Technology and Innovation

Workshop

Design for Diversity: Towards More Inclusive Information Systems Design

Workshop Organizer(s)

• 

  Amanda Rust, MSLIS

  Assistant Director, Digital Scholarship Group
  Northeastern University Libraries

Workshop Presenter(s)

• JF

  Julia Flanders, PhD

  Professor of the Practice (English Department) and Director, Digital Scholarship Group (Northeastern University Libraries)
  Northeastern University Libraries
• DA

  Desiree Alaniz, MLS

  Research Assistant, Design for Diversity
  Northeastern University

This 75-minute workshop will ask attendees to give constructive review and develop possible additions to the teaching and learning toolkit created by the Design for Diversity Project and hosted by the Digital Library Federation. This toolkit offers educators and learners a broad-based set of materials—including case studies, readings, assignment prompts, and annotated resources—that explore the challenges of building diversity and social justice into information systems at the deepest levels. The toolkit will help educate the next generation of systems creators and users through its use in both formal and informal educational environments. It also seeks to empower the current users of cultural heritage information systems—such as cataloging vocabularies, digital collections systems, data sharing standards, and online exhibit builders—to advocate for more inclusive practices in the design and use of those systems. After a brief initial orientation on the toolkit and the process of its development, participants will discuss educational scenarios for use of the toolkit, important projects and previous work that might be missing from the toolkit, and additional case studies from their own experiences with technical and information systems. Participants will workshop and improve the toolkit by considering its potential use in their own work and how that potential could be more effectively realized, and by discussing how it can more fully represent the most pressing issues encountered in their experiences with cultural heritage information systems. Participants will leave with a greater understanding plus concrete examples of how our basic knowledge organization practices can be harmful and exclusionary, and will be able to better advocate for change in their own work with systems vendors and designers.

 

Learning Objectives:

• Describe recent projects (both models of good practice and processes to avoid) that address inclusive technological design
• Better analyze vendor systems to determine if those systems allow the necessary culturally-sensitive flexibility and advocate for better features with vendors
• Describe, for use in further advocacy, the most pressing issues in with cultural heritage information systems, as determined through group discussion during the workshop