Daqing He wins an “Honorable Mention” at iConference 2013

2/28/2013

The iSchool congratulates Daqing He, Associate Professor, on his “Honorable Mention” Award at the 2013 iConference. Dr. He, and his collaborator Dan Wu from Wuhan University in China, were recognized for their research paper on “A Study on Q & A Services Between Community-based Question Answering and Collaborative Digital Reference in Two Languages.”

This work explores improving library reference services in the Web 2.0 environment, specifically comparing community-based question answering sites with collaborative digital reference services in both English and Chinese. The paper evaluates the answer quality and responsiveness of the question answer sites, the expertise provided by librarians in collaborative digital reference services, and when each type of services is most effective. The underlying research was done with sites and services provided in the US and China, to determine if the languages or native cultures would impact the use of the service.  The authors recommend that lessons learned from online question answering sites can benefit those who provide reference services particularly emulating the quick response time and open nature of the online question answering sites.

Dr. He, who joined the iSchool faculty in 2004, has a thriving research program in information retrieval and interactive retrieval-system design, user-modeling and adaptive Web-search system design and analysis, computational-linguistics, and natural-language processing. He teaches graduate courses in both the Information Science & Technology and Library & Information Science programs including INFSCI 2140 Information Storage and Retrieval, LIS 2670 Digital Libraries, and LIS 2002 Retrieving Information. Dr. He’s recent research projects include “Collaborative Project: User-centric, Adaptive and Collaborative Information Filtering” funded by the National Science Foundation; the “GALE Project: Adaptive, Robust, and Distilled Information Access” funded by DARPA; and the “DiLearn Project: A Digital Library for Learning Digital Library” which was funded by the Provost's Innovation of Teaching Award at Pitt. After earning BS and MS degrees in computer science at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China, Dr. He earned his PhD from the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Before coming to Pitt, he worked as a research fellow at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK, and as a research associate at the University of Maryland College Park.

Dr. He was one of many iSchool faculty and students participating in the 2013 iConference. For more information about other Pitt participants, please visit this page.