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Showing posts from June, 2019

2019-06-20: Web Archiving and Digital Libraries Workshop 2019 Trip Report

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A subset of JCDL 2019  attendees assembled together on June 6, 2019, at the Illini Union for the Web Archiving and Digital Libraries workshop (WADL 2019) . Like previous years, this year's workshop too was organized by Dr. Martin Klein , Dr. Zhiwu Xie , and Dr. Edward A. Fox . Martin inaugurated the session by welcoming everyone and introducing the schedule for the day. He observed that WADL 2019 had an equal representation from both males and females, which was not only the case with attendees, but also presenters. Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group (WS-DL) from the Old Dominion University  was represented there by Dr. Michele C. Weigle , Alexander C. Nwala , and Sawood Alam (me) with two accepted talks. Hide/Show All Tweets Below #WADL2019 begins with @mart1nkle1n introducing the workshop and the schedule for the day (and posing for the camera). pic.twitter.com/LNqFmY1Cp2 — Sawood Alam (@ibnesayeed) June 6, 2019 Cathy Marshall  from the Texas

2019-06-19: Use of Cognitive Memory to Improve the Accessibility of Digital Collections

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Eye Tracking Scenario (source -  https://imotions.com/blog/eye-tracking-work/ ) Since I joined ODU, I have been working with eye tracking data recorded when completing a Working Memory Capacity ( WMC ) measure to predict a diagnosis of  Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ) . People with ADHD could be restless and hyperactive with distinct behavioral symptoms such as difficulty in paying attention and controlling impulsive behaviors. WM is a cognitive system, which makes it possible for human  to hold and manipulate information simultaneously. Greater WMC means greater ability to use attention to avoid distraction. Theoretically, adults with ADHD have reduced working memory when compared with their peers, demonstrating significant differences in WMC. Among many tasks ( O-Span , R-Span ,  N-Back ) to measure the WMC, the reading span task ( R-Span ) is used as a valid measure of working memory yielding a WMC score. In R-Span, participants are asked to read a sentence

2019-06-18: It is time to go back home!

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On May 11, 2019 I officially obtained my PhD in Computer Science from Old Dominion University. My graduate studies journey started when I received a full scholarship from the University of Hail in Saudi Arabia, where I worked there two years as a teacher assistant. I came to the USA and specifically to San Francisco in 2010 with my husband and my three-months old daughter. I attended Kaplan Institute where I took English classes and a GRE course for almost a year. After that I got accepted in ODU as a CS Masters student in 2011. In July 2013 I welcomed my second baby girl Jenna, and in August I graduated from the Master program and joined the PhD program to work with the wsdl (Web Science and Digital Libraries) research group there. On April 4, 2019, I defended my dissertation research, “ Expanding the usage of web archives by recommending archived webpages using only the URI ”  ( slides , video ) . The goal of my work was to build a model for selecting and ranking poss

2019-06-09: How to Become a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor - Part I (publications, research, teaching and service)

This is a three-part write-up, in this first post, I’ll talk about what you need to do to prepare yourself in the next 2 to 3 years for a tenure-track assistant professor job. I’ll do another blog post about how to find tenure-track positions, how to shortlist your target schools, CV, teaching statement, research statement and cover letters. I’ll do another blog post later about the interview prep (skype/phone, onsite), what to do and not to do during your on-campus interview, offer negotiations, two-body problem etc. If you are considering a tenure-track job, start as early as possible (2-3 years before your intended job search) working on your teaching, research topics and publications. For some of these, you need careful planning like accumulating enough publications, you need to start publishing as early in your doctoral research and as often in each year. If possible do real teaching, not just a teaching assistantship. Let me get into each of these and explain how I went about

2019-06-05: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) 2019 Trip Report

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Alma Mater , a bronze statue at the University of Illinois by sculptor Lorado Taft . Photo by Illinois Library , used under CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from original It's June, so this means it's time for the 19th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries Libraries (JCDL 2019). This year's JCDL was held at the University of Illinois , in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) between June 2 - 6. Similar to  last year's conference , we (members of WSDL ) attended paper sessions, workshops (Web Archiving and Digital Libraries) , tutorials, and panels, in which researchers from multiple disciplines presented the findings or progress of their respective research efforts. Unlike previous years , we did not feature any students or faculty in this year's JCDL doctoral consortium. We regret this and hope to resume next year. Proud to have @WebSciDL at #JCDL2019 : three profs, 2 students, and 1 alum! Excellent conf -- thanks to @profdownie and all who helped make it happen.