The School of Information (iSchool) is celebrating the accomplishments of iSchool alumni Dr. Wonchan Choi and Dr. Hyerin Bak, iSchool professor Dr. Besiki Stvilia, and their collaborator from the University of Texas, Dr. Yang Zhang, for receiving the 2024 SIG AI Best Artificial Intelligence Published Paper Award.
The paper will be honored at this year’s Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) annual meeting. The ASIS&T is an organization that aims to improve access to information through many aspects such as research, technology, and practice. The theme of the 2024 conference focused on how physical and virtual information research help form interdependent relationships between people, information objects, and technologies.
The paper College students’ credibility assessments of GenAI-generated information for academic tasks: An interview study examined the intersection between AI and Library and Information Science by researching how college students utilize AI tools such as ChatGPT for writing, programming, and learning tasks. The study found that students use GenAI in various ways, such as to improving writing, enhance learning by clarifying complex ideas, and much more.
“Receiving this award is a great encouragement for me and for our team. The paper emerged from a larger project that began a few years ago, and this recognition affirms the value and impact of our work,” said Dr.Choi. Dr. Stvilia and Dr.Choi both note how meaningful the award was, and how they will use the accomplishment as a driving factor in pursuing research in this field. “It honors a collaborative, multi-institution effort grounded in information behavior theory and rigorous qualitative methods,” said Dr.Stvilia.
This collaborative research was conducted by faculty across multiple universities, with several lead researchers sharing a commitment to highlighting the skills they gained at FSU in achieving their goals. Dr.Choi is now an Associate Professor at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) and Dr.Bak is Teaching Faculty II at UWM. Lead researchers Choi and Bak both credit the foundational research skills they developed at FSU’s iSchool as a baseline for conducting the research.
“FSU’s iSchool PhD program emphasizes a strong theoretical foundation for empirical research. That emphasis shaped the study design,” said Dr.Stvilia. Dr.Choi also adds that his PhD dissertation focused on information credibility, which was a core conceptual model that was used in the paper. In addition, Dr.Stvilia was his dissertation advisor and is still a valued collaborator and mentor today.
Dr.Choi stated, “The training I received at FSU has had a lasting influence on how I approach research, both conceptually and methodologically. I’d also like to highlight the tremendous support the iSchool and the university provided through research assistantships and conference travel funding, which offered rich experiences beyond the classroom and opportunities to connect with scholars from across the nation and around the world.”
As for the future, Choi and Stvilia hope to encourage others to view AI in the multiple ways it impacts society. “Let real use guide your questions and keep the work grounded in theory. Technologies change. Core problems in information science often persist,” said Stvilia.
“I study AI not only as a researcher but also as a user, educator, and parent of two young children. I often reflect on what these technologies mean for their generation and for society more broadly,” added Dr.Choi.