[Asis-l] School of Communication and Information, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Assistant Professors Chirag Shah and Vivek Singh Receive a Google Faculty Research Award

[BRENDA SHERIDAN]

School of Communication and Information, (SC&I) Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey, Assistant Professors Chirag Shah and Vivek Singh
Receive a Google Faculty Research Award


Assistant Professors *Chirag Shah* and *Vivek Singh* have received a
$62,813 Google Faculty Research Award
<http://research.google.com/research-outreach.html#/research-outreach/faculty-engagement/faculty-research-awards>
for
their research project titled “Predicting Search Behavior Using Physical
and Online Explorations."



The purpose of this research is to examine how human foraging behaviors in
physical environments can be linked to their online exploration
characteristics. Understanding this connection could help information
providers and system designers to better predict people’s search and
exploration strategies, leading to creating support and services not
possible before.



Preliminary research shows there is a connection between the two types of
foraging. However, the connection between physical foraging and information
foraging has never been formally established, according to Shah and Singh.
“We believe the way people interact with information, also called
information behavior, is connected to other aspects of their behavior. Past
research has looked at it in isolation so we are instilling a new way of
thinking about how we study information behavior of people,” Shah stated.



So far, their results have shown that a mobile user’s diversity of location
in the physical world is correlated with the novelty of the resources in
the online world. Using the data collected from lab and field studies, they
have been able to create a preliminary predictive model, which can benefit
any individual who utilizes mobile devices by examining a user’s past
location patterns as a resource to help users formulate their searches
based on personalization and recommendations.



Google, as one of the leading information brokers and data companies, was a
logical place for Shah and Singh to seek funding. Shah and Singh plan to
utilize the funds from Google to conduct more research studies at a larger
scale and for a longer duration. The funds will also be used to support
research participants and a SC&I PhD student who will coordinate the study
under their supervision. Additionally, the funding will enable Shah and
Singh to pursue a promising new line of research that links one’s
geographic explorations (foraging) and other general behaviors to
information behavior in order to create innovative search solutions.



Both Shah and Singh explain that SC&I has been an extraordinary resource
for them, as they have been conducting this research study for a year and a
half. Singh stated, “SC&I gives us access to students who come with diverse
backgrounds and possess the technological knowledge needed to collect data
but also the theoretical knowledge to analyze and write about that data.”
In addition, they said they are fortunate to have excellent lab facilities
at SC&I, including the space and the equipment, that provide them the
support to conduct the kind of experiments they need to do for this
research.

-- 
Brenda Sheridan, EdD
Director of Strategic Communications
Office of the Dean
School of Communication and Information
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

p: 848-932-7078
f:  732-932-6916
c: 856-261-0089

brenda.sheridan at rutgers.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/asis-l/attachments/20160308/97fc8b11/attachment-0001.html>