2022 Spring Capstone Projects

 

Professional Experience Project

UT Libraries

with: Adriana Cásarez and Daniel Arbino

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Representation of Afro-Latinx Studies in the Libraries: Reformatting LibGuides and Curating Exhibits Grounded in Theory

This is a two-part project consisting of revamping the Afro-Latina/o Studies LibGuide at the UT Libraries and curating an exhibit in the Scholars Commons at the Perry-Castaeda Library. The scope of the LibGuide focuses on U.S. Afro-Latinx sources and its purpose is to address the gap between knowledge and access for users. The LibGuide will be a primer on Afro-Latinx sources to get users more familiar with topics under this field and will be used as a starting point for further research in different areas such as, fiction and archival sources, for example. The exhibit showcases varying aspects of Afro-Latinidad to foster engagement of users and familiarize them with the Libraries collections and resources. Through showcasing Afro-Latinx visual and literary texts, this exhibit aims to illuminate the contributions of decolonizing projects and demonstrates that the Afro-Latinx diaspora is not relegated to one homogenous representation replicated in mainstream Latinx cultural productions.

 

Professional Experience Project

The University of Texas at Austin, LAITS

with: Steve Lundy, PhD

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Study of longitudinal course survey material for online course to generate pedagogical change via implementable standardized custom survey battles

The purpose of this project is to fulfill a need for standardized supplemental survey question sets, also known as batteries, that generate relevant and useful student feedback that result in pedagogical design changes implemented in courses over time. The goal of this project is the longitudinal analysis of CC 303 WB surveys and the generation of standardized batteries that will be implemented in course surveys going forward. The long term impact of this project is the generation of pedagogical and instructional materials that can be implemented in courses resulting in timely and relevant feedback that will facilitate pedagogical and instructional responsiveness. This will be achieved through a foundational literature review, analysis of historical longitudinal data of the CC 303 WB course, the analysis of previous customized batteries, and evaluation of convergent concepts.

 

Professional Experience Project

School of Information

with: Eric Nordquist

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Loopring application evaluation and redesign

Loopring builds infrastructure, and user-facing products for cryptocurrencies trading. They envision a digital economy where users are empowered and always in control of their assets. Loopring provides a low-fee, high-speed platform for trading. Even though Loopring provides the most advanced trading experience on Ethereum, its not intuitive and people barely understand what they have to do from onboarding screens. So I did background research and heuristic evaluation on the Loopring application to explore pain points. Then, I synthesized research data to find how I can develop the Loopring application to serve users more efficiently and inclusively. So the project outcomes includes: -Heuristic evaluation-Research insight-Redesign"

 

Professional Experience Project

University of Texas at Austin School of Information

with: Dr. Randolph Bias and research partly sponsored by Microsoft

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Improving Skimmability: Experimental UX research study tracking screen-based scanning speed

As information has become more widely accessible in the digital environment, one of the most essential and prevalent interactions between humans and technology has been the reading of digital text. The immense volume of text thats easily accessible to us often outstrips the time we have available to read it. The purpose of this research project is to examine how information processing and reading in a digital environment has evolved over the years. Moving forward, with the lens of a user experience (UX) specialist, I review the research that examines the user interface design of text presentation on the web and identify elements that facilitate scanning in a digital reading environment. In doing so, I introduce (with the support of professor Randolph Bias) a new method of presenting text, called Mid-Word-Graying (MWG). MWG modifies the text darkness, or weight, of the inner-letters of a word, making the outside letters slightly bolder, in order to reduce crowding and aid our word recognition ability. In order to empirically determine whether MWG facilitates faster scanning of online text, I help design and then conduct a quantitative experimental research study that tests whether participants can scan for information faster using the MWG or regular view of text. The results of this study are then analyzed, summarized, and presented with further research and design recommendations.

 

Professional Experience Project

Coates Library at Trinity University

with: Grant Hardaway

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Promoting Librarianship as a Career: Outreach to Undergraduates to Demystify Librarianship

This video series and LibGuide was created for the Coates Library at Trinity University and is aimed at encouraging students from all backgrounds to consider careers in libraries, archives, and special collections. Using a series of recorded interviews and links for students to explore, this project hopes to attract and welcome a diverse candidate field by demystifying the process of becoming a librarian and highlighting the funding, resources, and organizations available to support students through the process.

