Profile

Alex, age 34, is currently in her third year as a tenure-track faculty at Research 'R Us. At her research-focused universitry, she is the sole database researcher. She took 8 years to complete her PhD, in part due to her divorce at age 28. She is currently single and not dating due to lack of free time in her life. While she likes research, Alex is by far more interested in university administration and hopes to work her way up to a dean position or even higher.

In the last three years, she has published one journal article and three conference papers on topics related to her thesis. She recently published a journal article with a colleague at Macadam involving the role of databases in ubiquitous computing that was well received by the research community. Much to her surprise, she received a lot of criticism at her annual review. In particular, she was told she needs to establish a lab, find more funding, and take on more graduate students.

Information Needs

Alex needs to establish herself as a researcher in her department. This includes building a lab and finding funding. However, she has already used up her start-up funds and her release-time from courses. Her department and university do not provide training or mentoring for newer faculty, and her graduate training did not prepare her for this. She needs to make tenure to achieve her career goals.

Teaching Load: 2,1 (only 1 undergraduate course / year)

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Interaction design scenario

-- IfiOkoye - 06 Jun 2008