Applying scenario-based design and claim analysis to the design of a digital library of geography examination resources

This paper describes the application of Carroll’s Scenario-based Design and Claims Analysis as a means of refinement to the initial design of a digital library of geographical resources (GeogDL) to prepare Singapore students to take a national examination in geography. GeogDL is built on top of G-Portal, a digital library providing services over geospatial and georeferenced Web content.Published versio

PAPER for an Educational Digital Library

GeogDL is a digital library of geography examination resources designed to assist students in revising for a national geography examination in Singapore. As part of an iterative design process, we carried out participatory design and brainstorming with student and teacher design partners. The first study involved prospective student design partners. In response to the first study, we describe in this paper an implementation of PAPER - Personalised Adaptive Pathways for Exam Resources - a new bundle of personalized, interactive services containing a mock exam and a personal coach. The “mock exam” provides a simulation of the actual geography examination while the “personal coach” provides recommendations of exam questions tailored to suit individual ability levels. This paper concludes with findings from a second study involving teacher design partners to further refine GeogDL.Accepted versio

An Interactive Learning Environment for a Dynamic Educational Digital Library

GeogDL is a digital library of geography examination resources designed to assist students in preparing for a national geography examination in Singapore. We describe an interactive learning environment built into GeogDL that consists of four major components. The practice and review module allows students to attempt individual examination questions, the mock exam provides a simulation of the actual geography examination, the trends analysis tool provides an overview of the types of questions asked in previous examinations, while the contributions module allows students and teachers to create and share knowledge within the digital library.Published versio

Design lessons on access features in PAPER

Using Nielsen’s Heuristic Evaluation, this paper reports a user study with six usability-trained subjects to evaluate PAPER’s access features in assisting users to retrieve information efficiently, part of an on-going design partnership with stakeholders and designers/developers. PAPER (Personalised Adaptive Pathways for Exam Resources) is an improved version evolving from an earlier implementation of GeogDL built upon G-Portal, a geospatial digital library infrastructure. After two initial evaluations with student and teacher design partners, PAPER has evolved containing a new bundle of personalized, interactive services with four modules : mock exam; personal coach (practice and review); trend analysis and performance review. This paper highlights lessons learnt in the design of PAPER using Nielsen’s heuristics, and discusses implications for the design of access features in digital libraries in general.Accepted versio

Social Capital, Indigenous Storytelling, and Fish Diversity: Learning Together Through Community-university Partnerships in Downeast Maine

Not only can community-university partnerships be vehicles for mobilizing community resources and affecting change, they also have high potential to produce useful, nuanced research and enable renewed visions of trust. I explore partnerships rooted in trust in the context of a community-university partnership between the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik and the University of Maine and its work through the Passamaquoddy-led StoryMaps Team. To accomplish this, I take a transdisciplinary approach to incorporate diverse perspectives on understanding critical and ethical approaches to engagement with Indigenous communities. The central focus among all three chapters is the need for Indigenous communities and institutions of higher education to learn together to meaningfully produce community resilience scholarship. In Chapter 1, I explore community-university partnerships as social capital and emphasize the role of trust in community-university partnerships with Indigenous communities. Through a literature review that places scholarship in a culturally relevant context for Indigenous communities, I explored community-university partnerships and emphasized that with refreshed views of trust after learning and making mistakes together, community-university partnerships can build trust in collaborations across Western science (WS) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). University partners can meaningfully share power with Indigenous communities by using Indigenous research methods (IRMs) in research projects. Chapter 2 focuses on a collaborative research project that is useful, culturally appropriate, and ethical for the Passamaquoddy Tribe. I collaborated with the Sipayik Environmental Department, Wabanaki Youth in Science, and Maine Sea Grant to support the Indigenous storytelling work seeking to raise awareness of municipal water issues at Sipayik. We utilized StoryMaps, a digital storytelling software, to critically bring together TEK and WS and move toward overcoming histories of mistrust. This chapter presents an ethnography of my participant-observation of the StoryMaps Team, and because I joined the team with an open mind and commitment to lifting Indigenous voices, I found emergent themes and identified two critical strategies – trust through partnership and flexibility in the research project – that community-university partnerships with Indigenous communities may learn from. This chapter contributes to ongoing discussions of community-university partnerships with Indigenous communities by highlighting storytelling as a critical approach. In Chapter 3, I recognize the Indigenous and Western significance of the fish communities in Western Passage and contribute to the current knowledge base that could help fisheries management and decision-making at both the state and tribal levels. We used recreational (WS) fisheries survey methods to build on past work in Western Passage and Gulf of Maine: jig and longline. I examined whether adding an additional gear type (longline) would provide a different perspective of the fish community than when using jig gear alone. Gear type differences did not influence conclusions about diversity across the survey sites sampled. This chapter concludes with considerations to further explore the utility of the added longline sampling. All data will be shared openly with tribal, state, and public partners

Knowledge Organization in Support of an Indigenous Worldview: A Community Driven Metadata Framework for the Inuvialuit Digital Library

Digital libraries are online platforms for organizing, sharing, and providing access to resources. Ideally, they are developed by, with, and for specific user communities. Metadata frameworks, as integral components of digital libraries, should also reflect the needs and serve the interests of those communities. In this paper I report on one aspect of my research working collaboratively with members of the Inuvialuit community in the northwestern part of Canada to explore and articulate a culturally responsive metadata framework for their digital library of cultural resources

Towards a People's Social Epidemiology: Envisioning a More Inclusive and Equitable Future for Social Epi Research and Practice in the 21st Century.

Social epidemiology has made critical contributions to understanding population health. However, translation of social epidemiology science into action remains a challenge, raising concerns about the impacts of the field beyond academia. With so much focus on issues related to social position, discrimination, racism, power, and privilege, there has been surprisingly little deliberation about the extent and value of social inclusion and equity within the field itself. Indeed, the challenge of translation/action might be more readily met through re-envisioning the role of the people within the research/practice enterprise-reimagining what "social" could, or even should, mean for the future of the field. A potential path forward rests at the nexus of social epidemiology, community-based participatory research (CBPR), and information and communication technology (ICT). Here, we draw from social epidemiology, CBPR, and ICT literatures to introduce A People's Social Epi-a multi-tiered framework for guiding social epidemiology in becoming more inclusive, equitable, and actionable for 21st century practice. In presenting this framework, we suggest the value of taking participatory, collaborative approaches anchored in CBPR and ICT principles and technological affordances-especially within the context of place-based and environmental research. We believe that such approaches present opportunities to create a social epidemiology that is of, with, and by the people-not simply about them. In this spirit, we suggest 10 ICT tools to "socialize" social epidemiology and outline 10 ways to move towards A People's Social Epi in practice