 

Professional Experience Project

Winnow

with: Megan Parker

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Investigating Therapist Needs to Design a Better Therapy Provider Directory

Winnow is a new Austin startup founded to improve the process of finding a therapist. Countless companies are trying to recruit therapy providers to serve the growing number of Americans who are seeking professional mental health support. (According to one 2021 survey, nearly 30 percent of Americans have seen a therapist during the pandemic, and 86 percent say its helped them cope.) By surveying 28 therapists and interviewing five, I discovered the needs and concerns of the types of therapists Winnow hopes to recruit. I also performed a competitive analysis to help identify the must-haves and opportunities in the mental health startup space. My goal: help Winnow build a strong foundation of user research insights from the start, so that the final product is usable and addresses real needs.

 

Professional Experience Project

Athena Advisory

with: Brian Cosmano

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Design an User Experience that Helps People Save For a Secure Retirement

Athena Advisory is a financial technology company providing its clients with sound financial advice. Talking with clients, they discovered that many people had barriers to develop a savings plan that would provide them with a financially secure retirement. This project aims to create a user experience that encourages people to begin saving for their retirement and to track their progress on the way to a prosperous retirement.

 

Professional Experience Project

The University of Texas at Austin

with: Chad Fulton

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Center for Teaching and Learning Resources Raising awareness and increasing user engagement for instructional resources

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) supports instructional development, campus collaborations, and increased opportunities for engaged and inclusive learning. This study uses UX research and design methodologies to uncover user pain points that need to be addressed within CTL, in both the digital and physical spaces. Pain points discovered in research will be shared via an updated set of user personas, a heuristic report, as well as a workflow plan that implements the needs of CTL clients and staff. Project focuses on increasing user engagement across all communication platforms to raise awareness of the resources CTL provides.

 

Professional Experience Project

C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department, University of Texas at El Paso

with: Abbie Weiser

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Digital Preservation and Access in the Casasola Studio Photograph Collection

Alfonso Casasola was a member of a famous family of Mexican photographers who established a studio in El Paso in the 1920s. The images from his studio in the Casasola Studio Photograph Collection at the C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department at the University of Texas at El Paso provide rich insight into El Paso area cultural history. This project focuses on digitizing large format photographic negatives, performing preservation tasks, providing metadata description, and depositing these objects in UTEP's CONTENTdm repository. Care is taken to use a consistent means of processing a sample of these materials using institutional procedures, and update existing documentation in consultation with project stakeholders. Digitization and online access will increase awareness and use of this collection for research, teaching, and community-building purposes. In total, approximately 150 images will be made newly available online.

 

Professional Experience Project

The Contemporary Austin

with: Robin K. Williams

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State Of the Art: An Archival Assessment Towards a Visual Arts History of Austin

This project presents an in-depth examination into the history and evolution of establishing a major art museum in Austin from the formation of the Texas Fine Arts Association in 1911, Laguna Gloria Art Museum (1961), Austin Museum of Art (1992), Arthouse (2002), AMOA-Arthouse (2011), and finally to the current iteration, The Contemporary Austin (2013). Through conducting archival research, I set out to gain a greater understanding of what kinds of archives were held in various repositories: Dolph Briscoe Center of American History, the Austin History Center, and the museums own archives storage. Before undertaking a longer-term digitization project, the museum first needed to understand what records existed and where they were. With a more in-depth understanding of the existing, unseen archives, the museum can begin taking steps towards a robust archival program of their past and ongoing projects.

 

Professional Experience Project

Homecooked

with: Tarun Thummala

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Gathering Gathr’s Ring: Developing a Mobile App’s Testing Framework

Gathr is a local startup centered around a new social events app. The project has been rapidly growing over the last two years, with little to no effort put towards user research. Over the course of six months, I designed and implemented a testing framework with three goals: (1) to create a template that future researchers at the company can easily modify for their needs; (2) to gathr feedback on their new event creation flow; and (3) to gain unique insight into the new user onboarding experience, a specifically critical pain point in their retention rates. I conducted three rounds of user interviews with 12 total participants, gaining invaluable customer insight and leaving behind a highly flexible set of testing resources.

 

Professional Experience Project

Georgia Public Library Service

with: Angela Stanley

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Sharing Local History: Supporting Georgia Public Libraries in the Creation of Digital History Exhibits

