract

Principal Investigator

Ann Bishop

Community Informatics Corps: The Next Generation

Abstract

GSLIS will expand and enhance its pilot Community Informatics master's program. The aim of the CI program is to recruit and mentor a group of Latino, African-American, and other students interested in the experiences of underserved groups in society who are eager for a career that gives them the opportunity to contribute to their communities. Students in the CI program focus their coursework on social entrepreneurship and community library and information services, so that they are prepared to apply what they've learned to the creation of innovative information services implemented within and across a range of community-based and public interest organizations.

Principal Investigator

Ann Bishop

Funding

$996,243, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Community Informatics for Youth: Using the Extension Network to Recruit Future LIS Professionals

Abstract

Under this grant, GSLIS and the University of Illinois Extension's statewide 4-H network will partner to reach youth and youth leaders with engaging, educational activities to recruit underserved youth into Library and Information Science (LIS). Five Illinois communities--Champaign-Urbana, Chicago, Danville, East St. Louis, and Rockford--with a high concentration of minority, low-income, and English-language-learner populations will pilot the program. Junior high and high school youths will participate in a variety of activities designed to give them familiarity with a range of information science topics, and a variety of LIS careers. The project will also produce a curriculum for use elsewhere.

Principal Investigator

Chip Bruce

Funding

$778,895, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Community Inquiry Labs (iLabs)

Abstract

The Community Inquiry Laboratory (iLab) project develops both conceptual frameworks and open source software:
* Community emphasizes support for collaborative activity and for creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history, and lived experiences.
* Inquiry points to support for open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement.
* Laboratory indicates a space and resources to bring theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner.
iLab software is itself developed through an open process of inquiry in which users participate. People around the world have used iLabs to create interactive websites for school and university courses, research projects, neighborhood action, etc.

Website

http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilab/cii/

Co Principal Investigator

Chip Bruce, Ann Bishop

Funding

National Science Foundation

Digital Collections and Content

Abstract

As efforts to integrate and federate digital resources proceed apace, we are learning more about the problems that emerge at different levels of scale and granularity. Building on prior work of the Digital Collections and Content project (DCC), we will investigate and implement a systematic approach that confronts these problems and offers robust means for adding value and improving access to existing digital aggregations.

Website

http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/research.htm

Principal Investigator

Carole Palmer

ECHODep: A Partnership in the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program

Abstract

The ECHO DEPository is a 3-year digital preservation research and development project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in partnership with OCLC and funded by the Library of Congress under their National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP). Other project partners include NCSA, Tufts University, Michigan State University, and state libraries from Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

Website

http://www.ndiipp.uiuc.edu/

Co Principal Investigator

John Unsworth, Beth Sandore

Funding

$3,100,000, Library of Congress

Enhancing Knowledge Discovery for Humanities through the Software Environment for the Advancement of Scholarly Research

Abstract

The project will address the "80 percent problem": 80 percent of the information needed for business and research is unstructured, meaning it's not in easily searchable databases (think of email, text documents, and even images, audio, and video); 80 percent of the required information is "open source," meaning it's not proprietary or top secret; and people are spending 80 percent of their time hunting for the information they need and just 20 percent actually using it.

Co Principal Investigator

John Unsworth

Funding

$1,124,800, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Folktales Facets and FRBR

Abstract

The goal of this multiple-phased research project is the development of a next-generation catalog prototype implementation with enhanced records for access to the folktale collection in the Center for Children's Books that gives special consideration to the shared and unique information seeking tasks of three distinct user groups: scholars, practitioners and laypeople. Bibliographic records for folktale resources frequently omit indicators of the rich, cultural heritage these items represent and provide only minimal access to their intellectual contents. Record enhancements may incorporate existing folktale classifications such as the Aarne-Thompson tale-type index and controlled vocabularies as well as current developments in cataloguing practices and standards such as FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records).

Website

http://cirss.lis.uiuc.edu/CollMeta/Folktales.html

Co Principal Investigator

Kathryn La Barre, Carol Tilley

Funding

$15,000, OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grant Program

Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education Program

Abstract

The National Science Foundation's Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) Program supports teaching fellowships for graduate students in the sciences, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) disciplines. The fellows collaborate with SMET and Education faculty and participating K-12 teachers to integrate the use of computer-based modeling, scientific visualization, and informatics in science and mathematics education.

Website

http://gk12-uiuc.net/pn/

Contact

Chip Bruce

Funding

National Science Foundation

The Hidden History of U.S. Telecommunications

Abstract

An archivally grounded research project on telecom system development between the 1870s and the 1950s.

Principal Investigator

Dan Schiller

Humanities text-mining in the Digital Library (MONK)

Abstract

MONK (Metadata Offer New Knowledge) is a digital environment designed to help humanities scholars discover and analyze patterns in the texts they study. It supports both micro analyses of the verbal texture of an individual text and macro analyses that let you locate texts in the context of a large document space consisting of hundreds or thousands of other texts. Shuttling between the "micro" and the "macro" is a distinctive feature of the MONK environment, where you may read as closely as you wish but can also practice many forms of what Franco Moretti has provocatively called "distant reading."

