New tool allows journalists, public to find research interests of WWU faculty

Western Washington University’s Office of University Communications has unveiled Query, a new online tool designed to allow local journalists to find expert sources for their stories among WWU’s faculty.

Query is an easy-to-use online database of more than 400 of Western’s faculty, and it allows users to search by name, academic department, or research area. Query’s web address is http://www.onlinefast.org/query/.

How likely is Mount Baker to erupt? Do Teen Courts really work? How does military service affect families? What causes our local “red tides?” How is global climate change affecting the Pacific Northwest? How does sugar addiction work? What kinds of dinosaurs stalked the Pacific Northwest 50 million years ago? How will the next generation of Washington’s teachers improve K-12 education? How do electric vehicles work? WWU’s researchers are working on questions like these – and hundreds more like them – and Query allows journalists to quickly and easily find and contact these faculty members.

“WWU’s faculty are working on countless projects that have real, immediate, and lasting impact on the lives of people in the Pacific Northwest,” said Query developer John Thompson, of WWU’s Office of University Communications. “And what we hope is that this tool will just make it easier for journalists to tap into that reservoir of expertise when they are developing their stories.”

Thompson and two student interns, Daniel O’Hair and Dale Slattery, gathered the information to fill Query’s database last spring and summer, using e-mail solicitations to faculty as well as contacting them by phone or retrieving data from departmental websites.

“We know for sure there were plenty of faculty members who were off campus conducting research and who we therefore couldn’t reach,” Thompson said. “So we have a contact form on the front page of Query so faculty members can contact us and add their information, or have it removed if they don’t wish to be contacted at all.”

Query was built using existing resources and with a free, open-source software platform called Drupal. Along with Gaia, a previous web project from Thompson that highlights faculty research in the life, earth and marine sciences, Query is just one more effort to shed light on the research being done by Western’s faculty.

For more information on Query, contact John Thompson (360) 650-3350 or at john.thompson@wwu.edu.