International Incubator Sessions

ASIS&T will celebrate the diversity of cultural perspectives that we each bring to 82nd Annual Meeting in a new series called International Incubator Sessions. These invited sessions will be facilitated by global thought leaders who will galvanize the ASIS&T community around critical information problems such as sustainability, youth engagement, social media bubbles, global data sharing, ethical AI, and mobilizing ASIS&T chapters. Each session will identify future activities to showcase how Information Science and Technology can be leveraged to address critical 21st century challenges.

Saturday, 19 October 2019

9:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M. (FULL-DAY PRECONFERNCE WORKSHOP)

PRESIDENT-ELECT’S INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 1: TRANSFORMATIONAL ACTIONS USING INFORMATION TO ADVANCE THE UNITED NATIONS’ SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Facilitators: Bharat Mehra (University of Alabama, USA); Kendra Albright (Kent State University, USA); Jia Tina Du (University of South Australia, Australia)

This international incubator will develop and create transformational actions using information to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Small group sessions will develop SDG information action briefs and ten action items for each of the 17 SDGs from an information perspective. Results from the pre-conference will inspire membership to act locally or globally, personally or collectively prior to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting in 2020 which will focus on Information for a Sustainable World: Addressing Society’s Grand/Global Challenges. During the interactive international incubator, real-world actions will be discussed over two sessions to develop a comprehensive picture of the role of information in shaping progressive change in the world. Implications will involve transforming the diversity of professions in an emerging information advocacy role in the remaining decade to achieve SDGs.

This session is a preconference workshop which requires registration. Members: $0 before 8/2 | Non-Members: $50 before 8/2

Sunday, 20 October, 2019

3:30 P.M.-5:00 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATOR SESSION 2, PART I: DATA WITHOUT BORDERS: EXPLORING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS WITH A HATHITRUST RESEARCH CENTER

Facilitators: J. Stephen Downie (HathiTrust Research Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA); David Bainbridge (University of Waikato, New Zealand)

This incubator session will introduce attendees to the HathiTrust Digital Library and data, and the tools and services of the HathiTrust Research Center, with a focus on international engagement. Together we will discuss and brainstorm possibilities and challenges of working with HathiTrust from outside of the US, and explore potential improvements or collaborations that incorporate data from outside of the US and trends in digital scholarship from around the world. HathiTrust is a global partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. HathiTrust Research Center is the research arm of HathiTrust, responsible for growing the research engagement with HathiTrust while adhering to any restrictions of the data in the digital library. We want to acknowledge of the work of Ryan Dubnicek (HathiTrust Research Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA) who assisted with the preparation of this incubator session but is unable to attend the conference.

Monday, 21 October, 2019

9:00 A.M.-10:30 A.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 3: HUMAN CENTERED DATA SCIENCE

Facilitators: Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson (University of Technology Sydney, Australia); Catherine Blake (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA); Ben Hutchinson (Google, USA); Rachael Fraher (NSW Government Data Analytics Centre, Australia)

Concerns that AI-informed technologies may not serve society has prompted both government and social organizers to push on issues such as data asymmetry and the misinterpretation, misuse, and misappropriation of computational models. This new climate of accountably in exemplified by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the penalties incurred by the Marriott Group and British Airways. As data is not beholden to geo-political boundaries, diverse perspectives are critical to identify viable socio-technical solutions. This International Incubator Session will be facilitated by experts in academe, industry, and government to address key challenges in human centered data science.

11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 4: ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF RESEARCH WITH YOUTH ACROSS INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS

Facilitators: Sarah Barriage (University of Kentucky, USA); Rachel M. Magee (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA); Eric Matthews Meyers (University of British Columbia, Canada] Sam Chu (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

This session will bring together researchers working with youth, children, teens, and/or their caregivers (parents, medical professionals, librarians, educators, etc.) who are interested in extending the boundaries of methods for this work. Innovative research approaches often aim to better include these individuals/communities and to widen the possibilities of addressing relevant problems and new research questions. Using an interactive format and thinking across international contexts, we will collaboratively identify factors for successful research with youth as well as open opportunities for future work. Our conversation will build community and broaden understandings of methods for creative scholarship in this area.