The Georgia Public Library Service supports public libraries in Georgia through a statewide lending network, literacy programs, professional development and training for library staff, facilities support, computer and technical support, and grant administration, amongst other services and programs. The GPLS DigEx program supports public libraries in Georgia in the creation of local history exhibits through the online content management platform OmekaS. The DigEx program allows libraries in Georgia to tell vital stories about their communities using unique digitized materials hosted by the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG). My role as a capstone student working with GPLS was to provide management, training, and support for the libraries putting on these exhibits. I worked with three cohort libraries from Georgia to mount one exhibit each on OmekaS, for public launch by June 1st, 2022. The initial stage of the project involved familiarizing myself with the DigEx program guide, OmekaS, various digital humanities tools, copyright standards and practices, and training materials in mounting local history exhibits. During the second stage, I provided assistance and support to the participating libraries in the following areas: (1) employing the digital humanities tools Omeka and Knightlab Storytelling Tools to mount and supplement their exhibits; (2) conducting historical research and fact-checking; (3) facilitating the responsible use of digital materials in terms of copyright research and appropriate attribution standards; (4) curating exhibit content and developing exhibit narratives; and (5) attending monthly advisory sessions with cohort libraries to provide periodic feedback as the exhibits evolved. In the final stage of the project, I worked on updating the DigEx program guide to include additional digital humanities resources for future use. To this end, I produced four video tutorials for Knightlab Storytelling Tools and History Pin for inclusion in the program guide. I plan to continue working with GPLS through the month of May until the exhibits go live on June 1st.

 

Professional Experience Project

Hogg Foundation for Mental Health

with: Elizabeth Stauber

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Wikipedia Edits for Mental Health Promotion

The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health is a grantmaking organization that supports mental health resources and health equity across Texas by funding educational conferences, publishing informational content, and spearheading community engagement initiatives. My role as a Graduate Research Assistant was to expand the publics understanding of mental health history and drive interest in the Hogg Foundations archive through strategic additions and edits to pages on Wikipedia. I applied substantial modifications on three existing articles and wrote seven original articles on individuals, policies, and organizations that concern the foundations history and role in the development of mental health awareness in Texas. This project represents efforts to not only utilize available online resources for these crucial topics but also to raise awareness of the far-reaching impacts of the Hogg Foundation over the past 80 years.

 

Thesis/Masters Report

Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Ying Ding

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An Investigation into Repatriation for Indigenous People of Texas

Repatriation is a growing issue for libraries, museums, and archives that will not go away anytime soon. In the United States, the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990 has set a precedent for institutions that receive federal funding to comply with an inventory of their human remains and items of cultural significance through a process that deaccessions the objects back to their communities of origin. In Texas, there are two cases in which Native American tribes are requesting remains of their ancestors for repatriation. This report discusses how the Indigenous people in Texas are represented through the Bullock Texas State History Museum, the history of NAGPRA, as well as an outline of both repatriation cases through qualitative analysis of news reports that cover the tribes claims.

 

Professional Experience Project

Dell Medical School Department of Population Health

with: Dr. Marissa Burgermaster, Eric Nordquist

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Identifying User Segments for a Nutrition App

The purpose of this project was to provide The Burgermaster Lab at Dell Medical School's Department of Population Health with a research plan to understand the needs and challenges that their target audience faces when working towards nutrition goals. The lab is developing an app, Nutri, to help physicians at federally funded clinics provide nutrition guidance to patients who may not otherwise have access to a nutritionist. NutriMe, the proposed patient-facing app to support patients working toward this goal in between doctor visits, will use the results of this research to present different experiences to user segments based on motivation, nutrition literacy, tech literacy, and social support.

 

Professional Experience Project

Q2

with: Don Roach

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Redesigning the Q2 Secure Messaging System

Q2 currently offers Financial Institutions a secure messaging system as part of their back-office suite of products. This secure messaging system allows Customer Service Representatives and banking end users to communicate with each other. Feedback from generative interviews with CSRs suggests that there are several pain-points that cause frustration with this feature. Using these insights, I redesigned the secure messaging system to meet user needs and to enhance the user experience. I then worked with the research team to usability test the prototype. After synthesizing the results and creating recommendations, I presented the findings to the team.

 

Professional Experience Project

Chattanooga Public Library

with: Corinne Hill

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Evaluating Summer Learning with the Chattanooga Public Library

Summer Reading Programs are a long-standing tradition of public libraries to engage communities and combat summer learning loss among children. Over the past few years, the Chattanooga Public Library has not observed any significant literacy or engagement impacts within the community because of Summer Reading Programs. For this project, I will conduct a literature review, consult with children's librarians, and analyze data to provide recommendations for future programming.

 

Professional Experience Project

Dell Medical School, Department of Nutritional Sciences

with: Eric Nordquist, Dr. Marissa Burgermaster

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Theory-guided approaches to User Research: using Self Determination Theory to guide app design

Nutri is a tool for primary care doctors to help patients improve their nutrition through setting a goal. NutriMe is a proposed companion app that can help patients persist in working towards that health goal in between doctor visits. My challenge for this user research capstone was to test UI designs using a criteria influenced by Self-Determination Theory. My work consisted of requirements gathering, literature review, writing an A/B test that compared UIs that were examples of self-determination theory's basic psychological needs, and process documentation. In the future, this user test will be used to uncover insights about users regarding their nutrition literacy, SDT motivation style, and UX/UI design pattern preferences.

