Thursday, August 10, 2017

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• Hamdullahpur: "smart is increasingly replacing cheap as the new competitive advantage"
• Direct deposit self-service functionality for employees
• Changing the world through persuasive games

Hamdullahpur: "smart is increasingly replacing cheap as the new competitive advantage"

President Feridun Hamdullahpur has contributed to the ongoing discussion on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the future of Canada's economy with an op-ed in the Globe and Mail Report on Business.

The editorial, entitled "With NAFTA, we need to advance our thinking about manufacturing," outlines how Canadians must work together, embrace a strategy of collaboration, strengthen non-US trade relationships and adopt new advanced manufacturing technology.

The editorial was published on Sunday, August 6.

Direct deposit self-service functionality for employees

The HR Team is pleased to share details of the re-launch of functionality that allows employees to add or update their direct deposit bank account information on-line through myHRinfo self-service. 

A summary of the new functionality is outlined below:

• Employees can complete their direct deposit bank account information on-line through self-service in myHRinfo.
• In order to update bank account information, users must access myHRinfo from a University network connection (wired or wireless).  If this is not possible, a Personal Information Form can be completed and submitted to HR for processing. 

Navigation to the tool in myHRinfo is as follows: Self-Service> Payroll and Compensation> Direct Deposit. 

Links to myHRinfo and user instructions are available on the HR website. Paper forms will still be accepted from those without access to a computer.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact hrhelp@uwaterloo.ca or call HR at 519-888-4567 ext. 35935.

Changing the world through persuasive games

This is an excerpt of an article originally posted on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.

For Rita Orji, a computer scientist and Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, her desire to help others crystallized when she saw firsthand how the HIV/AIDS pandemic was devastating communities in Africa.

“I grew up in Nigeria, and during that time many people believed that HIV/AIDS was a fallacy, that the disease didn’t exist,” she recounted. “Against this backdrop was the belief that contraceptive use was prohibited by faith. It was a battle between culture and religion colliding with the reality of many people dying from a preventable disease. It was then I realized I wanted to combine my training in computer science with my passion for helping people to change things for the better.”

Orji is leveraging the appeal and popularity of persuasive computer games to do just that.

Persuasive games, also called behavioural change systems, are interactive computer applications that are designed to motivate people to change their behaviour in ways that benefit them, their community or both. The innovative twist is that Orji and her colleagues at The Games Institute — Professors Chrysanne Di Marco at the School of Computer Science and Lennart Nacke in the Department of Drama and Speech Communication — have drawn from the literature on personality types to investigate how to design interactive systems that best motivate users.

“Personalizing behaviour change systems is key to sustaining motivation and behaviour change. A person’s personality type plays a major role in the persuasiveness of an interactive system and hence an important dimension for personalization,” she explained. “For example, a persuasive approach that works well for someone who’s extroverted and outgoing may demotivate a person who’s introverted and naturally more reserved.”

Orji and her colleagues consider such personality differences and couple them to the principal of social influence — using the persuasive power of other people — to tailor games that have the best chance of influencing behaviours in a desirable manner.

Read the rest of the article on the School of Computer Science website.