2:00 P.M.-3:30 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 5: BREAKING SOCIAL MEDIA BUBBLES FOR INFORMATION GLOBALIZATION: A CROSS CULTURAL AND CROSS LANGUAGE USER CENTERED SENSE MAKING APPROACH

Facilitators: Xiaozhong Liu (Indiana University, USA); Dan Wu (Wuhan University, China); Yuelin Li (Nankai University, China); Daqing He (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA)

Online social media such as Facebook and Twitter are not merely passive conduits of information; they play an active role in its dissemination and curation. Algorithmic curation, i.e. matching information to user characteristics and preferences, can result in the phenomenon of “filter bubble”, i.e. users get trapped in their own personalized bubble where they are exposed only to confirming opinions and information, leading to social and political polarization. At the same time, politics, geography, and language differences are separating user communities into online “information silos”, e.g. Facebook, Weibo and Twitter are blocked in China preventing Chinese social media users from accessing information beyond their culture and language, while most users prefer to access and consume information via their native languages. The objective of this incubator session is to mobilize around how the ASIST community can build sophisticated yet scalable platform that leverage large-scale, crowd-sourced knowledge bases (e.g., Wikipedia) to automatically cross-link concepts and communities across different comparable social media platforms, thus transparently exposing users and scholars to a wide variety of relevant information, breaking through filter bubbles and information silos.

4:00 P.M.-5:30 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 6: MOBILIZING INTERNATIONAL ASIS&T CHAPTERS

Facilitators: Naresh Kumar Agarwal (Simmons University, USA); Md. Anwarul Islam (University of Dhaka, Bangladesh); Ruwan Gamage (University of Colombo, Sri Lanka)

Outside of North America, ASIS&T has a number of international chapters – Taipei, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the newly established chapters of Brazil and South Asia. The facilitators of this session comprise officers of the South Asia chapter, representing different countries, many of whom have also been active in the Asia-Pacific chapter. The facilitators will talk about the number of schools and current state of Library and Information Science (LIS) in their respective countries, how they currently collaborate, and what are the opportunities and barriers. They will discuss the opportunities provided by the new South Asia chapter, and still existing barriers. Participants will be asked to discuss the opportunities and barriers they face in their respective chapters and countries. The facilitators and participants will brainstorm ways for different international chapters (as well the North American chapters) to better collaborate with each other, and to form a synergy, for better mobilization of the international chapters. The outcome will be a set of strategies or events to co-organize during the coming year. The session may also encourage some members from the audience to start their own chapters in represented regions. We want to acknowledge of the work of Bhakti Gala, Kanwal Ameen, Ruwan Gamage and Aminath Riyaz who assisted with the preparation of this incubator session but is unable to attend the conference.

Tuesday, 22 October, 2019

9:00 A.M.-10:30 A.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 7: RESEARCH DATA SHARING ACROSS NATIONAL BORDERS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROMOTING GLOBALLY OPEN DATA

Facilitators: Peter Darch (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA); Renata G. Curty (Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Brazil); Wei Jeng (National Taiwan University, Taiwan)

The importance of sharing research data is increasingly recognized by key stakeholders. Sharing data across national boundaries promises many benefits in particular, including promoting study of global systems (e.g., climate), and improving access to data for researchers from under-resourced institutions. However, many social, political, cultural, legal, and technical factors make data sharing across national boundaries difficult. Factors may include divergent data management policies implemented by national funding agencies, conflicting attitudes towards rights and ownership of datasets, differences in career structures making it difficult to agree on credit for shared datasets, and many others. This interactive session will bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Through small-group and whole-group discussion, we will develop an agenda for identifying and addressing challenges to sharing data across national boundaries. In particular, we will discuss priorities for future research and for practical initiatives. Small groups will be mixed according to participants’ national backgrounds and professional roles to foster new collaborative relationships

11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATOR SESSION 2, PART II: DATA WITHOUT BORDERS: EXPLORING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS WITH A HATHITRUST RESEARCH CENTER

Facilitators: J. Stephen Downie (HathiTrust Research Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA);David Bainbridge (University of Waikato, New Zealand)

2:00 P.M.-3:30 P.M.

INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR SESSION 8: NEXT STEPS SESSION ROUND UP

Facilitators: Catherine Blake (University of Illinois, USA); Cecelia Brown (University of Oklahoma, USA)

Conference Co-chairs, Catherine Blake and Cecelia Brown will moderate as a facilitator from each of the International Incubator Sessions share plans for how to remain engaged with key information problems throughout the year.

Annual Meetings of the Association for Information Science and Technology traditionally attract participants from around the world to present research findings, exchange new knowledge, and envision the future of information science. When the conference ends, often the international conversations also end. To extend our international engagement and increase our global impact beyond the conference, this year we deliberately set aside time during the conference to purposefully engage with our colleagues who harken from different cultural settings. The conference chairs will host this session bringing together the facilitators from the International Incubator Sessions that will be held during the conference to show how Information Science and Technology can be used to address critical 21 Century challenges.