College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item A BAROMETER OF SCIENTIFIC CULTURE: THE DEBATED ROLE OF AMERICAN SCIENCE AT THE 1850’S SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION(2023) Buser, Allison; Woods, Colleen; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the initial decade of the Smithsonian Institution’s existence, its first secretary, Joseph Henry, sought to establish an institution for the advancement of science that defied popular understandings of scientific work in the United States. From the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, American science was infused with republican ideology and was widely expected to prioritize practical results that would directly benefit society at large. At the Smithsonian, Henry sought to establish a boundary between professional, theoretical science, conducted and distributed more selectively among experts, and wider public influence and demand for utilitarian scientific work. Examination of discourse in popular publications reveals that Henry’s plan created an ongoing public debate in the 1850s regarding the Smithsonian’s legitimate scientific mission. This included criticism of the Smithsonian publications program’s inaccessibility and lack of utility to the public as well as many alternative proposals for how the institution might be of better scientific use to Americans. Such expectations that Smithsonian research and resources would serve the general American population were also expressed throughout the correspondence of the Smithsonian Meteorology Project—the Institution’s first major scientific research initiative. Although Henry sought to create a boundary between theInstitution’s work and the public, the utilitarian demands of many of the project’s volunteer observers ensured that the practical goals of the public remained intertwined with Henry’s own goals to promote theoretical science in the development of the Smithsonian. The influential work of this extended scientific community was often made possible through the contributions of additional members of households. Close reading of the meteorological project correspondence reveals an extensive, although often officially unacknowledged, contribution from women and other individuals whose labor was often more fixed to the household. While the public volunteers of the project shaped the trajectory of the Smithsonian, the devalued labor of peripheral contributors to the Institution’s large-scale data work set important precedent for professional scientific frameworks at the end of the century. Overall, the relationship between the early Smithsonian and the public in the 1850s demonstrates that the process of establishing borders defining a professional/amateur dichotomy in American science was uneven. The Institution contended with republican expectations of the scientific public and its projects continued to rely upon contributors without formal or elite credentials who in turn demanded accessible and practical research and shaped scientific institutions. Despite Joseph Henry's contribution to the professionalization and specialization of science, the boundaries of science and who could participate in scientific research remained fluid through the mid-nineteenth century.Item EXPLORING EMBODIED MATHEMATICAL COGNITION THROUGH FROM HERE TO THERE!(2023) Katirci, Nihal; Williams-Pierce, Caroline; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation seeks to investigate how digital gestures connect to students’ mathematical understanding when playing From Here to There! (FH2T). This investigation explores the intersection of three fields, game-based learning, embodied cognition, and mathematics education. I used three studies which break down the different aspects of the overall research: Study 1 (The Game Interaction Study) covers the interaction between the game and the researcher; Study 2 (The Quantitative Gesture Study) is based on an analysis of the quantitative data gathered by the developers; and Study 3 (The Student Observations Study) focuses on collecting qualitative data and analyzing it through embodied mathematical cognition and failure and feedback lenses. These three studies illuminate the understanding of digital gestures and mathematical learning.Item DEFINING DIGITAL RAPPORT: THEORIES, MODELS, & FRAMEWORKS(2021) Wood, Rachel; Lazar, Jonathan; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Various factors can impact someone’s efficient and effective use of technology. However, thesetopics are often disconnected and, as a result, may only partially describe the ecosystem of factors that can influence an individual’s experiences with technology. Case studies investigated the intersection of mandatory technology usage and discretionary AT, accessibility, and ease of use features to better understand the factors that can impact user’s effective and efficient use of computer personalization. Barriers, facilitators, and perpetuating factors were identified. The further re-examination of case study data through various lenses led to three new, proposed contributions related to the personalization of user experiences. 1) The Gulf of Attribution theory may potentially describe the vulnerabilities people may encounter when making causal attributions, which can impact their interpretation and understanding of systems. 