 

Professional Experience Project

Austin History Center

with: Kelly Hanus Harrell

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Preparing the Austin History Center for Migration: from Legacy to ArchivesSpace

The Austin History Center is planning to move its accession records and finding aid information from their current multiple Microsoft Access Databases where the information is stored. The migration will be completed by the company Lyrasis, but before that can be done, the Austin History Centers data required some clean-up to standardize the data and ensure proper migration. In addition to data clean-up, I completed a literature review of other institutions' instances of ArchivesSpace to provide insight into possible challenges that could arise, tips about best practices, and answer questions about how ArchivesSpace could be best utilized for the Austin History Center. Additionally, I created educational training materials for future and current staff and volunteers on how to use ArchivesSpace.

 

Professional Experience Project

Austin History Center

with: Afsheen Nomai

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Appraisal and Processing of the Ric Sternberg Collection at the Austin History Center

The scope of my capstone involved appraising, describing, rehousing, and creating metadata for materials from Austin filmmaker Ric Sternberg for the Austin History Center (AHC), a branch of the Austin Public Library that preserves and showcases local history and culture. The collection spans Ric's decades-long career and consists of physical and born-digital audiovisual media, paper records, and artifacts. I created detailed collection and audiovisual media metadata using PBCore and produced a DACS-compliant finding aid for the AHC website. I then encoded an XML/EAD finding aid to be uploaded to Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) for widespread online access.

 

Professional Experience Project

United States of America, Department of State

with:

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Enhancing American Corners Programs in Italy

I am working with library programs affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Specifically, I am working with the American Corner YouLab in Pistoia and the American Corner in Trieste. The goal of my project is to enhance the reading collections of both Corners, as well as create a better understanding of studying in the U.S. Over the course of the semester I will: 1) Create a virtual tour of a small selection of books to be shared on social media channels of both Corners; 2) Create a bibliography of U.S. books by authors of diverse backgrounds and about topics of diversity (especially race and disability) for young readers; 3) Participate in a virtual webchat with Italian students on studying in the U.S.; and 4) Participate in several virtual book reading club meetings.

 

Professional Experience Project

Renzoe Box Inc.

with: René Graham

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Renzoe Match: A Data-driven Beauty Product Matching System

This project aimed at implementing a data-driven method to match consumer skin tone with beauty products such as foundations or concealers. Key technology includes computer vision, regression machine learning model (XGBoost), and Bayesian Optimization. This skin tone matching system extracts consumers' skin tone data from their selfie and processes them to adjust color distortion and analyze skin tone profiles to recommend 3 best matching foundations. Due to the pandemic, consumers have become more reluctant to visit cosmetic stores in person. One's skin tone can be changed due to extensive outdoor activities, aging, or cosmetic treatments. This method is expected to provide a hassle-free and accurate replacement for in-person foundation matching.

 

Professional Experience Project

PGA Tour Superstore

with: Nick DeJohn

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Play the Right Club: Designing a User-Centered Golf Equipment Selection Tool

Finding and getting "fitted" the right equipment can significantly improve a golfer's performance. But because of wide variety of selection and lack of knowledge, active promotions and advertisements by vendors lead consumers to build a preference, or bias based on companies and brands, not based on accurate data and performance. This tool is an alternative method of equipment selection process that maximizes the utility (satisfaction) of the consumer while minimizing the "regret" of choosing a specific shaft over others.

 

Professional Experience Project

Army Software Factory

with: Eric Carreau

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Security Automation Framework for DOD Compliance

I am working with the Army Software Factorys development, operations, and security (DEVSECOPS) team to integrate security automation and compliance for daily operations and cloud infrastructure. As cloud infrastructure and networks become more complex, it becomes increasingly challenging to manage security compliance. My project will create a pipeline utilizing MITREs security automation framework with InSpecs testing and auditing security applications to aggregate all data within a hybrid cloud structure. Real-time risk assessments, as well as compliance posture, will be visualized with a Heimdall dashboard. Decision-makers will be able to assign appropriate remediation actions promptly. Security automation will reduce the need for manual operations that can result in slower detection, leaving systems vulnerable to compliance issues and attacks.

