Faculty and student research at the School aims to advance knowledge of key areas in information studies and apply it to the design, use, and management of information resources and services. Our diverse faculty, with expertise in psychology, computer science, education, history, business, anthropology, chemistry, and political science, bridge these disciplines to develop theories, models, and applications in the following broad areas:

• Human Computer Interaction & Information Architecture
• Organization of Knowledge and Information
• Preservation and Conservation of Physical and Digital Artifacts
• Development, Management, and Evaluation of Collections and Services
• History of the Cultural Record
• Information Advocacy, Ethics, and Policy
• User Behavior

Scholar in Residence

The School of Information accepts applications for the Scholars in Residence Program.

Funded Projects

Students have the opportunity to work on research with faculty in a variety of ways: in classes, independent studies, Capstone experiences, and dissertations. You can find specific details of faculty research interests and outputs on their individual pages. Here is a selection of currently funded research projects:

CI-TEAM Implementation: Educating a Competitive, Cyberinfrastructure Savvy Engineering and Construction Workforce

The goal of this project is to research and design advanced cyberinfrastructure -- particularly in information integration and sensor networks -- to support the civil infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and buildings. ($1,000,000 : NSF. Co-PI: Bias. PI: William O'Brien, UT-Austin Civil Engineering)

Studying Design Intent for Software Evolution and Maintenance

The goal of this work is a better understanding of the documentation needs of maintenance designers for software systems and to construct a model of how those maintenance designers interact with documented knowledge about legacy designs. ($452,329 : NSF. Co-PI: Bias. PI: Dewayne Perry, UT-Austin Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Usability Support of Texas Office of Court Administration's Development of a Web-based Application to Support Electronic Filing

This is applied usability engineering support, including requirements gathering and prototype testing, of a web-based application to support electronic filing, presentation of case information, and other information flow both for judges' chambers and the clerks' offices, and to improve the public web presence for selected case information and documents. ($21,900 : Texas Office of Court Administration. PI: Bias.)

Usability Support of Vignette

Ongoing usability engineering support, including mostly remote usability testing from the Information eXperience Lab, of Vignette's emerging next generation of web content management software applications. ($37,500 : Vignette. PI: Bias.)

National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)

The goal of this work is to bring social science support to NCWIT's mission of ensuring that women's perspectives and expertise are fully represented in the influential world of information technology, particularly in terms of innovation and development. Also includes building Broadening Participation in Computing Collection of digital library. ($315,576 : National Science Foundation; PI: Barker)

Empowering Leadership Alliance

Provide consultation and evaluation to support the Empowering Leadership Alliance's goal to retain and advance underrepresented minority students pursuing computing degrees in majority institutions across the U.S. ($95,117 : National Science Foundation; PI: Barker)

Alliance for the Advancement of African American Researchers in Computer Science (A4RC)

Provide consultation and evaluation for multi-university collaboration to develop pathways for African American students in Historically Black Colleges and Universities to pursue research careers through partnerships with research universities. ($181,534 : National Science Foundation; PI: Barker)

Pathways to Broadening Participation in TeraGrid

TeraGrid uses high-performance computing to develop and furnish data resources, tools, and high-end experimental facilities to advance scientific research. The goal of this project is to evaluate efforts to extend TeraGrid to a greater variety of academic fields and to diversity the race/ethnicity and gender of users. ($50,000 : National Science Foundation; PI: Barker)

Digitization in the Round: Educating Digital Librarians for the 21st Century

The project aims to recruit students and build curriculum in the art and science of creating and managing digital libraries. Digitization in the round website (PI: Rice-Lively)

OpenChoice: A Platform for Web Content Classification & Filtering

OpenChoice will provide an open source filtering system to allow organizations to configure and tune for their own Web information filtering requirements. Using webs of trust and open source statistical modeling software, OpenChoice is intended to further the open source community's efforts to be independent from commercial software vendors. (PI: Turnbull)

The Open Video Digital Library Toolkit Project

An IMLS-funded project that will provide museums, libraries and other institutions holding moving image collections with the tools to create their own Web-based digital video libraries. Open video project website (PI: Geisler)