Conference Agenda (All times are shown in Mountain Daylight Time)

This full-day workshop aims to promote discussion and disciplinary convergence on the topic of social media research focusing on issues related to pandemic, election, mis/disinformation, and social bots. Social media has become a mainstream channel of communication where users share and exchange information. The ASIST community is uniquely situated in this landscape as a community of researchers and educators who study different issues using social media data. This workshop aims to: 1) highlight current social media research opportunities and challenges, 2) identify and connect social media researchers, 3) introduce dis/misinformation issues in social media, and 4) provide practical guides to investigators, enhancing their understanding of the grant development process and their abilities to write a successful external grant proposal. This workshop brings together a group of social media researchers and senior faculty who developed successful external proposals to share their research and experiences.

The 21st Annual SIG-USE Research Symposium focuses on the theme of methods for investigating and making real-world impact with human information behavior and practices research. This symposium is an opportunity for researchers, students, faculty, and information professionals who are interested in information behavior and practices to discuss the metatheories, methodological approaches, research methods, and techniques that shape human information behavior and practices research, and that translate to positive differences in the world. The symposium will feature an informative panel presentation, as well as several paper and poster presentations, in order to explore different methodological and methods-related developments and challenges in information behavior and practices research. The symposium will also offer a Q&A session for authors who are interested in submitting their works to the upcoming Library and Information Science Research special issue on information behavior and information practices methods.

What is the thermal conductivity of copper? This straightforward question leads to a fascinating instance of the production of scientific facts through documentation practices. Ho, Powell and Liley’s 1974 The Thermal Conductivity of the Elements: A Comprehensive Review is examined as an artifact of scientific reference data production, and its answer to the initial question is traced to modern-day search engine results. A short history of the Center that produced the book and some initial research into its authors is provided.

Kuhn’s concepts of normal science and normic lexical structures are utilized to clarify the Comprehensive Review’s functioning within the broader scientific fields in which it is utilized. Bowker’s concepts of memory practices and the jussive Archive help identify the forgetting embedded in the production of reference data, producing what Star called global certainty. Far from impugning the internal validity of these scientific facts, this forgetting is shown to be licensed by scientific rigor.

This paper presents a novel historically informed investigation of how documentation practices produce scientific facts, and connect these activities to modern-day knowledge graph information retrieval. The theoretical analyses provided show how scientifically licensed forgetting is a key mechanism of fact production, what Hayles termed constrained constructivism.

Authority and Agency have been central concepts in information science since its beginnings in 19th century documentalism. This paper begins with a brief historical overview of how these concepts have been constructed in the traditional and user-centred paradigms. It will then explore how an information practices perspective affords the possibility of seeing authority and agency not as oppositional but rather as synergistic: two sides of the same theoretical coin. This exploration will be contextualised by examples drawn from the author’s own research over more than two decades across a range of studies. This body of research includes studies of academic, artistic and serious leisure communities.

In order to reflect the interactions, flow-path differences and nonlinear laws among manufacturing enterprises’ innovation units and to reveal relations between information-flowing efficiency and innovation capabilities, the paper divides innovation activities of manufacturing enterprises into three phases, such as information acquisition, information transformation and information value addition based on the theory of innovation value chain, and puts forward a mathematical model of information absorption and transformation to ultimately reveal the mechanisms for information flow across inside and outside units. Further, the paper takes a non-linear function for absorptive capacity based on level of experiential knowledge, continuous R&D intensity, and agent relation strength to quantify the information absorption and transformation process and takes index of innovation information amount and cumulative information amount to calculate innovation abilities and measure information value addition. Finally, the paper uses simulation tool to analyze the influencing factors of information absorption and transformation optimization.

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has affected everyone’s life on a daily basis for more than a year. However, some racial groups have experienced a double pandemic, that of COVID-19 and racist attacks incorrectly tied to the pandemic. Harassment and physical intimidation were the source of many anti-Asian attacks. The number of unarmed black people assaulted and killed by police almost tripled during 2020 when compared 2019. In this panel, we will attempt to analyze recent racial attacks in terms of malinformation, such as misinformation, disinformation, or shallow, historical stereotypes of ethnic minorities as another layer of the pandemic originating with racism or inflamed grievances. The panelists will discuss the proposed topic drawing from each panelist’s expertise and an interactive discussion with the audience will follow after each panelist’s presentation. Members and attendees at ASIS&T who have an interest in the spread of dis- and misinformation via social media and politicizing the pandemic crisis will find our topics useful to their research.

This panel engages conference attendees in the history and foundations of information science and provides an opportunity to reflect upon our field’s current and future identity(s). It enacts the following scenario: At an orientation event for an information science program a spokesperson gives incoming students a brief address on the theme, “Welcome to information science.” Six imaginative but authentic versions of that talk are offered here. To showcase the variety of approaches to information science across the past century, each disquisition is inspired by the work of one luminary, namely: Paul Otlet, S. R. Ranganathan, Jesse H. Shera, Elfreda Chatman, and Marcia J. Bates. In an effort to encourage a more spacious information science, an indigenous perspective on ways of knowing is also included. Attendees to this session will time-travel across almost 100 years of information science history and ultimately rest in the reality of a multi-perspective discipline.

