SCCI 2025

Sunday, March 2nd

7pm: Optional dinner

The Bulldog Lowertown, 237 6th St E, St Paul, MN 55101

Note: Walk three blocks east of the doubletree hotel on 6th street. 

Monday, March 3rd

Time	Session
8:30am-8:45am	Check In
8:45am-9:00am	Welcome by Quan Zhou
9:00am-9:30am	What is a complex problem? Michael Albers
9:30am-10:40am Session A: Data, visualization, and cognitive biases	Data Literacy in the Liberal Arts: Addressing Perceptions and Relevance in a Data-Driven Society Timothy Ponce and Carson Wright This presentation explores findings from an IRB-approved study examining how liberal arts students define data and perceive its relevance to their studies and careers. Our qualitative analysis reveals a disconnect between students’ initial dismissal of data as irrelevant to their field of study and their later acknowledgment of its importance for future work. We will share strategies for bridging this gap and invite attendees to engage in a collaborative discussion about fostering data literacy. Speaking Truth with Data Jason Swarts This talk presents the results of a study of data propositions about food insecurity, some written by AI and some written by people. The results suggest that AI makes data propositions that are more extensional, presenting data points as generalizable and true. By contrast, humans tend to write data propositions that are more intensional, true in so far as they index and satisfy situated truth conditions. Comparative Efficacy of Framework-Based vs. Generic Approaches in Detecting Cognitive Biases in Data Visualization Interpretation Xianhui Hu This study explores the efficacy of two distinct methodologies—generic approaches and a specialized Cognitive Biases Framework—in uncovering cognitive biases during the interpretation of data visualizations. By employing a comparative analysis between a control group and an experimental group, each using different sets of research questions to explore data visuals on school shootings, the research aims to determine which methodology is more effective at revealing underlying cognitive biases.
BREAK | 10:40am-11am
11am-12pm Keynote	Sungduck Lee, Visualizing Social Justice: A Multiscale Framework for Equity Assessment
12pm-12:45pm	Lunch
12:45pm-2:00pm Session B: Rhetoric, writing, and AI	Contemporary and Classical Invention Strategies in Generative Writing Using AI J.D. Applen Scholars in our field are using terms such as “invention” to describe the way that artificial intelligence can be used as a tool, but some have challenged this understanding of this rhetorical concept. I will show how invention is being employed or suggested in the literature and how it reveals the potential value of AI, but also reveals how we might be overestimating AI’s ability to help our students learn what it is to generate written texts using more traditional methods. Shifting Rhetorical Agency in Complex Information Deployment with AI Nupoor Ranade and Daniel Hocutt In this presentation, we will share findings from analyzing three different technology platforms: 1) Meta Ad Manager, a platform where advertisers reach users on Facebook and Instagram; 2) Google Ads, a platform where advertisers impact search engine result pages (SERP) based on keyword relevance; and 3) Google Knowledge Panels, algorithmically generated information products built around relevant keywords in SERPs to help users learn more. These cases enable us to learn more about the roles of audiences and authors in content development, and also focus attention on content design and assumptions about designing content for single sourcing (Meta Ad Manager), conditional information design and component content management (Google Ads), and designing for algorithms that create on-the-fly content blocks (Google Knowledge Panels). We discuss how these findings alter rhetorical ecologies and how technical communicators can be prepared for the impact on their audience analysis tasks and genre considerations.
BREAK
2:30pm-4:00pm Session C: Health and medical track	Podcasts, Professionals, and Comedians: Communicative Tactics in Mental Health Podcasts Hannah Ballowe Investigates the use of language in two podcasts about mental health, On the Mind with psychiatrist Daniel Knoepflmacher and The Mental Illness Happy Hour with comedian Paul Gilmartin. This presentation investigates how professional and non-professional podcast creators share mental health information with non-medical audiences. The project seeks to understand how creators leverage the podcast medium differently to craft varied enactments of mental health engagement and education. The presenter is interested in stigma, narratives, and how different exigencies prompt different methodological approaches for these podcast hosts. Technological Affordances in Health Communication: Toward Enhanced Public Understanding Caitlin Baulch, Rira Zamani, and Amy Harbourne Social media and digital technologies have long promised new methods for improved communication of technical topics. They particularly present potentially popular and beneficial methods of communicating technical and complex information to new audiences. This panel seeks new affordances from digital technologies and platforms to find innovative ways to address medical information to non-technical audiences. Two presentations focus on how experts use TikTok to respond to potentially harmful misinformation: one focuses on accommodation and the other on the pedagogical possibilities of stitching. The third presentation examines virtual reality (VR) as a technological solution to provide embodied communication of chronic pain. Addressing Communication Challenges in Environmental Risk Perception of Methylmercury Exposure in Underserved Communities Samantha Cosgrove In this presentation, Dr. Cosgrove will describe the complex problems of food insecurity, food safety, and environmental hazards that impact underserved communities in areas like the DFW metroplex. She will provide preliminary findings from her interviews with opinion leaders concerning freshwater fish consumption and discuss the challenges of addressing community-specific needs. Her project highlights the need for user-centered, culturally sensitive approaches to risk communication, ensuring that both information and interventions are accessible and actionable.
5:30pm	Self-arranged group dinners

Tuesday, March 4th

8:30am-8:45am	Check In
8:45am-10:00am Session D: Artificial intelligence	User Experience in the Age of AI: Redefining UX for Intelligent Systems, or AI UX Huiling Ding This talk explores the emerging field of AI UX, which focuses on dynamic and often unpredictable AI systems. To connect user with complex AI models and functionalities, AI UX designers have to understand the fundamentals of AI, address potential biases and ethical concerns about privacy and safety, and balance automation with user trust, user control (of data, and privacy settings), and user agency (in tailoring features and functionality). Meanwhile, AI UX emphasizes personalized user experiences and appropriate levels of user trust through explainable AI features. Tracking Public Perceptions of ChatGPT in Newspapers Using Topic Modeling and Corpus Analysis Vivian Zhang This talk examines public perceptions of ChatGPT as reflected in 2023 media coverage, analyzing 579 articles from The New York Times using topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and computational textual analysis. It identifies six key themes, such as AI in education, job automation, and misinformation, highlighting varying sentiment patterns across topics. The findings offer insights into how emerging AI technologies are framed and their broader societal implications.
BREAK
10:15am-11:45am Session E: Pedagogy, language, assessment	Pedagogies for Complexity: Teaching and Learning with Complex Information Alison Obright, Kathleen Bolander, Stuart Deets  This panel explores innovative pedagogical approaches in writing courses that help students develop skills for communicating complex topics across disciplines. Presenters share three vignettes: Kathleen applies rhetorical silence theory to examine AI policies and communication transparency in schools; Alison uses genre analysis of TikTok videos by scientists to inspire new teaching methods; and Stuart discusses how public policy can be a lens for exploring social justice through technical communication. Together, these approaches highlight how core communication theories can shape teaching methods for complex information in diverse educational settings.
11:45am-1:30pm	Lunch and concluding remarks