Rhetorical Topographies of Post-Earthquake L'Aquila: Locality, Activism, and Citizenship Engagement

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2014

MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System): Puget Sound’s Digital Archive

The MARS (Media Asset Retrieval System) Project is the collaborative effort of public broadcasters,libraries and schools in the Puget Sound region to create a digital online resource that provides access to content produced by public broadcasters via the public libraries. Convergence ConsortiumThe Convergence Consortium is a model for community collaboration, including organizations such as public broadcasters, libraries, museums, and schools in the Puget Sound region to assess the needs of their constituents and pool resources to develop solutions to meet those needs. Specifically, the archives of public broadcasters have been identified as significant resources for the local communities and nationally. These resources can be accessed on the broadcasters websites, and through libraries and used by schools, and integrated with text and photographic archives from other partners.MARS’ goalCreate an online resource that provides effective access to the content produced locally by KCTS (Seattle PBS affiliate) and KUOW (Seattle NPR affiliate). The broadcasts will be made searchable using the CPB Metadata Element Set (under development) and controlled vocabularies (to be developed). This will ensure a user friendly search and navigation mechanism and user satisfaction.Furthermore, the resource can search the local public library’s catalog concurrently and provide the user with relevant TV material, radio material, and books on a given subject.The ultimate goal is to produce a model that can be used in cities around the country.The current phase of the project assesses the community’s need, analyzes the current operational systems, and makes recommendations for the design of the resource.Deliverables• Literature review of the issues surrounding the organization, description and representation of media assets• Needs assessment report of internal and external stakeholders• Profile of the systems in the area of managing and organizing media assetsfor public broadcasting nationwideActivities• Analysis of information seeking behavior• Analysis of collaboration within the respective organizations• Analysis of the scope and context of the proposed system• Examining the availability of information resources and exchangeof resources among users

From Scarcity to Overload: Finding “Good Enough” Public Information in Myanmar’s Transition Information Symposium Summary Report

The Myanmar Book Aid Preservation Foundation (MBAPF) and Enlightened Research Myanmar (EMR) held an Information Symposium titled, From Scarcity to Overload: Finding “Good Enough” Public Information in Myanmar’s Transition in Yangon, Myanmar on January 28-29, 2016. The Symposium was co-sponsored by the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS) and the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) of the University’s Information School with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Asia Foundation. The Information Symposium was held as part of a larger project supported by USAID, Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Tableau Foundation implemented by the University of Washington’s JSIS and TASCHA, along with Myanmar partners, MBAPF and EMR. This project, Information Strategies for Societies in Transition, was developed largely because of the staggering challenges Myanmar is facing as it seeks to “catch-up” in the world’s most economically competitive region.