 

Professional Experience Project

School of Information, Dell Medical School

with: Dr. Ying Ding, Justin F. Rousseau

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Investigating disparities in hospitalization among COVID-19 patients in the United States

Minorities and vulnerable communities in the United States have been considerably affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates whether the pandemic had a differential impact on individuals based on demographic characteristics, such as race, gender, education, and income, by studying patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and were hospitalized due to COVID-19. I analyzed the demographic factors of the patients in a large-scale health record database system integrated with a database of publicly available consumer data by conducting descriptive and statistical analyses. Our analysis demonstrated which demographic and socioeconomic factors have more impact on hospitalization of the patients who tested positive for COVID-19. Through the logistic regression analysis, I found that there are some specific types of patients who are more likely to be hospitalized than others who did not have the same characteristics. Beyond the descriptive and statistical analyses, this understanding of the demographic factors of the patients in a commercial electronic health records system can be a foundation for further research on demographic and socioeconomic disparities in access to and use of medical resources and treatments, severity of illness, and complications during a pandemic.

 

Professional Experience Project

Moody College of Communication

with: Dr. S Craig Watkins

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Design of an analytics dashboard for a mental health platform

The mental health platform incorporates psychological research to improve treatment for patients suffering from illnesses. Hence, the minimum viable product consists of a set of features whose efficacy can be determined by monitoring usage patterns. To enable this capability, a workflow will be designed that allows stakeholders to understand current product usage and make informed decisions regarding future enhancements.

 

Professional Experience Project

University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School

with: Imelda Vetter

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Consumer Health Libguide for the Dell Medical School

This project created a Consumer Health Libguide for the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School to serve patients and the community in order to improve health literacy and understanding and advocate for patients' health. As a result, patients and their families are able to discuss with their medical care provider concerns they may have regarding their medical care needs. Topics include addiction (alcohol, drug, smoking cessation), cancer (breast, lung, prostate, skin), diabetes (prediabetes, type 1, type 2, gestational), exercise, family planning (birth control, infertility, pregnancy and delivery), heart disease (coronary artery disease, heart arrhythmia, heart valve disease, heart failure), mental health (anxiety, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, PTSD / CPTSD, and psychotic disorders) and nutrition. Resources are provided in both English and Spanish

 

Professional Experience Project

Logitech Inc.

with: Andrew Barker

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Notification System and Hierarchy Research & Design Suggestions for Hardware ​​Device Management

With the trend of content creation and streaming, and office work with Gen Z, the need to register and manage multiple sets of devices and multi-profiles has been soaring. With this trend, yet, notification components throughout G HUB do not follow best practices and are not constructed in a reusable fashion. This research project aims to validate the structure of the notification system in the gaming device management tool for Logitech Inc. It also defines the user need for the gaming device management and how to use a notification system for the target group through research. In addition, the research result will be followed by low-fidelity wireframe design mock-ups.

 

Professional Experience Project

Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development

with: Lauren Hill

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Improve the Using Experience of Children and Screen Institution's Website to Bridge The Interdisciplinary Research and Real Life

Children and Screens is an interdisciplinary nonprofit organization based in New York, which seeks objective, scientific answers to questions about the cognitive, psychological, physical, and health impacts of digital media on toddlers, children, and adolescents. My work was to summarize current problems on the website, create a design system for the whole website and design the homepage. After continuous work, the sites information architecture and visual style were totally updated, allowing for easy content consumption and interactivity.

 

Thesis/Masters Report

Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Ying Ding, Dr. Lance Hayden

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The Nightingale Project

Revealed by the Wall Street Journal in 2019, the Nightingale Project was designed as an agreement between Google Health and the Ascension Healthcare Family to transfer patient data, without patient permission, from Ascensions 2600 hospitals and clinics to Google for further data wrangling and to inform Googles own and significant healthcare inquiries. First viewed by independent advocates as a privacy nightmare and a further encroachment by Big Tech on individual liberties, it is the contention of this paper that, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, that Nightingale and similar projects may not go far enough in data-sharing, that should include cooperation across international borders. One possible method to ensure that exchange may be the creation of markets for healthcare data.

 

Professional Experience Project

Girl Scouts of Central Texas- Camp Kachina

with: Kaytlyn Worner

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Camp Kachina Nature Center Development

The Nature Center at GSCTX Camp Kachina featured a diverse Texas-oriented collection, but without any clear formatting and only makeshift shelving. The goal of this project was to make this space more usable for groups who visit on the weekend and for staff who may not have a large knowledge of collection materials. Over the course of this semester, I ensured that the collection is clean, safe to handle and labelled properly for easy usage. Additionally, I improved the collection housing and shelving. These changes have already made a difference in the experience for kids and staff!

 

Professional Experience Project

AMBA (Association Members Benefits Advisors)

with: Anita Gage

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Automating the Onboarding Process: Increased Efficiency Through Automation

In an increasingly digital age, eliminating mundane or repetitive tasks greatly increase the efficiency of existing workers, who may then direct their attention elsewhere to more dynamic tasks. For this project, my partnering organization, an insurance company located in Austin, asked me for my assistance in helping to automate their onboarding process. I utilized software such as Power Automate, Microsoft Forms and Power Apps, Sharepoint Lists, and Outlook to automate the process through a series of emails and forms a candidate will then fill out.

