CAREER: Designing An Information Savvy Society: Assessable Participatory Information Environments

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This project addresses the design of participatory systems to enable assessment of information quality and to encourage contributions. It does so by designing system interfaces that allow people to better see into processes of information production to better assess their products and, by extension, to identify valued forms of contribution. The project includes (1) construction of models of how people with different kinds and levels of expertise in information production understand and assess the quality of information in participatory environments and how these understandings intersect with patterns of participation; (2) creating experimental interfaces that support information assessment; (3) studying these interfaces in iterative deployments to develop a design framework and guidelines for assessable participatory information environments; and (4) validating this design framework through summative evaluation in a novel context. The project also includes the design and implementation of participatory information literacy education activities for students that encourage participation in public information production.The results of this research will advance scientific understanding of information assessment habits among users of participatory media. The development of novel interfaces for well-known and familiar systems will provide design framework and guidelines that are accessible and extensible from both a scholarly and technical perspective. The design framework and guidelines that result from this project will improve design and educational practice in an area of critical national importance, namely information literacy. Improving information literacy skills is important, as they affect citizens' ability to function in a technologically rich, free and democratic society and to make informed decisions about scientific, medical, educational and other issues.