Monthly Archives: March 2018

SportTechie: “Orange County High School Esports League Combines Education, Gaming” (Constance Steinkuehler quoted)

March 9, 2018

Esports are coming to colleges around the country with the creation of varsity programs and unofficial leagues. One of the collegiate leaders in esports is UC Irvine. It was one of the first colleges to have a varsity program and built the first esports arena on a college campus. UC Irvine’s influence in esports has trickled down to local high schools in Southern California with the formation of the Orange County High School Esports League.

Constance Steinkuehler, a professor at UC Irvine, has been helping get the OC Esports League up and running. “(At UC Irvine) we have seen lots of added engagement with students,” she said. “There isn’t a lot of academic research on esports yet but we have seen a positive effect on student performance and retention.”

Read the full story at SportTechie.

Professor Chen Receives Grant for Study that Encourages Older Adults to Exercise

March 6, 2018

What gets seniors moving to stay healthy? Informatics Professor Yunan Chen is exploring this question after receiving a Council on Research, Computing and Libraries (CORCL) grant. The funding will help Chen study how older adults can use smartwatches for exercise tracking. In particular, the smartwatch app will help seniors with diverse health conditions create personalized exercises goals each day, so Chen can investigate the impact of adaptive exercise tracking.
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Women in Information and Computer Sciences (WICS) Organization Mentors and Supports Future Tech Professionals

Back in 1975, UCI alumnus Barbara Kew was one of two female computer science students in her class and, as she has noted, female ICS role models were scarce. By 2017, Kew had been inducted into the ICS Hall of Fame, and the number of female ICS undergraduates had grown to 685. Furthermore, there is now a plethora of available resources and mentors, thanks to UCI’s Women in Information and Computer Sciences (WICS) student organization.

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The New York Times Magazine: “How to Choose an Online Handle” (alumna Nikki Crenshaw quoted)

March 1, 2018

“If you’re going into a new environment — whether that’s a video game, or a social-media platform, or a subreddit — look into the social norms of that community first,” says Nikki Crenshaw, a researcher at Blizzard Entertainment, the maker of World of Warcraft and other online games. Crenshaw got her doctorate in informatics last year from the University of California, Irvine, where she studied naming practices in online video games.

Read the full story at The New York Times Magazine.