Launched in October 2019, the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) addresses the learning gaps in RDM training. Through a unique partnership among practicing librarians, LIS faculty, and industry, the RDMLA has produced a dynamic open learning experience, highlighting the benefits of collaboration and skill-sharing. This collaboration’s success lies in how the project leveraged each partner’s strengths and experience while centering on the shared purpose, dedication to equitable learning, and mutual respect among the team members. This panel focuses on the collaborative efforts undertaken by the RDMLA leadership and instructors to develop an open-access professional development education program. Five panelists will share their experience working on this large collaborative project from varying perspectives, the lessons learned while developing their content, the challenges they encountered, and their understanding of the benefits of such a collaborative endeavor in producing free, open-access learning to foster a community of practice in RDM.

Embodiment and affect are understudied in information science work to date. Literature that engages with embodied information interactions typically focuses on physical bodies, while work on affect largely centers people’s emotional experiences in formal knowledge institutions like libraries. Room therefore exists to grow in our understanding of embodiment and affect, particularly in terms of theorizing how bodies and feelings factor into a wide range of information experiences from non-dominant standpoints. This panel centers queer experiences and queer theory in order to expand conceptions of and connections between embodied and affective dimensions of information interactions. Panelists will present a range of research that examines queer people’s practices and experiences with information in historical, archival, creative, and health-related domains. Bodies and emotions are essential components of critical queer theoretical perspectives, meaning that scholarship which centers queerness and its intersections with constructs like race has great potential to expand many branches of information science further beyond their normative bents. In concert, topics discussed should spark conversation among attendees about the theoretical and practical benefits of deeply studying embodiment and affect and further utilizing critical theory in multiple domains within the information science discipline.

The proposed panel will address the issues of the discovery and reuse of publicly available data on the web in the context of data service practices from a global perspective. Thousands of data discovery services have appeared around the world since the promotion of ‘open science’, reproducible research, and the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data principles in the research sector. However, there is also increasing demand for transparency of search algorithms, and in the design, development, evaluation, and deployment of current data search services; this requires a better understanding of how users approach data discovery and interact with data in search settings. From a global perspective, we will identify and discuss the specific system design issues in data discovery and reuse, drawing on our organization of the NTCIR (NII Testbeds and Community for Information access Research) project of Data Search track, the design and evaluation of the data discovery service of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), and studies examining researchers’ practices of data discovery and reuse.

Current researches paid less attention to the image position and layout of tweets containing multiple images. Inspired by the research on user cognition, this study explored the impact of image position and layout on user engagement. The XGBoost model trained on single-image tweet data was used to predict the "user engagement potential" of a single image in multi-image tweets. Then, the influence of image position and layout on user engagement was analyzed through correlation analysis and OLS regression. It was found that the right position was more important in tweets with less than or equal to 4 images, and the position effects became symmetric with image adding. Layouts with 6 and 4 images had positive effects on user engagement, while layouts with 7 and 9 or more images had negative effects. This study provides insights into user engagement with social media images and may help improve interaction.

Systematic reviews are widely used in evidence-based medicine. Conducting a systematic review requires intensive mental efforts, especially during the study screening process. This challenge has motivated the development of intelligent software. This study examined and compared the performance, workload, and user experience of two systematic review tools – Colandr with AI features and Covidence without AI features by conducting a mixed-method usability study. The results showed that, compared with Covidence, Colandr helped reviewers with higher precision in citation screening. However, the user experience with Colandr was not optimal due to problems in its user interface design. Therefore, we suggest that the design and development of AI-enabled SR software emphasize the usability of the interface and apply user-centered design principles.

A museum’s digital archive system gathers information about cultural heritage and makes it accessible to the public. In this study we clarify the extent to which search behaviors reflect task outcome and foster users’ knowledge of painting and calligraphy. Ten users participated in this evaluation of the Digital Archives of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Search System (DA-PCSS) of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Participants’ search activities and interactions with the DA-PCSS were recorded in two simulated tasks. The results show that participants who received high scores for their essays on the tasks formulated precise queries: instead of general terms they used precise expressions describing features in paintings and calligraphy. In addition, they were able to seek out sources to explore the topics. For such participants, a meaning-making process seems to have occurred during the search process. Our results suggest that the criteria for learning at various stages of search suggested by Vakkari (2016) seem to validly reflect the quality of the search outcomes. In all, the results elucidate how the evaluated system supports users as they search for target items, as well as how learning occurs during the search process and in turn influences task outcomes.

