University News
WIU Honors Students Present Research
April 8, 2008
MACOMB, IL - - Two Western Illinois University students presented their research projects at the 2008 Honors Council of the Illinois Region (HCIR) Spring Student Research Conference held in March at the WIU-Quad Cities campus.
"The conference brings together students from across Illinois and the surrounding regions to present original research and scholarship, as well as to interact with peers from other institutions," said William Knox, WIU Centennial Honors College director and HCIR president. "It provides a welcoming, constructive environment where the students can discuss their research and learn and grow from the experience."
Approximately 100 students, faculty and honors directors attended, representing 20 colleges and universities. There were a total of 40 poster, podium and panel presentations covering a range of academic disciplines presented by 44 students.
Carla Webb (Carthage, IL), a senior majoring in both math and communication sciences and disorders, presented an interdisciplinary project that was a creative repetition of part of an experiment, "Hierarchical Structures Induce Long-range Dynamical Correlations in Written Texts," published in the May 2006 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by Alvarez-Lacalle et al. Webb's project, "Using Principal Component Analysis to Extract Meaning from Text," analyzed the concepts of text, the co-occurrence of words in a particular window of attention that a person is focused on when reading. Her hope is that this research will someday lead to a greater understanding regarding how the structure of writing uses the reader's memory.
Brooke Bauma (Romeoville, IL), a senior interdisciplinary studies major, presented "The Development of an Honors Portfolio," a project that reflects the new option available in the Honors curriculum in lieu of an Honors thesis. She designed an electronic portfolio format to serve two functions: first, to be a showcase of work completed in Honors courses; and secondly, to provide a forum to display professional materials such as a resume, special skills and knowledge and previous special event planning experience or related matters via web-based social networks for position searches.
Students from the Student Honors Association, the campus chapter of Phi Eta Sigma and WIU-Quad Cities Emissaries assisted with planning, set-up, registration and guest services, Knox added.
Posted By: Alisha Looney (AA-Looney@wiu.edu)
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