Dr. Marchionini awarded Best Paper Award
from JASIST

The award, which carries a $1,500 prize and travel support, was to be presented at the organization’s annual meeting held in October in Long Beach, Calif. The award recognizes the outstanding paper published in the fully refereed official scholarly publication of ASIST. Papers are judged on the significance of the contributions to knowledge, relevance to key issues in information science, validity of results, originality of ideas, methods or applications, and quality of the presentation.

Dr. Marchionini’s paper titled “Co-evolution of User and Organizational Interfaces: A Longitudinal Case Study of WWW Dissemination of National Statistics” presents a case study that describes how user interfaces for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) web site evolved over a five-year period along with the larger organizational interface and how this co-evolution has influenced the institution itself.

Drawing on interviews with BLS staff and transaction logs of BLS web site activity, the study demonstrates that the BLS web site and its user interface has become a significant element in the BLS organizational interface. This change has led to issues and changes in all the dimensions of the organizational interface (its data systems, policies and procedures, corporate culture and public face).

The contributions of this study are both theoretical and practical. It offers a beginning for a theory of co-evolution of interfaces. The framework developed from longitudinal analysis of this case also can lead to improved user interfaces, promote broader access to data resources, and help agencies respond to resulting changes and plan future services.