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Doctoral Research and Education for Informaticians at IST@PennState

John Yen, Mary Beth Rosson, and Henry C. FoleyCollege of Information Sciences and Technology

The Pennsylvania State University

NSF Workshop on The Future of iSchool Doctoral Education May 29, 2009

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Mission

• Opened in 1999, the College of IST is the newest college at Penn State.

• It was a response to the rapidly-growing need for innovation and leadership in the information technology field.

• Our mission is to change the world with inspired solutions, humanized technologies, and informed people.

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The Tree of Doctoral Program

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Root: Core Requirements

• A foundation course• One of two courses on Information Technology

• One of two courses on HCI• One of two courses on Social/Enterprise Informatics

• Graduate Colloquium

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Branches: Tracks

• Provide a flexible curriculum with an emphasis

• Guide each student’s planning of his/her doctoral study

• Help students to articulate concentration areas to external communities

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Five Tracks

• Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Science

• Computational Informatics• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

• Social & Enterprise Informatics• Security Informatics

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An Example: HCI Track

• This track seeks to produce researchers who can integrate, apply, and develop social-cognitive theory within a systematic design framework for creating and evaluating interactive systems.

• It fosters collaboration between students who have background and interests in the social and computer sciences.

• Example research projects include wireless community networks; collaborative activity awareness; multi-scale visualization.

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Coursework in the HCI Track

Three selections from IST courses covering HCI topics– Computer-Supported Cooperative Work; Development Tools and Visualizations for HCI; IST 541: Qualitative Research in Information Sciences and Technology; Colloquium on HCI; Medical Informatics; Simulating Human Behaviors

Four additional selections from complementary areas in IST or other colleges– Engineering of Cognitive Work (IE); Introduction to Data Analysis in Communications (Comm; Psychological Aspects of Communication Technology (Comm); Media Effects (Comm); Seminar in Cognitive Psychology

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Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Track

• This track trains students in use of AI and computational cognitive models to improve the understanding about human cognition.

• Example research projects include computer analysis of van Gogh brushstrokes to detect authenticity; cognitive models of caffeine’s impact on learning and performance.

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Security Informatics Track

• This track aims to improve the cyber security of individuals, enterprises, and cyber space through innovative solutions for detecting cyber attacks, enhancing privacy, and mitigating risks.

• Example projects include self-healing sofware systems; comparison of privacy-assurance methods.

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Computational Informatics Track

• This track aims to produce informaticians who can create innovative algorithms and cyberinfrastructure for storing, accessing, processing, interpreting, mining, and synthesizing large-scale information from data, texts, images, video, and social networks.

• Example research projects include next generation of CiteSeer, building novel cyberinfrastructure for chemists, and text mining.

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Social/Enterprise Informatics Track

• This track’s focus is improved understanding of the social and organizational context of technological actions, as well as the co-evolution of technologies, enterprises, organizations, and society.

• Example research projects include understanding and improving knowledge management; modeling coordination behaviors of NGO’s for disaster relief.

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Cross-Track Research Theme:Extreme Events Systems Science

• This research area aims to develop a new kind of science to better detect, prevent, and mitigate extreme events; by synthesizing real-time data, text, and images for better response.

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Cross-cutting Research ThemesAI and

Cognitive Science

Computa-tional

Informatics

HCI Social and

Enterprise

Informatics

Security Informatic

s

Extreme Events System Science

Heuristics

Entity Extraction

Multi-scale

Visualiz-ation

Crowd Behaviors

CyberSituation Awareness

Relational

Networks

Network Taxonomy

Community Detection

Virtual communit

y

Social Networks

Trust in Networks

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The Faculty Research Context

• Total number of PhD students: 90– Most PhD students supported by a combination of RA and TA throughout their program

• Faculty pursue research grants to support their own and other PhD students– Annual research funding: +$7 million

• Working to build diverse research partnerships – With other faculty and colleges across Penn State

– With other i-Schools – With community, corporate, government, and NGO partners

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Other Research Training

• Brown bag lunches (research centers)

• Research Seminars – Ex: Social Network and Network Science

• Interdisciplinary course projects– Bring students with different background together

– Students with different advisors learn from each other, collaborate

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Graduate Symposium

• Organized and hosted by PhD students– Experience creating vision, planning, scheduling, handling logistics, etc.

– Faculty advisor, support staff, Industry Research Office

• Invited speakers from 2008/2009 symposium– Information Search (Google); Creativity and IT (NSF); Social Network (LinkedIn); Microblogging (Twitter); Information Vis. (IBM); Energy & IT (ExxonMobil)

• Students and faculty submit research papers– Program committee reviews, selects, schedules, awards best papers, etc.

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Summary

• Evolved from I-T-P as foundation to Tracks for concentration and articulation.

• Research areas contribute to the mission of “change the world with inspired solutions, humanized technologies, and informed people”

• Cross-cutting research themes integrate research in different tracks to create values

• Faculty pursue research grants to support PhD students

• Enrich the experience of doctoral students through a range of research training opportunities.