 

Professional Experience Project

Dell Medical School

with: Imelda Vetter

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Developing Health Equity Resources at Dell Medical School

The goal of this project with Dell Medical School was to create a research guide on health equity for use by students, faculty, and researchers, as well as to provide recommendations on collection development efforts and the addition of relevant library resources to support the medical education programs newest curriculum core competency. The guide serves as a starting point for those looking to learn more about health equity, explaining root causes of health inequities and how structural and social determinants of health affect access to healthcare. The resources identified help inform clinical practice and pioneer policies to eradicate healthcare disparities.

 

Professional Experience Project

LLILAS Benson Latin American Collection

with: Carla Alvarez

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The Process of Processing: The Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education Records Additions

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is one dedicated to cultivating, preserving, and making accessible the physical materials related to Latinx presence in North/Central/South America. In continuing this mission, I fully processed the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education Records (TACHE) additions. This included arranging the ten to twelve linear feet of records into the appropriate sub-groups, series, sub-series, and files according to the existing hierarchy established by past processing archivists, carrying out standard preservation practice to increase the collections longevity, and adding the collection to the existing TACHE record finding aid and EAD to ensure sufficient user accessibility. Completing this project allows future patrons to explore these records in their entirety for various purposes, including research and teaching.

 

Professional Experience Project

Texas Archeological Research Lab

with: Marybeth Tomka

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Processing Bowie County Archeological Records at TARL

For my project at the Texas Archeological Research Lab (TARL), I assessed the condition and stability of the records from the 1938 41BW3 and 41BW4 WPA excavations in Bowie County, Texas. After rehousing the documents to increase their stability, I created an inventory of records using TARLs collection management guidelines. This work will prepare the documents for later creation of digital proxies of these records, and ultimately, allow researchers greater access to their records.

 

Professional Experience Project

Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)

with: Troy Courville

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Georgia Tech Professional Education Course Portfolio Management Dashboards

Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) creates credentials and courses for online Master degree programs as well non-credit courses requested by outside organizations. Until now, GTPE had no structured intake process for evaluating, prioritizing, and initiating these courses. My capstone project contributed to the development and support of this intake process through data flow diagramming, data wrangling with Python, and data visualization with Tableau. The resulting dashboards allow external requestors to track the progress of their course's development and allow internal GTPE executives to make data-driven intake decisions based on each course's projected business value, resource requirements, and risks.

 

Professional Experience Project

Teacher Retirement System of Texas

with: Robert O'Connor

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Evaluation of Microform Holdings at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas

I worked with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas' Records Management Department to evaluate the current condition of its microforms, and give recommendations for the long-term physical preservation or potential digitization of its holdings. The agency is preparing to move into a new office and is using this as a catalyst to evaluate the physical state of its microforms and storage practices, and also gain intellectual control over its microform holdings. My goal working with the agency was to research best practices for the storage and handling of microforms, explore options for digitization as well as best practices for moving its holdings, give recommendations for microform storage at the new office location, as well as give recommendations for gaining intellectual control over holdings and how to handle the disposition of microforms that have met their retention. This project culminated in a report with recommendations for long-term preservation of the agencys microform holdings, a risk analysis of potential options for the microforms, including digitization and moving the holdings to the new office, and a presentation to executive leadership with the recommendations.

 

Professional Experience Project

Momezon Korean Market

with: Richard Park

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Data Wrangling: Product Inventory Management for Momezon Korean Market

I produced a data pipeline for product inventory management for Momezon Korean Market, a local grocery market I worked at when I was in high school. The manager still uses MS Excel to handle inventory management to this day, so I offered help by creating a workflow that automates the process of transferring his spreadsheets into a MySQL database controlled by phpMyAdmin, an open source database management tool. Through a workflow that involves reading, cleaning, and scripts that query the data, the result will be a more powerful way of managing data for my old boss.

 

Professional Experience Project

UT Austin Mesoamerica Center

with: Astrid Runggaldier

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AAHC Data Migration: Improving Data Management and Access in Museum and Collection Records

The Art and Art History Collection (AAHC) holds over 3,000 objects primarily from the Indigenous Americas (US Southwest, Mesoamerica, and South America). This UT Austin collection is largely invisible because its only accessible through DASe and ARTstor, two image databases that require a UT log-in. With this project, I initiated a data migration from the collections previous state in local spreadsheets to a Collection Management System that allows for the AAHC to be not only managed and organized in a relational database, but also be accessible and discoverable through a public-facing website. Additionally, I ensured data sustainability by creating and documenting workflows for cataloguing and processing.

 

Professional Experience Project

The George and Elvira Cisneros Learning Library

with: Quiana Natividad

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Recataloging and Expanding the Collection of the George and Elvira Cisneros Learning Library

This project involves working with the collection of a private library created by former San Antonio mayor, Henry Cisneros, comprised of books he has acquired over the last few decades. His intention for the library is for it to become a useful organization for the community to use, especially the lower-income students from neighboring schools. In order to accomplish this, I decided to inventory and catalog their collections as well as suggest and implement a professional form of categorization, the Dewey Decimal system. This will be done by using LibraryThing to create a catalog and further expanded using TinyCat Library to allow for lending and circulation services. The second part of this project is creating a Collection Management plan for the library to utilize in future planning and acquisitions.

 

Professional Experience Project

EveryLibrary

with: John Chrastka and Peter Bromberg

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A Path to Funding for Historically Underfunded Public Libraries

I worked with EveryLibrary to build a framework for a grant for a program to train library leaders on power building and political and financial literacy. This program will be specifically geared towards libraries who struggle to receive adequate funding, particularly those in low-income areas and historically BIPOC communities, so that library leaders can confidently lobby for increased funding from both their municipal governments and outside funders. My project allows EveryLibrary to quickly and efficiently apply for a variety of grants to fund the project.

 

Professional Experience Project

Eastern Michigan University

with: Sara Memmott

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News and Source Evaluation: A LibGuide to Assist Students in Identifying Misinformation, Disinformation, and Bias While Conducting Online Research

In the age of rampant "fake news," it is imperative that college students learn how to identify misinformation while conducting research online. For my Capstone project I worked with the Eastern Michigan University Library to develop a new LibGuide dedicated to Misinformation, Disinformation, and Bias. I began this project by assessing the current LibGuides and developing a survey for librarians to fill out. This helped identify areas of the LibGuides that need to be reinforced. I then performed a literature review to see what current and emerging methods in Library Instruction are regarding evaluating news and other online sources. This step of the process also included examining LibGuides on misinformation and news and source evaluation from other academic institutions. The deliverables for this project were: A survey to identify gaps in the institution's current guides on source evaluation, a new LibGuide dedicated to identifying misinformation, and guidelines for evaluating the relevancy and currency of the LibGuide and its resources moving forward.

 

Professional Experience Project

TOP Equipment Distributors

with: Crystal Mateer, Ashley Garcia, and Kim Chapman

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Updating Dealer Agreements and Account Information

I will be performing an update of dealer account information for TOP Equipment Distributors. The company has written agreements with each of our dealers, and those documents require accurate information, as well as regular review and renewal. We also require certain types of documentation we did not ask for in years past and will be requesting these. Dealers will receive an email providing them with a link to our electronic update form. When the dealers new agreements are prepared, we will send them to the owners for electronic signature via DocuSign. We will track our progress using a shared spreadsheet.

 

Professional Experience Project

Alexander Architectural Archives

with: Stephanie Tiedeken, Katie Pierce Meyer

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Designing a workflow for the description of architectural drawings in EAD finding aids at the Alexander Architectural Archives

Architectural drawings are an important material type within many of the collections at the Alexander Architectural Archives (AAA). Historically, AAA practices for including information about architectural drawings in finding aids have utilized multiple different methodologies, including both directly encoding descriptive information in EAD finding aids and through use of spreadsheet attachments. The recent migration of AAAs finding aids to the new Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) 2.0 website has provided an opportunity for re-evaluating these methodologies and establishing a single, standardized workflow for creating access points for AAAs architectural drawings.

 

Professional Experience Project

Dell Medical School Library

with: Imelda Vetter

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Dell Medical School Library Historical Books Collection: Cataloging, Description, and Collection Policy

This project focuses on a collection of approximately 125 historical medical books at the Dell Medical School Library at UT Austin. A small group (about 25 volumes) of these books are recent acquisitions and have not yet been cataloged. The remaining volumes in the collection have been provided MARC catalog records. The first objective of this project will be to enhance intellectual control of the collection. Uncatalogued books will be catalogued, and all books will receive detailed descriptions and condition assessments. The second objective is to provide information and documentation that will serve future library acquisitions. In order to achieve this objective, the project includes the research and writing of a collection policy for the library. The goal of this document is to inform potential donors of the librarys procedures and priorities as they relate to both modern and historical volumes presented for accession.

