krosalia's blog

For 2008, there are two -correction three!- SI teams that have been accepted into the competition. Both will be traveling to Florence, Italy to present their projects in April!
"http://www.si.umich.edu/about-SI/news-detail.htm?NewsItemID=630"> SI
News - CHI 2008

Will you be the next?!

CIC - Community Information Corps

Summary from CIC website:
The focus on practical engagement and community participation is something that sets the Community Information Corps apart from other student groups at SI. It is our belief that the best way to learn about the community is to get to know it - to get involved. With this in mind, members of the Community Information Corps have developed two focus projects, each providing participants with opportunities to engage community members. In addition to these focus projects, the Community Information Corps continually encourages participants to come up with new project ideas and suggest ways we might get involved. We realize that the possibilities for involvement are endless. But, if you have a project you want to see happen, CiC can make it happen.

This is lesser known but SI has some funding for projects under this banner as well!

Project to Connect North Campus
The powers that be in the UM hierarchy sponsored a competition last semester to come up with an idea (very little boundaries placed on what that idea could be) to create a fun and interesting event or thing (for lack of a better world) to help connect North campus with the rest of the university. (For those that don't know all of engineering and many of the art schools are located to the north of central campus...which is about a 15 minute ride on the shuttle. If you have friends in engineering or art & architecture for example you will rarely run into them on central campus or south campus for that matter).
Anyway, if your idea was chosen for this competition it would have been implemented and you may have helped work on it. Cant remember.

This opportunity was advertised via a mass email to all students.

The digression begins...
...Now it has occurred to me that I should explain this whole north central, south campus thing to you! Ok briefly...

North campus: Duh - north of Central or South campus and consequently its north of the UM Med facilities as well. Its pretty much the upper edge of campus. It houses the Comp Sci, Engineering, and Art schools. SI also has a presence up there...incidentally it is called...are you ready for this...SI North. Very spiffy. This is where the PhD students hang out and if your a Master's student - Thesis Option you'll probably be here too.

Central Campus: Where SI's main HQ is located. This is thee SI Master's student hang out. Be there or be square. Also located on central is the student union (Michigan Union), the B-school (Ross School of Business), the Law school, School of Public Policy, etc and a wealth of other buildings inhabited by undergraduate courses... of which...you will probably never see the inner walls... but I digress...

South Campus: Houses most of the sports facilities. So the Big House (Football...you should know that ;), Yost Arena (Hockey), Crisler Arena (Basketball), I know I'm missing something...anyway. Even further south of this is where the tennis and gymnastics athletes get there "sport" on. But sadly we don't give that area a name... lets call it Super South campus ;) ...again...I digress.

Ok back to projects!

Now these are just the opportunities that I thought of in this one blog session! Imagine how many you'd find if you were actually seeking them out!

I am including this project opportunity since it just popped up in my Inbox yesterday!

M-HEAL - Michigan-Health Engineered for All Lives

M-Heal is a student group dedicated to improving medical care in developing countries. One of their major activities is volunteering every other weekend at World Medical Relief (WMR) in Detroit. WMR is an 8 story warehouse where donated medical equipment and supplies are stored, tested and repaired before being shipped to developing countries all over the world. (These countries are only responsible for covering the cost of shipping)

M-HEAL has requested student help in developing a database for the WMR to help with inventory and allow representatives from the developing countries to view current inventory and make their requests online (currently they must come to the warehouse personally and browse the giant warehouse). Its an open invitation to participate in this initiative.

This announcement was also received via a mass student email.

Posted by krosalia at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2008

Internship!

Hey All,
So first I have utterly failed at adding a blog entry every week so I am sorry. However! Deadlines for Fall 2008 MSI applications are quickly approaching and I hope to add more entries that will be relevant and helpful for you all.

Soooo, I've gotten many questions about how students at SI obtain practical and relevant work experience. My answer there are two main ways...three really...coursework, internships (during the summer and during the semester), and projects on campus.

Today I'll touch on internships...especially because I just got hired as an intern for the UM Libraries' Usability Working Group (UWG). Go me ;)

Here's how it went down... ;)
Friday, I received a mass mailer email from Kelly in our Career Services office detailing the opening of the internship in the UWG.
I was definitely in need of a steady paycheck and getting usability experience was also a huge plus!

Saturday involved critiques to the ol resume (...I had some sad formatting and spelling errors) and formulation of a whole new cover letter. I was on a role and proud of myself for not procrastinating. Yes...that is a fault of mine but I aware of it...and as the GI Joes used to say...knowing is half the battle.

Anyway...Saturday night...submission of the resume and cover letter. Awesome.

Monday, received an email requesting an interview. Yes I am available heeelloooo! Scheduled it for the following day.

Tuesday, interview time. I wasn't too nervous and made sure I got there early.

The interview was about 40 minutes. I interviewed with two people. They asked general questions about my background and then dived into 5 scenario based questions relating to usability design, evaluation of systems etc. I was prepared for these sorts of questions based on my SI501 (Contextual Inquiry) project as well as from taking SI682 (Interface and Interaction Design). Both classes involved a team project working with a client, analyzing an existing issue, scoping requirements and performing usability methods (SI682). I'll talk more about these projects in a later blog.

I was nervous however because I did not have specific experience with a broad range of usability methods (such as card sorting or heuristic evaluations) so when they asked for examples of usability methodologies used previously I could only name a few. If I didn't get the job I figured that would be one of the reasons.

Wednesday, I got the internship!! Yeah! Apparently they didn't expect me to know everything upfront!

Basically my role as an intern with the library's Usability Working Group is to:
- Evaluate current and planned web resources, such as a new tagging application, MBooks, Search Tools (article finder), SFX (full-text linking service), Mirlyn (Library catalog), Ask Us (email & chat reference) and the University Library website

- Plan and conduct usability testing (formal & informal user testing, observation, comparative analysis, expert evaluations, survey, heuristic evaluation, personas and scenarios, use statistics, etc)

- User experience research

I'll continue to provide updates on my experience as the semester goes on.

Until then...

Posted by krosalia at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)