2) The Integration of Technology Personalization into Existing Practice (ITPEP) model may potentially describe the lifecycle of personalization technology adoption, acceptance, and integration into existing usage. The ITPEP model also suggests how the successful or unsuccessful integration of personalization changes may also impact people’s future attempts to optimize their user experiences. People, who adopted, accepted, and integrated their personalization changes, appeared to experience an increase in self-efficacy and reported an increased desire in making more personalization changes. Conversely, people who rejected such changes, appeared less willing to explore personalization’s potential to improve their user experiences. Case study findings were combined with a multidisciplinary critical review of theories, models, and frameworks to identify additional factors that can influence people’s digital experiences and meaning processes. This led to the development of 3) a novel, conceptual framework for Digital Rapport. The proposed Digital Rapport conceptual may potentially describe the level of meaning alignment between the individual, the system, and their circumstances. The thesis concludes that personalization technologies should consider expanding to also include meaning-alignment in addition to ability alignment to better support people’s intuitive and meaningful interactions with technology.Item Alumni Perspectives on their Membership in an Intergenerational Participatory Design Team(2018) McNally, Brenna; Druin, Allison; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Participatory Design (PD) gives technology users an active role in the design of the technologies they are meant to use. PD methods have been adapted for research with children to facilitate the creation of technologies that better meet children’s desires and expectations. While the benefits HCI practitioners receive from working with children in PD can include developing more child-centric interfaces and finding surprising new innovations, research is less clear on the participants’ perceptions of their experience—such as how they perceive matters that affect them or what personal gains intergenerational PD team participants may receive from their participation. Investigating the retrospective perspectives of adult and child members of intergenerational PD teams may enable researchers to improve or develop practices that are better aligned with participant expectations. Recent work has begun to look into the gains adults perceive from their participation on traditional PD projects, and has begun to observe gains to children during their participation on PD teams. However, the retrospective perspectives of adult and child alumni who were members of intergenerational PD teams have yet to be investigated. To understand how alumni of intergenerational PD teams perceive matters that affected their membership, I conducted anonymous, online surveys and follow-up interviews with three distinct participant groups from an intergenerational PD team: child design partner alumni, parents of child alumni, and adult design partner alumni. Outcomes include new understandings of 1) the perspectives of child design partner alumni with regard to the ethics of their previous participation, 2) the gains child design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation from the perspectives of both child alumni and their parents, and 3) the gains that adult design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation and their perspectives on membership. Throughout these findings participants describe how participation in intergenerational PD impacted their desire and perceived ability to pursue new goals and activities throughout their lives through the development of new skills, competencies, and mindsets. From these findings, I then synthesize ten recommendations toward the goal of making intergenerational PD better support the people who are involved in it.Item Mal-Content(2017) Brooks, Curtis W.; Richardson, William C; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mal-Content is a project culminating in an exhibition including several laser-cut etchings, a large vinyl application to the wall, and a small book of symbols. This document consists of visual documentation and an edited transcript of a self-interview about the genesis, intellectual basis, and critical and material realities of the project. Mal-Content explores the nature of information as it is carried, rather than what it carries, through application of successive processes of technological and manual manipulations.Item DATA SHARING ACROSS RESEARCH AND PUBLIC COMMUNITIES(2016) He, Yurong; Preece, Jennifer; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For several decades, the intensifying trend of researchers to believe that sharing research data is “good” has overshadowed the belief that sharing data is “bad.” However, sharing data is difficult even though an impressive effort has been made to solve data sharing issues within the research community, but relatively little is known about data sharing beyond the research community. This dissertation aims to address this gap by investigating how data are shared effectively across research and public communities. The practices of sharing data with both researchers and non-professionals in two comparative case studies, Encyclopedia of Life and CyberSEES, were examined by triangulating multiple qualitative data sources (i.e., artifacts, documentation, participant observation, and