BSOS Students Excel in FIA-Deutsch Foundation Seed Grant Competition

The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences congratulates undergraduate student Brandon Perlman and graduate student Christine Herlihy, who each competed on winning teams in the third annual Future of Information Alliance (FIA)-Deutsch Foundation Seed Grant Competition.

Perlman is among the five students on an interdisciplinary team that will be working on a project titled “Through Venetian Eyes”; Herlihy is one of the five students who will be working on a project titled,  “Flip the Museum: A Platform to Extend the Audience Engagement Life Cycle Through Gamification of Content.” Theirs were among the four interdisciplinary winning teams that were chosen on Dec. 10 from among the 12 semifinalist teams competing in a two-hour pitch event at McKeldin Library. Read more about the competitors and their abstract proposals.

Pearlman’s team is developing an interactive web-based experience that will bring Renaissance Venice alive through primary sources—original sources from that time period. It will strive to make primary sources, some of which have never been translated before, accessible through multimedia presentations that can be accessed through a web browser. This online interactive resource will introduce users to primary source scholarship and guide them to our partnered institutions.

Herlihy’s team intends to develop a digital platform that will allow museum visitors to engage with museum content above and beyond the limits of a short visit. It will also allow content providers and “experience leaders” to become location-based game designers. The platform will allow teachers to customize museum visits using the curated games on the group’s mobile app, and the iBeacon technology will let them control and guide the physical aspects of such visits.

Each winning FIA-Deutsch Student Fellow will receive a $3,000 stipend. Each winning FIA-Deutsch Faculty Fellow will receive $3,500, as each team had a pair of faculty mentors splitting $7,000.) Each team will also receive up to $3,000 in expenses to carry out their projects during the winter and spring, and they will present the results of their work at a public forum on Wednesday, May 6, from 10 a.m. to noon in the McKeldin Library Special Events Room (6137).

“We are excited by the broad participation of the University community in this seed grant program—and by the fact that there were nine colleges and schools represented among the winning teams,” said Dr. Allison Druin, chief futurist of the University of Maryland Division of Research and co-director of the FIA.

In the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration, members of each of the winning teams will also be working with one or more of six of the 10 FIA partners in carrying out their projects: the National Park Service; the Barrie School; the Library of Congress; the National Archives; the Smithsonian Institution; and the Newseum.

Published on Fri, Dec 12, 2014 - 11:43AM