Doctoral students research symposium
Oct. 31, 2009 - SILS doctoral students planned and participated in the second annual Doctoral Students Association (DSA) Research Symposium on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009.
Students presented short talks about their diverse research projects, which are in various stages, and hosted a poster session during the day-long event. Presenters and their topics included:
Leo Cao
Serious Play: An investigation of the emerging practice of games in learning environments
Felix Portnoy
The potential effect of user interface design on habituation and banner blindness: A preliminary discussion
Using a polar star display to facilitate comprehension of multivariable information among novice healthcare users
Sarah Ramdeen
Library catalog interface study
Chirag Shah
Awareness in collaborative information seeking
Yaxiao Song
What are the most eye-catching and ear-catching features in video? Implications for video summarization
Fred Stutzman
Surviving Facebook: Predictors of social network site use
The presentations included a 15-minute talk and five minute question and answer period.
The poster session was well-attended and featured the following:
Amber Cushing
Understanding interest to inform recruitment: What characteristics of digital curation interest
computer science students?
Xiangyu Fan
Personalized retrieval of medical news based on user interests
Xi Niu
Transaction log analysis of a facet based library catalog
Sarah Ramdeen
Qualitative study of data preservation practices at State Geological Surveys
Cassidy Sugimoto
Application of literature-enhanced concept mapping to curriculum design: A case study in the domain of Scholarly Communication
The DSA also sponsored a luncheon for fellow students, faculty and staff in the Public Domain (lobby) of Manning Hall that provided time to network and enjoy one another's company in a social setting.

The event was organized by the DSA planning committee which was comprised of:
- Rachael Clemens
- Leo Cao
- Julia Kampov-Polevoi
- Sarah Ramdeen
- Derek Rodriguez
- Laura Sheble
The DSA is the official organization for SILS Ph.D. students. All doctoral students are automatically members of the DSA. The organization works towards improving communication among doctoral students, masters students and faculty by participating in SILS governance and sending representatives to most SILS committees. They elect officers annually in November and hold monthly meetings. For further information please see the DSA Web site.