Community Informatics Multimedia Archive

Annie Abbott, Director of Advanced Spanish Language; Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese
Project Title: Reaching More Latina/os: Using Social Media and Spanish Service- Learning to Expand Services to Local and Rural Non-Profits

Illinois' Latino population is growing in non-urban areas, yet linguistic and cultural barriers prevent many social service agencies from serving Spanish-speakers' needs. Therefore, we propose to use social media to expand our Spanish service learning program.

• Increase the number of UIUC students doing Spanish service learning.
• Partner with organizations in non-urban areas or with occassional Spanish-language needs.
• Offer just-in-time and sustainable Spanish-language support.
• Build a national model of service in non-urban Latino communities.

May Berenbaum, Professor, Department of Entomology; David Forsyth, Professor, Department of Computer Science; George Reese, Director, MSTE, College of Education
Project Title: BeeSpotter in the Classroom and Community

This project provides a mechanism to apply cyberinfrastructure to teaching and learning biology.  BeeSpotter is a citizen-science, Internet-based bee monitoring project started in 2007 as a way to systematically address the documentation of pollinator status. The current phase will include more bee families in Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin in partnership with local schools, UI extension, Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, and the St. Louis Zoo. To scale up regionally, the project will develop image-recognition software to automate bee identification.

Ian Brooks, Research Scientist, National Center of Supercomputing Applications
Project Title: Culture-Sensitive Interface Design for an Endemic Disease Information System

This project will examine the impact of graphical user interfaces on the ease of use and understanding of an advanced information system for the control of endemic disease. Conducted in collaboration with CII and partners on the island of São Tomé, the study also will inform related projects, including the production of an information system to help control malaria in Kenya.

Ruth Nicole Brown, Assistant Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies and Educational Policy Studies
Project Title: When I Look At You: Portraits and Performances of Black Girlhood in Everyday Life

How does power and powerlessness shape the experiences of black girls? By working in educational settings to critique representations of black girlhood and creating new ways of seeing black girls through multi-media theatrical performances based on participants’ lived experiences, this project continues the compelling collaborations that have been nurtured over the past several years. The funding will be used to enhance the use of multi-media technologies in theatrical performances, the instruction of critical media literacy skills, and the production of digital media art (photography) and communicative forums (website) in Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT).

Lynne M. Dearborn, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Project Title: Community Housing Needs Assessment for Metro East St. Louis

This project will employ a service-learning model in research-based courses in architecture to bring together various types of community and regional housing data to create a web-based tool that will make these data easily accessible and useful for housing advocates and service providers in the Metro East St. Louis area. These courses and this research will be conducted through the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP). By working with ESLARP’s community housing partners and facilitating access to current data and analyses, Professor Dearborn and her students will collaborate with partners in East St. Louis to address pressing questions about conditions of housing and homelessness in the area.

Rebecca J. Ginsburg, assistant professor, Landscape Architecture
Project Title: A Safe Space for Learning: Creating a Higher Education Community at a Medium-High Security Illinois Prison

The Education Justice Project of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign operates a Resource Room at a local state men's prison.  The room is a multipurpose center that includes a library, computer lab, study hall, and tutoring center.  The seed funds will be used to"bolster the social and intellectual benefits that are delivered to EJP students through the Resource Room."

Laura Lawson, Director of East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP); Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
Project Title: Participatory Design to Revitalize Public Space in São Tomé, West Africa

Funding will support curriculum development for an interdisciplinary, international community-engaged design studio. Residents in São Tomé and Principe will help design, planning and engineering students to redesign Independence Plaza and its adjacent seawall and street. The project will involve historical research as well.

Deana McDonagh, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Design; Gender and Women’s Studies; Beckman Institute; Susann Heft Sears, Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services, Applied Health Sciences; M. Lydia Khuri, Program Coordinator, Housing Division
Project Title: Disability + Relevant Design—Social Inclusion Component

The “Disability + Relevant Design” course will be revised to engage a wider student population beyond design majors. The assignments for the course will focus on the creation of technologies that will increase community-based leisure participation for people with disabilities. Field trips will highlight challenges that people with disabilities face in daily experience.

Stephen J. Notaro, Lecturer, Kinesiology & Community Health
Project Title: GIS Analysis of Patient Origin and Diagnosis at a Free Health Clinic

Geographic Information System (GIS) software will help map the addresses of approximately 4000 clients and their diagnosed health conditions from the Champaign County Christian Health Center (CCCHC), a free health center in Champaign, Illinois. This research will provide insights and assist decision-making through understanding patient origin, clusters of conditions, patient barriers to care, and service to rural and metropolitan residents. This analysis will provide the researchers and the CCCHC information on how to provide more effective health services to the uninsured in a clinic setting and reduce the overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms.

Lissette M. Piedra, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
Project Title: Puentes y Estrellas del Mar: Using Community Informatics to Build Enduring Service Infrastructures in New Growth Communities

This project envisions a community-organizing model for service providers in new growth immigrant communities throughout Illinois and the nation. The Latino Partnership of Champaign County (LPCC) and the University of Illinois (UI) will team up to build a Web site for community-specific information that will serve as both a repository of knowledge and an instrument for community building and problem-solving at the local level. In addition, a new service learning component within an existing social work course--cross-listed with Latino/Latina Studies (LLS) and the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (GSLIS)--will be created to benefit UI students and the local Latino community.