Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper

Created in memory of Lee Dirks, long-time friend and supporter of the iConference, the Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper recognizes the most exceptional completed research paper presented at the iConference each year.

Papers are judged by the papers chairs, in consultation with the conference and program chairs. The winning author or authors receive a cash prize totaling $5,000.

Microsoft Research previously provided a grant to fund the Lee Dirks Award from 2013 through 2018, and the iSchools organization is grateful for this support. In 2019, Emerald Publishing assumed the sponsorship role, and the award is now the Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper, Sponsored by Emerald Publishing. We thank Emerald for continuing the legacy of this award.

2018 Winning Paper

Title: Understanding Interactions Between Municipal Police Departments and the Public on Twitter
Authors: Yun Huang, Qunfang Wu, Syracuse University (USA)

2018 Runners Up, in alphabetical order

Title: Giveme5W: Main Event Retrieval from News Articles by Extraction of the Five Journalistic W Questions
Authors: Felix Hamborg, Sören Lachnit, Moritz Schubotz, Thomas Hepp, Bela Gipp,
University of Konstanz (Germany)

Title: How to Assess Cloud Service Contracts? A Checklist for Trustworthy Records in the Cloud
Authors: Marie Demoulin, Universite de Montreal (Canada); Jessica Bushey, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Germany); Robert McLelland, no affiliation (Canada)

Title: Privacy Attitudes and Data Valuation Among Fitness Tracker Users
Authors: Jessica Vitak, Yuting Liao, Priya Kumar, University of Maryland (USA); Michael Zimmer, Katie C. Kritikos, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (USA)

Title: Reckoning With: Information Use and Engaging With Strategic Decisions in High Tech Work
Author: Christine T. Wolf, University of California, Irvine, IBM Research (USA)

2017 Winning Paper
Title: An In-Depth Analysis of Tags and Controlled Metadata for Book Search
Authors: Toine Bogers, Aalborg University Copenhagen; Vivien Petras, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
This paper will be made available in our official proceedings.

2017 Runners Up, in alphabetical order
Title: Let’s Workout! Exploring Social Exercise in an Online Fitness Community
Authors: Li Zeng, University of Washington; Zack W. Almquist, University of Minnesota; Emma S. Spiro, University of Washington

Title: Location Matters: Geospatial Policy Analytics over Time For Household Hazardous Waste Collection in California
Authors: Kustini Lim-Wavde, Robert J. Kauffman, Tin Seong Kam, Singapore Management University; Gregory S. Dawson, Arizona State University

Title: Re-intermediation in the Fashion Industry: A Qualitative Study on Brokers in the Dongdae-mun Fashion District
Authors: Min-Joon Kim, Nuri Na, Joong-Seek Lee, Seoul National University

Title: Writing to Persuade: Analysis and Detection of Persuasive Discourse
Authors: Taraneh Khazaei, University of Western Ontario; Lu Xiao, Syracuse University; Robert Mercer, University of Western Ontario

2016 Winning Paper
Title: “The Work of Reuse: Birth Certificate Data and Healthcare Accountability Measurements”
Authors: Kathleen H. Pine, Chris Wolf, Melissa Mazmanian, University of California, Irvine
Click here to access this paper in our official proceedings.

2016 Runners Up, in alphabetical order
Title: (In)visible Cities: An Exploration of Social Identity, Anonymity and Location-Based Filtering on Yik Yak
Authors: Matthew Heston, Jeremy Birnholtz, Northwestern University

Title: iSchools, Legitimacy, and the Contribution of Archival Studies to the iSchool Movement
Author: Gregory Leazer, University of California, Los Angeles

Title: Noisy Candidates and Informative Politicians: Analyzing Changes in Tweet Behavior using Tweet Quality Assessment Framework
Authors: Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Jeff Hemsley, Bryan Semaan, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Syracuse University

Title: Synopsizing “Literature Review” for Scientific Publications
Authors: Lin Zhang, Dalian Maritime University; Xiaozhong Liu, Indiana University Bloomington

2015 Winning Paper
Title: ” ‘She said yes’ – Liminality and Engagement Announcements on Twitter.”
Authors: Munmun De Choudhury, Georgia Tech; Michael Massimi, Microsoft Research.
Click here to access this paper in our official proceedings.

2015 Runners Up, in alphabetical order:
Title: Designing a Mobile Crowdsourcing System for Campus Safety
Authors: Elliot Tan, Princeton University; Huichuan Xia, Cheng Ji, Ritu Virendra Joshi and Yun Huang, Syracuse University

Title: Motherhood and Social Networking Sites: How do sociocultural contexts and technological factors affect Korean mothers’ KakaoStory use?
Authors: Jinyoung Kim, Myeong Lee, and Chiyoung Oh, University of Maryland

Title: Online Media Forums as Separate Social Lives: A Qualitative Study of Disclosure Within and Beyond Reddit
Authors: Martin Shelton, Katherine Lo, and Bonnie Nardi, University of California, Irvine

Title: Use and Adoption Challenges of Wearable Activity Trackers
Authors: Patrick C. Shih, Kyungsik Han, Erika Shehan Poole, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M. Carroll, The Pennsylvania State University

2014 Winning Paper: Developing Design Interventions for Cyberbullying: A Narrative-Based Participatory Approach?

Authors: Leanne Bowler, University of Pittsburgh; Eleanor Mattern, University of Pittsburgh; Cory Knobel, University of California, Irvine

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2013 Winning Paper: Cooperative Visualization: A Design Case?

Author: Nathan Prestopnik, Syracuse University

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