UBIT is pleased to have Valerie Nesset, PhD as our inaugural Faculty Fellow.
Dr. Valerie Nesset
Dr. Nesset is an Associate Professor in the Department of Library and Information Studies at UB and is the editor of the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science. Dr. Nesset is also one of the founding members and Chair of the Faculty Senate IT Committee.
In August 2017, Dr. Nesset was named Faculty Fellow in recognition of her work to create opportunities for meaningful interactions and new communication channels between faculty and UBIT professional staff.
While she continues her research on the intersection between information-seeking behavior and information literacy, specifically with elementary school students, more recently she has returned to the research she did as part of a research team at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. The team developed a participatory design methodology, Bonded Design, to work with intergenerational teams to design low-tech prototypes of technologies for children.
Adapting the Bonded Design methodology to work within the higher education setting, Dr. Nesset used it as the framework for the Faculty IT Liaison Program, an initiative to bring faculty and IT professionals together in the shared experience of a design team. Dr. Nesset acts as facilitator for design teams who provide innovative ideas for improvements to existing university technologies.
As UBIT Faculty Fellow, Dr. Nesset’s goals and related actions are as follows: