From “teaching tech to grandma” to “crowdsourcing mental health messages,” researchers from UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics have explored a wide range of topics this year. This is evident from 23 of the papers being presented at the 25th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2022), one of the premier venues for research into the design and use of technologies that support collaborative work and life activities. The virtual conference started this week with an impressive showing from UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS).
Daniel Epstein
“UCI often has a strong presence at CSCW, but what’s particularly exciting this year is the breadth and depth of Informatics representation across the program,” says Informatics Professor Daniel Epstein, who co-authored four papers and is presenting a demo at the conference. “ICS undergrads, grad students, postdocs and faculty are all represented in our 23 papers, which span topics like gaming, health, social media, accessibility and work.”
“Hiring decision-makers are choosing people based on shared ideas of how candidates with ‘innovation potential’ communicate,” explains Mazmanian. “However, communication styles are learned and tied to cultural and class background. It is critical that we understand how invisible bias can operate as a gatekeeper for elite jobs in tech.” The paper also offer ideas for evaluators to develop more equitable hiring practices — much needed advice for the 68% of business leaders saying there is a lack of diversity in their tech workforce.
Demo & Poster Presentations In addition to the 23 papers, UCI researchers also presented a demo and a poster. Like many of the papers, the demo and poster spotlight highly collaborative work. The demo is a partnership between Epstein; Fannie Liu and Andrés Monroy-Hernández of Snap Inc.; and informatics graduate students Lika Liu, Xi Lu and Richard Martinez, and Dennis Wang. Their project, Mindful Garden: Supporting Reflection on Biosignals in a Co-Located Augmented Reality Mindfulness Experience, provides a system for reflection on biosignals in a mindfulness experience between two people in a shared augmented reality environment. The Mindful Garden leverages ready-to-use-consumer technologies (Snap Spectacles and a Muse 2 headband) and a novel pipeline for real-time biomarker data streaming.
The poster tackles the issue of privacy when it comes to health information, with Informatics Professor Yunan Chen working with researchers from Brigham Young University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and Bentley University. Their poster, “A Privacy Paradox? Impact of Privacy Concerns on Willingness to Disclose COVID-19 Health Status in the United States,” outlines a survey of 304 U.S. adults regarding attitudes toward sharing two types of COVID-19 health status (diagnosis and exposure) with three different audiences (anyone, frequent contacts and occasional contacts). The survey found that a desire for “control” and for “awareness of data practices” increased people’s willingness to share health information with certain audiences.
The 23 ICS Papers The conference is being held virtually from Nov. 8–22, 2022, and here are links to abstracts for the 23 paper with UCI co-authors:
GeniAuti: Toward Data-Driven Interventions to Challenging Behaviors of Autistic Children through Caregivers’ Tracking by Eunkyung Jo (UCI); Seora Park (Seoul National University); Hyeonseok Bang (Yonsei University); Youngeun Hong (National Center for Mental Health); Yeni Kim (Dongguk International Hospital); Jungwon Choi (National Center for Mental Health); Bung Nyun Kim (Seoul National University Hospital); Daniel A. Epstein (UCI); Hwajung Hong (Seoul National University)
Joint Media Engagement in Families Playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Jesse J Martinez (University of Washington); Travis W Windleharth (University of Washington); Qisheng Li (University of Washington); Arpita Bhattacharya (University of Washington, UCI); Katy E Pearce (University of Washington); Jason Yip (University of Washington); Jin Ha Lee (University of Washington)
Sleep Patterns and Sleep Alignment in Remote Teams during COVID-19 by Thomas Breideband (UCI); Gonzalo J. Martinez (University of Notre Dame); Poorna Talkad Sukumar (University of Notre Dame); Megan Caruso (University of Colorado Boulder); Sidney D’Mello (University of Colorado Boulder); Aaron D. Striegel (University of Notre Dame); Gloria Mark (UCI)
