APPLYING USER CENTERED DESIGN PRINCIPLES TO DELIVER SURFACE WATER DATA TO DIVERSE AUDIENCES

User-Centered Design (UCD) is an iterative process that allows designers and developers to create useful products. Using a combination of brainstorming, in-person interviews, usability testing, and design evaluation, the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology (MBMG) is building a web portal to deliver Montana’s Surface Water Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP) data in an efficient manner. Data from the MBMG and the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) are currently being collected and stored. The MBMG has more than 100 surface-water monitoring sites in its Ground Water Information Center (GWIC) database. In addition, the DNRC has stream stage (ft), discharge (cfs), and water temperature (deg C) data for 34 real-time stations and more than 130 seasonally downloaded stations across Montana. Working together with the Water Management Bureau and Information Technology staff at DNRC, the MBMG developed a database to import an automatic data feed from Aquatic Informatics’ AQUARIUS software. The surface-water data are imported into the system every 30 minutes using a combination of the AQUARIUS API, FTP, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, and custom software. The SWAMP database and website are recent additions to the MBMG Data Center at http://mbmg.mtech.edu/datacenter

Visualization of 40 Years of Tropical Cyclone Positions and Their Rainfall

Correos de investigadores: [email protected] || [email protected] || [email protected] || [email protected] article focuses on a visualization of tropical cyclone track data occurring over a 40- year period (1970–2010) and their relationship with (extremely) heavy rainfall reported by 88 Central American weather stations. The purpose of the visualization is to associate the paths of tropical cyclones in oceanic areas with heavy rainfall inland. Thus, the potential for producing a set of rainfall patterns might somehow help in predicting where different impacts like flooding might occur when tropical cyclones develop in specific oceanic regions. The visualization will serve as a key tool for CIGEFI scientists to apply in their work to determine critical positions of the tropical cyclones associated with extremely heavy rainfall events at daily timescales.Universidad de Costa Rica/[805-B9-454]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[805-C0-610]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[EC-497]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[805-A4-906]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[805-C0-074]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[805-A1-715]/UCR/Costa RicaUniversidad de Costa Rica/[805-B0-810]/UCR/Costa RicaUCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigaciones Geofísicas (CIGEFI)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Básicas::Facultad de Ciencias::Escuela de FísicaUCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Básicas::Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR

Proposal Defense: Improving Patient Portal Adoption in Primary Care

Introduction: Stage three of Meaningful Use (MU) is currently underway and is focused on promoting patient portal use. If the electronic medical record patient portal use is less than 25%, primary care providers face reductions in value-based reimbursements. National adoption rates from portal use remain under 27% with some providers averaging well below the needed 25%. The following practice question is proposed, “In a low-income urban adult clinic, how does an interactive electronic education intervention compared to no education intervention affect patient portal adoption rates?” Objectives: The purpose of this project is to identify whether an electronic patient educational video and self-service kiosk will increase the use of portals among low income older adults in a primary care office. The overreaching goal of the proposed project is to increase patient portal adoption to the MU requirement of 25% of participants by March 4, 2019. Methods: A convenience sample of 1,894 adult patients attending a primary care appointment is expected. A retrospective data analysis will be used to gather pre and post-intervention portal adoption percentages. Data will be compared using chi-square methodology. Demographic information will be used for descriptive statistics. Survey data will be used to capture study learnings and to evaluate the intervention. In this quality improvement project, data will be collected from persons receiving a primary care appointment at the clinic that participate in the patient education video and self-serve kiosk over a 84-day period. The rate of portal adoption for persons using the video and kiosk will be compared to the portal adoption rate before the video was available. Additional, de-identified demographic information will be collected in order to understand if there are differences in portal adoption among patient types. Results: It is predicted that patient portal use rates will reach 30% in response to the evidence-based intervention. Conclusions: It is expected that the proposed workflow changes with an educational intervention will eliminate the barrier of a lack internet access and will thus increase patient portal rates. Implications: The vision of the proposed project is to be cycle one of many cycles. With the clinic’s vast number of students and support of educational staff, this project can provide a framework for future quality improvement projects aimed at improving patient portal use and patient outcomes

Facilitating Data Driven Research Through a Hardware- and Software-Based Cyberinfrastructure Architecture

Cyberinfrastructure is the backbone of research and modern industry. As such, to have an environment conducive to research advancements, cyberinfrastructure must be well maintained and accessible by all researchers. Presented in this thesis is a method of centralizing aspects of cyberinfrastructure to allow for ease of collaboration and data management by researchers without requiring these researchers to manage the involved systems themselves. This centralized architecture includes dedicated machines for data transfers, a cluster designed to run microservices surrounding the method, a dashboard for performance and health monitoring, and network telemetry collection. As system administrators are responsible for maintaining the systems in place, a user study was conducted to assess the functionality of the dashboard they would utilize to receive alerts from and utilize to quickly gauge the status of involved hardware. This thesis aims to provide a template for deploying centralized data transfer cyberinfrastructure and a manual for utilizing these systems to support data driven research

NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Library Edition

What is on the five-year horizon for academic and research libraries? Which trends and technology developments will drive transformation? What are the critical challenges and how can we strategize solutions? These questions regarding technology adoption and educational change steered the discussions of 77 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Library Edition, in partnership with the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Chur, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), ETH Library, and the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six developments in technology profiled in this report are poised to impact library strategies, operations, and services with regards to learning, creative inquiry, research, and information management. The three sections of this report constitute a reference and technology planning guide for librarians, library leaders, library staff, policymakers, and technologists

Climate information websites: an evolving landscape

The climate change agenda is populated by actors and agencies with different objectives, values, and motivations, yet many seek decision scale climate information to inform policy and adaptation responses. A central element of this network of activity is the climate information website (CIW) that has seen a rapid and organic growth, yet with variable content and quality, and unfettered by any code of practice. This builds an ethical–epistemic dilemma that warrants assessment as the presence of CIWs contribute to real-world consequences and commitment. This study considers the context of CIW growth, and reviews a representative sample of CIWs to draw out key issues for consideration in CIW development. We assess content, function, and use-case value through a dual approach of a typology and user experience narratives to evaluate the general efficacy of a CIW. The typology reveals strong contrasts in content, complicated interfaces, and an overload of choice making it difficult to converge on a stable outcome. The narratives capture user experience and highlight barriers that include navigation difficulties, jargon laden content, minimal or opaque guidance, and inferred information without context about uncertainty and limits to skill. This illuminates four concerns: (1) the ethics of information provision in a context of real-world consequences; (2) interfaces that present barriers to achieving robust solutions; (3) weak capacity of both users and providers to identify information of value from the multimodel and multimethod data; and (4) inclusion of data that infer skill. Nonetheless, results provide a positive indication of a community of practice that is still maturing. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e470. doi: 10.1002/wcc.470. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website

Interface, Fall 2009

Interpreting climate change data and predicting what it could mean to life on earth and the environment that sustains it is an example of a major 21st Century challenge that a wide range of disciplines are working to address. Interdisciplinary efforts to tackle such concerns have been limited by a lack of collaborative tools for communicating and sharing information. The project DataONE (ONE being short for Observation Network for Earth) seeks to alleviate this difficulty by creating a mechanism and cyberinfrastructure through which communities of researchers worldwide can share data

Election Integrity: A Pro-Voter Agenda

President Trump recently claimed millions voted illegally in the 2016 election, and called for a "major investigation" into fraud in our election system. His remarks come after years of battles in the states over voting laws that make it harder for many citizens to participate in our elections. Yet the clamor over voter suppression should not obscure a fundamental shared truth: American elections should be secure and free of misconduct. This paper outlines a six-part agenda to target fraud risks as they actually exist -- without unduly disenfranchising eligible citizens

Leading edge technologies in a community college library setting: identifying disconnects of academic libraries and their users

The intent of this research was to discover what, if any, disconnect exists between community college students\u27 library perceptions and technology use. The researcher studied how students at a very-large southwestern community college are using the physical and virtual college library, and their overall technology and library technology use. The research addressed the following six research questions: (a) What are the technology profiles (defined as technology ownership, use, skill, and adoption status) of students at a very-large size southwestern community college? (b) What are the library profiles (defined as library use, skill, awareness, and emerging technology receptivity) of students at a mid-size southwestern community college? (c) How do the library and technology profiles of students of disparate demographic factors such as age, digital status, gender, and academic status differ? (d) How can student receptiveness to and awareness of emerging technology library services be characterized? (e) How do students of disparate library and technology profiles compare in their awareness of, assessment of, and receptivity to traditional emerging technology-based library services? (f) What is the relationship between student use and awareness of library services and self-perception of technological competency, and receptivity to emerging technologies? The data collection instrument consisted of a survey containing a mixture of multiple choice, Likert scale questions and open-ended questions. The researcher used a combination of data analysis software and Heuristic Coding. In general, students at this institution use the library on a regular basis, with second year students using it more than first year students. The majority of them own a computer, having high-speed Internet connection at home. Most identified with the statement that they adopt new technologies about the same as others. They use technology daily, mostly in the form of text messaging and social networking applications. The primary technologies used in their courses are library related. The results of this study may provide libraries and institutions information as to where additional instruction is needed to better assist students in their research needs and what technologies need to be promoted to better equip students in their pursuit of higher education, and ultimately in the workforce