interviews). The two cases represent the creation of biodiversity data, the beginning of the data sharing process in a home repository, and the end of the data sharing process in an aggregator repository. Three research questions are asked in each case: • Who are the data providers? • Who are the data sharing mediators? • What are the data sharing processes? The findings reveal the data sharing contexts and processes across research and public communities. Data sharing contexts are reflected by the cross-level data providers and human mediators rooted in different groups, whereas data sharing processes are reflected by the dynamic and sustainable collaborative efforts made by different levels of human mediators with the support of technology mediators. This dissertation provides theoretical and practical contributions. Its findings refine and develop a new data sharing framework of knowledge infrastructure for different-level data sharing across different communities. Both human and technology infrastructure are made visible in the framework. The findings also provide insight for data sharing practitioners (i.e., data providers, data mediators, data managers, and data contributors) and information system developers and designers to better conduct and support open and sustainable data sharing across research and public communities.Item Flooded with Information from Social Media: Effects of Disaster Information Source and Visuals on Viewers' Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Responses(2016) Fraustino, Julia Daisy; Liu, Brooke F.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While a variety of crisis types loom as real risks for organizations and communities, and the media landscape continues to evolve, research is needed to help explain and predict how people respond to various kinds of crisis and disaster information. For example, despite the rising prevalence of digital and mobile media centered on still and moving visuals, and stark increases in Americans’ use of visual-based platforms for seeking and sharing disaster information, relatively little is known about how the presence or absence of disaster visuals online might prompt or deter resilience-related feelings, thoughts, and/or behaviors. Yet, with such insights, governmental and other organizational entities as well as communities themselves may best help individuals and communities prepare for, cope with, and recover from adverse events. Thus, this work uses the theoretical lens of the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC) coupled with the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) to explore effects of disaster information source and visuals on viewers’ resilience-related responses to an extreme flooding scenario. Results from two experiments are reported. First a preliminary 2 (disaster information source: organization/US National Weather Service vs. news media/USA Today) x 2 (disaster visuals: no visual podcast vs. moving visual video) factorial between-subjects online experiment with a convenience sample of university students probes effects of crisis source and visuals on a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. A second between-subjects online experiment manipulating still and moving visual pace in online videos (no visual vs. still, slow-pace visual vs. still, medium-pace visual vs. still, fast-pace visual vs. moving, slow-pace visual vs. moving, medium-pace visual vs. moving, fast-pace visual) with a convenience sample recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) similarly probes a variety of potentially resilience-related cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. The role of biological sex as a quasi-experimental variable is also investigated in both studies. Various implications for community resilience and recommendations for risk and disaster communicators are explored. Implications for theory building and future research are also examined. Resulting modifications of the SMCC model (i.e., removing “message strategy” and adding the new category of “message content elements” under organizational considerations) are proposed.Item Modeling the Network of Dutch and Flemish Print Production, 1550-1750(2016) Lincoln, Matthew David; Wheelock, Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The production of artistic prints in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands was an inherently social process. Turning out prints at any reasonable scale depended on the fluid coordination between designers, platecutters, and publishers; roles that, by the sixteenth century, were considered distinguished enough to merit distinct credits engraved on the plates themselves: invenit, fecit/sculpsit, and excudit. While any one designer, plate cutter, and publisher could potentially exercise a great deal of influence over the production of a single print, their individual decisions (Whom to select as an engraver? What subjects to create for a print design? What market to sell to?) would have been variously constrained or encouraged by their position in this larger network (Who do they already know? And who, in turn, do their contacts know?) This dissertation addresses the impact of these constraints and affordances through the novel application of computational social network analysis to major databases of surviving prints from this period. This approach is used to evaluate several questions about trends in early modern print