Website

http://www.monkproject.org/

Principal Investigator

John Unsworth

Funding

$999,883, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Investigating Data Curation Profiles across Research Domains

Abstract

Investigators in the Distributed Data Curation Center in the Libraries at Purdue University, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign will address the question "which researchers are willing to share data, when, with whom, and under what conditions?" The team will produce case studies of researcher data/metadata workflow, curation profiles describing policies for archiving and making available research data, a matrix to compare parameters across disciplines, system requirements for managing data in a repository, and recommendations for implementing results under diverse systems. The project will describe the roles of librarians and identify the skill sets they need to facilitate scholarly communication and data sharing.

Co Principal Investigator

Carole Palmer

Funding

$272,229, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Librarians Serving Community-based Higher Education: Preparing the Next Generation of Community College Librarians

Abstract

This project partners NILRC along with ten libraries in community colleges in Illinois and Missouri to build a diverse professional workforce that understands community-based library staffing and service strategies as well as the challenges of serving a non-traditional, diverse, commuter-based student population. GSLIS will work with the University of Illinois College of Education to provide a varied curriculum. The partner libraries offer the students mentoring throughout the graduate program and for six months following graduation.

Principal Investigator

Linda C. Smith

Funding

$354,896, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Library Access Midwest Program (LAMP)

Abstract

LIS Access Midwest Program (LAMP) is a regional network of academic libraries and information science schools dedicated to promoting careers within the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) by targeting promising undergraduate students at its member institutions to participate in activities and events designed to increase their awareness of the profession and to provide support for subsequent graduate studies in Library and Information Science. LAMP seeks to employ a range of recruitment techniques including summer institutes and internships, peer and professional mentorship and guidance, and financial assistance for the completion of a Masters degree in LIS.

Website

http://www.lisaccess.org/

Principal Investigator

Rae-Anne Montague

Funding

$971,915, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Music Information Retrieval

Abstract

The objective of the International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) project is the creation of a large, secure corpus of audio and symbolic music data accessible to the music information retrieval (MIR) community for the testing and evaluation of various MIR techniques. As part of the IMIRSEL project, a cross-platform JAVA based visual programming environment called Music to Knowledge (M2K) is being developed for a variety of music information retrieval related tasks. The primary objective of M2K is to supply the MIR community with a toolset that provides the ability to rapidly prototype algorithms, as well as foster the sharing of techniques within the MIR community through the use of a standardized set of tools. Due to the relatively large size of audio data and the computational costs associated with some digital signal processing and machine learning techniques, M2K is also designed to support distributed computing across computing clusters. In addition, facilities to allow the integration of non-JAVA based (e.g., C/C++, MATLAB, etc.) algorithms and programs are provided within M2K.

Website

http://www.music-ir.org/

Principal Investigator

J. Stephen Downie

Funding

$504,854, National Science Foundation

Funding

$390,000, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Narratives and New Media: Guiding Young People's Stories

Abstract

Principal Investigator

Carol Tilley

Next Generation Digital Federations: Adding Value through Collection Evaluation, Metadata Relations and Strategic Scaling

Abstract

This project will investigate and implement a systematic approach to developing useful, meaningful, and usable digital collections. Building on the prior work of the IMLS Digital Collections and Content (DCC) project, the researchers will explore how to use the relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata in federated digital repositories to preserve content and make the content more useful for scholars and the public. The project will experiment with and test metasearch capabilities, and expand and improve the IMLS DCC with new IMLS-funded and other digital content and advanced search capabilities.

Principal Investigator

Carole Palmer

Funding

$975,903, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Plants, Pathogens and People

Abstract

This project seeks to enhance agriculture literacy through video and web-based materials. At this site you can explore the interactions among plants, the diseases that harm them, and the people who depend upon them. Here you can find resources on the biology, the history, the economic importance, and other aspects of plant diseases. You can do activities in the laboratory or the field to see how different forces of nature or actions of people affect the course of plant diseases. And you can have a dialogue with other people to learn how to use this site more effectively and to make it even better.

Website

http://www.ppp.uiuc.edu/

Contact

Chip Bruce

Funding

National Science Foundation

Preparing Future Faculty: Enhancing the Doctoral Program

Abstract

This project will enhance the GSLIS doctoral program by building a stronger research community within the school for the study of information in society, including policy, economic, and historical dimensions. Project goals include enhancing the doctoral program curriculum; connecting the research community to the wider world of librarianship; and attracting and supporting thirteen diverse students, especially those from underrepresented groups, with a specific focus on recruiting doctoral students who will teach master's students capable of becoming future leaders in public, academic, and school libraries.

Principal Investigator

Linda C. Smith

Funding

$990,234, Institute of Museum and Library Services

Preserving Creative America: Preserving Virtual Worlds

Abstract

Interactive media are highly complex and at high risk for loss as technologies rapidly become obsolete. The Preserving Virtual Worlds project will explore methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction. Major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game. Second Life content participants include Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum. Partners include the University of Maryland, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab.

Website

http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw/

Principal Investigator

Jerome McDonough

Funding

$590,000, Library of Congress

Social Informatics of E-Learning

Abstract

This work is being conducted through studies and collaborations with students and faculty at GSLIS and beyond. The emphasis of this work is on e-learning as a socio-technical implementation, and is informed by writing on computer- mediated communication, computer-supported cooperative work, community, and collaboration. Overall the approach taken is that of social informatics which examines the joint and mutually shaping impact of social and technical implementations.

Principal Investigator

Caroline Haythornthwaite

Young People's Voices about Comics in Reading Guidance Literature, 1938-1955

Abstract

Principal Investigator

Carol Tilley

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