Friday, January 26, 2018

Ecology Lab and the Library partner in data sharing project

by Beverly Raimbault.

Environment students collect data for numerous course labs and projects. Often that data sits on personal computers, unavailable to others, or disappears once the course is over. Thanks to a partnership between the Faculty of Environment Ecology Lab and the Library, data sharing is now a possibility.

Data collected along Laurel Creek by numerous Waterloo students as a part of their Field Ecology course is now available on Scholars Portal Dataverse, an online repository for research data. Laurel Creek runs the entire length of our campus and water analysis is ongoing. Over the course of a few years, the Ecology Lab staff have worked with the library to find a way to make available the data that is collected by students through course labs and projects. Further discussion with Library personnel, Marian Davies and Sandra Keys, resulted in a MLIS co-op student, Kailee Hilt, working with the Ecology Lab to create a Best Practices Manual and a Data Management Plan. Additional steps included formatting the data, quality assurance, creating files with related information and overall ensuring that documents were accurate and ready for publication.

Dataverse is an open-source data platform available to anyone and provided to Ontario Universities by the Ontario Council of University Libraries through Scholars Portal. The Ecology Lab has initially focused on publishing data collected from Laurel Creek by Field Ecology students since 2009. Moving forward, data from other courses and groups projects will also be published on dataverse. Published files can be accessed online.

The Ecology Lab is the Faculty of Environment’s teaching facility and resource centre. It supports lab and field activities, courses, projects, and outreach initiatives.

For more information, please contact the Ecology Lab by sending an email to env.ecology@uwaterloo.ca.

President attends UK alumni vision roundtable

by Candace Harrington.

“This is our moment.”

The four words by President Hamdullahpur perfectly captured the spirit in the room at Tuesday’s Alumni Roundtable at the Waldorf Hilton, London. 

With the help of Alumni Chapter President Robin Carswell (BMath ‘01), twenty Londoners from various sectors, generations, and diverse backgrounds crowded around tables in the hotel located at the heart of the theatre district. They had two things in common: they were Waterloo graduates living in the UK, and they wanted to provide insights into what could excite and mobilize Waterloo's growing alumni base. 

President Hamdullahpur opened the session by reflecting on the creativity, vision, and risk that has seen Waterloo through its first 60 years and cautioned, “the great things that we are doing today, will not be great tomorrow. We need to innovate.”

Facilitated by Vice-President, Advancement Joanne Shoveller, the conversation oscillated between prudent insights, moments of levity, and at least one reference to the Bomber. The overlapping themes and innovative approaches to common challenges faced by universities in reaching alumni living abroad, bubbled up throughout the two hours.

Participants also shared their Waterloo pride, including Shamez Alibhai (BASC ‘95), who said “what Waterloo does is it gives you the tools to change the world.”

Nominations open for distinguished, exceptional teachers

Do you know an awesome professor or student teacher (grad TA, undergrad TA, lab instructor, etc)? Here’s your chance to nominate him or her for the Distinguished Teacher Award (DTA) and/or the Amit and Meena Chakma Awards for Exceptional Teaching by a Student (AETS).

• Distinguished Teacher Award deadline – Friday, February 2
• Amit and Meena Chakma Awards for Exceptional Teaching by a Student deadline – Friday, February 9

Undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff and alumni are eligible to nominate candidates for the Distinguished Teacher Award. Award and nomination criteria are available on the CTE's website.

For more information, visit the Centre for Teaching Excellence in EV1 325 or call Verna Keller at extension 33857.

Toboggans, game jams, ideathons this weekend

It's all downhill from here: the University is hosting the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race this weekend, welcoming about 500 engineering students from 18 universities and colleges across Canada (and one from the United States) who will participate in the two-day event. You may have noticed some costumed characters wandering around the campus and the community yesterday participating in a scavenger hunt as part of the festivities. The annual event features student-designed toboggans built with a concrete running surface. The technical exhibition takes place today from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Bingeman's in Kitchener, with Race Day on Sunday at Chicopee Tube Park. Waterloo's own Mighty Geese team will be participating alongside 18 competitors who will showcase the speed, braking, steering and control of toboggans in three race styles: Drag Race, Slalom, and King of the Hill.

While we're talking about games, don't forget to check out the Games Institute's GI Jam event, running from January 26 to 28. This edition of the jam is the MAKE event, which kicks off at 4:30 p.m. today in QNC 1502. MAKE is the second of three themed events, with LEARN having already taken place, and PLAY scheduled for March 12 to 16. Whether you have an idea for a game design in the works, or if game design has never crossed your mind, there is room for everyone, and all levels of expertise and preparation are welcome. You can build your own games from scratch along with helpful advice and guidance from GI mentors. You can create your own game mechanic, gameful art, game characters and narrative, or try your hand at coding for your very own game prototype. Check out the Games Institute website for ticket and registration information.

The third annual Waterloo Women: Ideas, Makers, and Innovators (WIMIn) event takes place today and tomorrow. WIMIn is an ideathon to inspire University of Waterloo students, alumni, and faculty to collaborate in developing world-changing ideas that could lead to potential products, businesses and a shift in mindset on pressing social issues. This one and a half day event will leave a direct and sustainable impact in supporting and connecting those who self-identify as women and non-binary to become leaders in their fields. Check out the website and Facebook page for more information.