 

Professional Experience Project

Sentier Strategic Resources

with: Kelly Terry, Eric Nordquist

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Recruitment for UX Research: Process Documentation

Before UX researchers can talk to real users and gain insights that will influence important decision-making, these representative users, or participants, need to be found. Recruitment is an essential step before data collection can begin. This project examines the recruitment process at a UX research and design agency as they work with external vendors. Through internal interviews and assessment of current resource documents, I identified a need to revise the agencys recruitment guide and create a vendors master list. The updated guide will serve as a living document detailing the key steps and considerations learned from working with external vendors on recruitment. In addition, the vendors master list makes it easy to reference past, current, and potential future vendors. These two documents are designed to help streamline the recruitment process and can be used as training materials for new hires.

 

Professional Experience Project

San Diego State University

with: Margaret Henderson

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Addressing Health Misinformation: A LibGuide for San Diego County

The purpose of this project is to contribute significantly to the development of a LibGuide based in San Diego State Universitys repository of LibGuides as part of a project by San Diego Circuit, an organization of San Diego libraries that is currently working to address the health misinformation crisis in San Diego County. I began this project by developing personal criteria for resource contributions, based on the HON (Health on the Net) code of information and other resources. I then used these criteria to contribute information and resources to the LibGuides basic health information sections and other sections, with a focus on addressing COVID-19 information such as vaccinations. The outcome of this project is a health information LibGuide for use across San Diego County.

 

Professional Experience Project

School of Information

with: Dr. Ying Ding

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Improving the User Experience of the COVID-19 Portal

AI health Lab had created the COVID-19 Portal in the 2020 Fall, which is a resource of research papers about COVID-19, bioentities, and related fields. Through the COVID-19 Portal, researchers can quickly query COVID-19 related bioentities, paper authors, and institutions. As the initial version of the webpage was launched, some user experience issues were discovered. In order to improve the user experience, this project is to iterate the design of the COVID-19 Portal. As a UX designer, I created the iterative version of the COVID-19 Portal landing page through user testing, wireframing, prototyping, and other design methods.

 

Professional Experience Project

Q2 Software

with: Rachel Howes, Jacek Gwizdka

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Supporting and Strengthening Impact of UX Research at Q2 Software

Q2 Software has conducted user research for roughly five years and, as a result, the company has amassed hundreds of studies during this time. The discovery of relevant, historic research is difficult within the current repository, SharePoint, which potentially lessens the continued impact of the research. Furthermore, given existing resources and constraints, qualitative analysis of user research data has been variable and, oftentimes, less thorough. Therefore, in Fall 2021, Q2 Software purchased Dovetail, a UX research repository and analysis tool. The purpose of my capstone was to support the development of Dovetail to meet Q2 Softwares needs. Namely, my capstone project worked toward the following goals: (1) Build out historic research conducted at Q2 Software within Dovetail, (2) Create a set of guidelines for creating and navigating projects in Dovetail, and (3) Create a set of guidelines for qualitative analysis in Dovetail.

 

Professional Experience Project

Harry Ransom Center

with: Maggie Gilburg

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Best Supporting Administrator: Developing Management and Curatorial Skills through the Ransom Center Gala and Robert De Niro Exhibition

In the Fall of 2022, the Harry Ransom Center will host its 65th anniversary gala and exhibit the collection of Robert De Niro—focusing on his education and early career—in celebration of its world-renowned film collection and the continued support of actor, producer, and director Robert De Niro. The Ransom Center seeks to ensure the perpetual stewardship of its film collection by raising $3 million to endow the De Niro Family Curator of Film. In support of these goals, I served as Project Managerfilling a staffing gap for the temporary needs of the galain which I provided project planning and management assistance, served as the liaison for the institution-wide initiative, and developed the project plan, timeline, and committee and meeting structures. I also served as Curatorial Assistantco-curating the exhibition and working with the Curator of Film to meet the uncommonly tight exhibition deadlines set by the galaduring which I selected, interpreted, and tracked materials for the exhibition using finding aids, in-house databases, and Aeon archival software, created layouts, and assisted in preservation assessments for exhibition. As a result, I developed invaluable real-world management and curatorial skills while fulfilling the needs of the Harry Ransom Center.

 

Professional Experience Project

School of Information

with: Dr. Ying Ding

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Dashboard for ICU Length of Stay Prediction Algorithm

Accurate predictions of patient length of stay (LOS) for visits to the intensive care unit (ICU) present an opportunity to improve hospital planning and ensure that clinical resources are efficiently managed. The goal of this project is to develop a dashboard that presents the predictions of an existing explainable deep learning algorithm developed by Tianjian Guo, Indranil Bardhan and Dr. Ying Ding in a way that is useful to clinicians and hospital administrators.