Online Smart School

SI Ph.D. candidate Kathleen Fear has been selected to receive the highly competitive A. R. Zipf Fellowship in Information Management for 2011 awarded by the Council on Library and Information Resources. Kathleen holds a bachelors in physics from Yale University and a masters in information, with a specialization in the preservation of information, from the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Kathleen’s research focuses on how scientific data can best be preserved, managed, and accessed. Recently, she conducted a major study with co-PI and fellow SI PhD candidate Devan Donaldson, exploring the use of provenance metadata in the ProteomeCommons repository, a major data archive for proteomics research. Her study found that proteomics researchers rely on far more information than just the available metadata when finding and evaluating data for reuse: the repository structure itself was an important source of information, particularly the contextualization provided by linking datasets to the papers they were associated with.

Named in honor of A. R. Zipf, a pioneer in information management systems, the $10,000 fellowship is awarded annually to a student who is enrolled in graduate school in the early stages of study and shows exceptional promise for leadership and technical achievement in information management.

While Kathleen is the first SI student to win this competitive fellowship award, she is the second University of Michigan graduate student to have done so. Dean Jeff MacKie-Mason’s student Terence Kelly won the award in 2001 while earning his PhD in computer science. Terence is now a researcher in the Exascale Computing Lab at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, CA.

See more information and the full list of previous fellowship recipients here.

MSI HCI student Tiffany Chow has won the Progressive Librarians Guild Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize with her essay Design Implications: How space can transform the library and its public.

The prize is awarded annually to the best paper about some aspect of the social responsibilities of librarians, libraries, or librarianship. The Progressive Librarians Guild provides “a forum for the open exchange of radical views on library issues.”

Tiffany’s winning essay will be published in the summer 2011 edition of Progressive Librarian Journal. She also receives a stipend to attend the American Library Association meeting this month in New Orleans.

A former youth development worker in New York’s Spanish Harlem, Tiffany studies the effects of accessibility to information in communities of color.

At WiseChoice, we are constantly developing new and helpful tools for students and educators. Our goal is to provide very accurate information, and to make searching for colleges and scholarships as simple as possible. So let us introduce you to our newest tools, recently unveiled by our innovative development team. We’re proud to offer three new widgets, one for WiseChoice.com and two for our sister site, ScholarshipExperts.com. Teachers, counselors, students or anyone with a website can choose and customize a widget with our Widget Wizard, grab the code and paste it into their site. Best of all, these new widgets are all available for free – there is no cost to place these time-saving tools on your site!

Here’s more about our new college search and scholarship search widgets:

The Easy Match Scholarship Search Widget gives students a quick glimpse at how many scholarships they may qualify for and how much scholarship money those scholarships are potentially worth. Students answer a few quick, anonymous questions about their college and career plans, and our scholarship search system instantly returns some names and deadlines of a few scholarships they may qualify for. Students then have the option to get even more scholarship information and scholarship results at ScholarshipExperts.com.

The Easy College Search Widget lets students search for colleges by name, state, or major. Once they’ve chosen the search characteristics, students see a results page containing a list of matching schools. Then students can drill down and learn even more about the colleges using great school data provided by WiseChoice.com.

The Scholarship Score Widget lets students answer just a few questions and instantly receive a scholarship score which includes the potential number and total dollar amount of scholarships they could apply for. And, of course, if users want to get even more info about the scholarships they match to, they can continue on and use the full scholarship matching service at ScholarshipExperts.com – it’s free!

We hope you’ll check out our new Widget Wizard today – these tools could be a great addition to your blog or website!

 
    SPOKANE – Registered nurse Julie Postma has a long history of working in rural and migrant community healthcare in Washington. But it wasn’t until she came face to face with the extreme housing conditions among Quincy farm workers that she sought to help them advocate for change.   With funding from a WSU Spokane faculty seed grant, the assistant professor of nursing collaborated on a PhotoVoice project.  
Health promoters from Quincy were given cameras to document local perceptions of environmental health and housing issues.   Postma, who teaches community health nursing in the College of Nursing undergraduate program, teamed with the Quincy Community Health Center and WSU Pullman assistant professor of communication Jeff Peterson.    

While everyone is wondering what will happen to NCLB, Nathan Glazer looks back at the law’s past, reviewing two books that explore the development of the law. The review will appear in the Fall 2011 issue of Ed Next. The books are Schoolhouse of Cards: An Inside Story of No Child Left Behind and Why America Needs a Real Education Revolution, by Eugene Hickok, and Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local Realities, by Paul Manna. Glazer’s review essay begins, “Whatever Possessed the President?”

it’s summertime! As June draws to a close and preparations are gearing up for Fourth of July barbecues and fireworks, why not kick back and catch up with the news of the rich, famous and super-trendy.

When it come to celebrity couples, the duo with the most sizzle has to be the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, or as they are know to their global horde of fans, Will and Kate. Back from their honeymoon, the two have been putting the sparkle into UK charity and civic events but the big news is their wildly anticipated trip to Canada and California. Not only is this the first official visit for the royal couple, it is also Kate’s first trip to to the U.S. and she is reported to be ‘wildly excited.’ Look for a press frenzy when these two touch down in Los Angeles.

Another newly wed is making news. Recently married Katy Perry just kicked of the North American leg of her “California Dream Tour 2011.” The singer, who is also known as Mrs. Russell Brand, took the stage in a in a fabulous peacock-inspired costume, and is reported experimenting with a new look as a redhead.

And in the music world, two reigning Queens of Country , Shania Twain and Taylor Swift, had some fun recently. The two put on their sunglasses, jumped into a vintage blue convertible and channeled their inner Thelma and Louise for a video promo for the CMT Music Awards.

When it comes to pop royalty, right now Lady Gaga is at the top of the charts and she recently took time to drop in to the SiriusXM studios in NYC to chat with Gayle King on Oprah Radio. Reality divas Khloe and Kortney Kardashian dropped in on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to plug the new season their hit television show.

Mornings on NBC will be different, now that Meredith Vieira has left the TODAY Show to pursue other interest at the network. On her final show, co-host Matt Lauer and the rest of the TODAY Show crew shared stories and clips of Vieira, drawing much laughter and some tears.

Funny lady and red carpet critic, Joan Rivers, paid a visit to the Broadway smash, Sister Act, and tennis ace, Rafael Nadal, celebrated winning the French Open at Disneyland Paris.

However when it comes to class and substance, screen queen Jennifer Garner showed her stuff during a recent trip to Washington, DC. Taking the stage with Mark Shriver, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, she spoke passionately about the need for early childhood education and improving access to quality child care. FYI, Ms. Garner is married to actor/director, Ben Affleck, and the couple are parents to two adorable little girls.

We started this celebrity round-up with Will and Kate, so it is only fitting that our last update is about Pippa Middleton, maid-of-honor and younger sister of Britian’s newest member of the Royal Family. Want to know how this beauty managed to rock the wedding in that smashing dress? It turns out Pippa is a fitness freak who competes in triathlon events. Now doesn’t that make you want to hit the gym?