Older adults may be excluded from using digital health technologies due to limited eHealth literacy. Research is much needed to decrease disparities in eHealth literacy and increase the inclusiveness of such technologies. Integrating the preferences and expertise of older adults is key to age-appropriate design of eHealth tutorials. This study explores how participatory design (PD) techniques can be adapted to include older adults in the design of an eHealth tutorial. We worked with 9 older adults (aged 64 and 82) as co-designers and conducted PD sessions over 11 weeks in a senior center’s computer lab. Using thematic analysis, we identified 7 themes around the design of eHealth tutorials for older adults. We also identified successes and challenges in PD with older adults, along with benefits of partnering with senior centers. Our findings have implications for both the design of eHealth tutorials for older adults and for PD with older adults.

The paper examines the concept of participation in co-design practices with children and youth. Rooted in Participatory Design and Participatory Action Research frameworks, the paper draws from multi-disciplinary literature to survey existing definitions of the relationships, roles, and types of human interactions in participatory co-design. The paper advocates for the active role of children and youth in the co-design process and presents models of youth participation. The paper highlights the importance of understanding and clearly communicating various degrees of participation, with the ultimate goal of empowering youth and involving them in brainstorming, planning, decision-making, and interpretation stages of the design process. We introduce the concept of conscious co-design and the need to reflect on the design process at a meta level in Participatory Design and Participatory Action Research.

Publishing research data is widely expected to increase its reuse and to inspire new research. In the social sciences, data from surveys, interviews, polls, and statistics are primary resources for research. There is a long tradition to collect and offer research data in data archives and online repositories. Researchers use these systems to identify data relevant to their research. However, especially in data search, users’ complex information needs seem to collide with the capabilities of data search systems. The search capabilities, in turn, depend to a high degree upon the metadata schemes used to describe the data. In this research, we conducted an online survey with 72 social science researchers who expressed their individual information needs for research data like they would do when asking a colleague for help. We analyzed these information needs and attributed their different components to the categories: topic, metadata, and intention. We compared these categories and their content to existing metadata models of research data and the search and filter opportunities offered in existing data search systems. We found a mismatch between what users have as a requirement for their data and what is offered on metadata level and search system possibilities.

Most voice-based personal assistants are suitable for simple tasks which are not conversational but single-turn question-answering. To address this limitation, we investigate the dialogue capabilities of commercial conversational systems and compare them to the standards expected by the users. We designed a set of moderately complex search tasks and used two popular personal assistants to evaluate the user-system interaction. A laboratory-based user study was conducted with twenty-five users and seventy-five search sessions to collect user-system conversational dialogues (for three search tasks). Next, we show that using a set of simple rules, which could be implemented in the immediate future, it is possible to improve the users’ interaction experience and make the system more anthropomorphic. Using a conceptual prototype where a human (Wizard) played the role of the system (unknowing to the users), we demonstrate the efficacy of the guidelines and provide design recommendations for future conversational search systems.

In a search process, searchers review documents to gather information relevant to their information need (IN). During this process, searchers may experience the satisfaction of their IN, indicating they have gathered adequate relevant information to answer their need. This complex concept of satisfaction is the ultimate goal of search systems. Most studies in Information Retrieval have been attempted to understand how searchers’ needs are satisfied based on behavioural observation. However, the psychophysiological manifestation during the moment of satisfaction still remains unclear. Here, we use functional Magnetic Resonance (fMRI) to investigate which brain regions are involved during the moment of satisfaction. Twenty-six participants participated in the experiment, designed to represent a search process while being scanned. Our result shows the human brain regions involved during the moment of satisfaction. These findings provide an important step in unravelling the concept of satisfaction in a search process.

Libraries and library consortia are adopting controlled digital lending (CDL) as a strategy, accelerated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to facilitate equitable access to print collections. While advocates of CDL contend that digitize-and-lend practices reflect an incremental, technology-assisted adjustment to traditional library circulation, lending, and resource-sharing practices, opponents of CDL in the United States and Canada argue that the practice contravenes well-established copyright protections. This paper discusses current controversies surrounding CDL, its potential promise and perils, and concludes that a reasonable, equitable, and forward-looking application of copyright laws ought to insulate libraries and library consortia from exposure to liability for engaging in CDL.

This paper is based on the Web of Science database and takes advantage of CiteSpace, a scientometric software, to conduct visualization analyses. It is found that privacy issues in data ethics have reached the research peak in the past two years. The current global research in this field is characterized by three different periods and multidisciplinary perspectives. The hotspots of this field are relatively concentrated and gradually deepened. Besides, the research in this field has moved from the theoretical stage to the practical application stage. This paper attempts to present the scientific knowledge structure, patterns and distribution of privacy issues in data ethics, exploring the global frontier hotspots, providing inspiration and experience for Chinese academic research and industry practice in data ethics.

Three punctuations of US information policy in the 21st century, caused by 9/11, Trump, and COVID-19, have wrought such change that the domain is currently ecstatic and entropic. This paper introduces the three punctuations, discusses how punctuations affect policy-making in complex adaptive systems, and reviews what it means for policy and policy-making processes to be ecstatic and entropic. The paper than examines manifestations of these characteristics of contemporary information policy in theories, principles, issue areas, regulatory subjects, and policy-making processes.