production practices that have not been satisfactorily addressed by traditional literature based on case studies alone: Did the social capital demanded by print production result in centralized, or distributed production of prints? When, and to what extent, did printmakers and publishers in the Low countries favor international versus domestic collaborators? And were printmakers under the same pressure as painters to specialize in particular artistic genres? This dissertation ultimately suggests how simple professional incentives endemic to the practice of printmaking may, at large scales, have resulted in quite complex patterns of collaboration and production. The framework of network analysis surfaces the role of certain printmakers who tend to be neglected in aesthetically-focused histories of art. This approach also highlights important issues concerning art historians’ balancing of individual influence versus the impact of longue durée trends. Finally, this dissertation also raises questions about the current limitations and future possibilities of combining computational methods with cultural heritage datasets in the pursuit of historical research.Item Deutsch's CTC Model and its Implications for the Foundations of Quantum Theory(2015) Dunlap, Lucas; Bub, Jeffrey; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an exploration of several issues surrounding David Deutsch’s CTC model first introduced in his 1991 paper “Quantum Mechanics Near Closed Timelike Lines”. Deutsch developed his model to account for the effects of quantum theory, which had been left out of classical discussions of time travel paradoxes. Deutsch’s formulation of his model in terms of quantum computational circuits lends itself to being adopted in the quantum information community. The dissertation argues that the adoption of the D-CTC model entails the existence of Nonlocal Signaling, which is in conflict with a fundamental principle of the quantum information approach. In order to motivate this argument, in Chapter 2 I introduce a distinction between Nonlocal Signaling, and Superluminal Information Transfer. In the latter case, a carrier of information physically traverses the space between the distant communicating parties faster than the speed of light. Exploiting quantum entanglement to signal, however, need not have this feature. I term this Nonlocal Signaling. Chapter 3 is where I present the argument that D-CTCs entail Nonlocal Signaling, and examine the controversy surrounding this and related results. I argue that the resistance to these kinds of predictions in the literature is motivated by a commitment to the principles of quantum information theory, which are inappropriately applied here. Chapters 4 and 5 examine details of Deutsch’s model. Chapter 4 argues that it presupposes a significant metaphysical picture that, when explicitly stated, makes a much less comfortable fit between D-CTCs and quantum information theory. Chapter 5 argues that, because of Deutsch’s commitment to this metaphysical picture, he is committed to the existence of physical situations that are in every way indistinguishable from the paradoxes he attempts to rule out by adopting the model in the first place. In Chapter 6, I make some observations about the relationship between the quantum information-theoretic approach to the interpretation of quantum theory, and the approaches focused primarily on arguing for one or another underlying ontology. Deutsch’s model is situated squarely in the latter camp. It serves as a useful example in pulling apart the implications of the two approaches. In conclusion, I argue that the quantum information-theoretic interpretation of quantum theory, in denying the fundamentality of any particular ontology, in favor of kinematical principles, is in tension with the metaphysical commitments of the Deutsch model. Deutsch’s interpretational stance is among the metaphysically-motivated positions. I argue that this element of the Deutsch model is essential to the solutions it offers to the paradoxes of time travel, and therefore the D-CTC model cannot be adopted without implicitly endorsing Deutsch’s metaphysical commitments. This feature makes the D-CTC model an uncomfortable fit with QIT.Item Pixel: A Tool for Creative Design with Physical Materials and Computation(2015) Gubbels, Michael; Froehlich, Jon E; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Creating information systems that sense and respond to the physical environment is a complex activity, requiring technical skills from disparate areas of practice, such as computer programming and electronic circuitry. Although recent tools have lowered barriers to creating such systems, they tend to be too technical and constraining for creating systems to be a feasible everyday activity. These tools often rely on traditional interaction techniques and draw makers’ attention away from the system being built, thereby limiting makers’ physical movement, removing systems from their use context, and preventing contextualized experimentation with system designs. This thesis explores techniques for designing tools with support for making systems a more feasible everyday activity. I present the novel design and evaluation of such a tool called Pixel designed to let makers use intuitive knowledge derived from experience with the physical world, rather than technical expertise, in creating custom information systems in the course of everyday life.