Areas
of Interest
Dr. Kopak's major areas of interest are in human-information interaction and
information design.
Biographical Sketch
Richard Kopak received his B.A. in Political Science at the University of
Alberta, and his Master's in Library Science, and Ph.D. in Information Studies
at the University of Toronto. He joined the School of Library, Archival and
Information Studies at UBC as Assistant Professor in 2000
Statement of Research & Scholarship
My major research interest concerns how individuals interact with information in
electronic environments. I am interested in exploring what functionality is most
useful to individuals within a specific information context and how their
efforts to, for example, make meaning when interacting with the information
might be utilized in finding their way through the information . It is also
important to determine how the information and attendant functionality is best
represented within these contexts, where underlying issues of information design
and architecture are paramount.
Currently, I am working as co-investigator on the Public Knowledge Project. A major outcome of PKP research and development is a suite of web-based applications that support the management and publication of online journals (Open Journal Systems), conference proceedings (Open Conference Systems), and monographs (Open Monographs). My major interest is in investigating the use of advance 'Reading Tools' to enable increased engagement with the content of scholarly journal articles and to research wayfinding behaviours based on the introduction of these kinds of tools, e.g. annotation and linking.
Selected Recent Publications, Presentations and other Scholarly Activities [2005-2008]
Refereed Journal Articles
Kopak, R. (2008). Open access and the Open Journal Systems: Making sense all over. School Libraries Worldwide, 14 (2): pp. 45-54.
Kopak, R. and Chiang, C. (2007). Annotating and Linking in the Open Journal Systems. First Monday: . 12 (10). Available at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1961/1838 .
Refereed Conference Proceedings
Kopak, Richard and Chia-Ning Chiang. "Linking and Thinking: The Use of Typed Informational Relationships in Aid of Semantic Navigation. " ASIS&T 2006. Austin, Texas, United States. . Nov, 2006.
Invited Presentations
2006, October - Victoria, BC. Text Encoding Initiative HCI-SIG. Presentation on Linking and Annotation as Reading Tools for the Open Journal System. (with Chiang., C.).
Other Presentations
2007, July - Vancouver, BC. First International PKP Conference. "A Multi-dimensional Approach to the Study of Online Annotation." (with Chiang., C.).
Research Grants (2005-2008)
Granting |
Subject |
Year |
Investigator |
Agency |
|
|
|
Canada Foundation for
Innovation
|
Synergies: The Canadian Information Network for Research in the Social
Sciences and Humanities |
2008-2012 |
Richard Kopak, Others |
UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund |
PEPI - Prototype of an Educational Podcasting Infrastructure |
2006-2007 |
Richard Kopak, Mark Shneider, Ulrich Rauch, Brian Lamb |
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) |
Navigating information spaces: Link types as semantic signposts in hypertext |
2003-2008 |
|
Recent Research Projects
- Navigating Information Spaces: Link Types as Semantic Signposts in Hypermedia [SSHRC 2003-06]
- Claude Glass: Building a Digital Library of Major Works in Landscape
Architecture [TLEF 2004/05]
Courses taught in last
two years
|
