Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Charmaine Dean reappointed as Vice-President, Research and International

Charmaine Dean has been reappointed to a second term as Vice-President, Research and International.

"I am pleased to announce the reappointment of Professor Charmaine Dean as Vice-President, Research and International for a five-year term commencing July 1, 2022," wrote President Feridun Hamdullahpur in a memo circulated to employees yesterday. "The nominating committee, established under Policy 68, recommended the appointment, which has been approved by the Board of Governors and Senate."

Dean is a Waterloo alumnus who served as professor and dean of Science at Western University before joining the University of Waterloo in 2016. Prior to her role at Western, she played a major role in establishing the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

"In considering Professor Dean’s reappointment, the nominating committee consulted with members of the University community and conducted interviews with certain faculty, staff and students, Faculty deans, members of Executive Council and other senior administrators," writes Hamdullahpur.

During her first term as Vice-President, Research and International, Dean provided support and impetus for advancing disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, for administrative collaborations that connect disparate elements and offices of the research, corporate partnership and international portfolios at the institution, and worked to enhance Waterloo’s connections to external communities. She also served as Chair of the Ontario Council on University Research, providing leadership on the research interests of the Council of Ontario Universities. She engaged with the regional Ontario Health Team to develop and execute a collaboration agreement, bringing together Waterloo’s research community with regional healthcare providers. Dean also led initiatives, as well as collaborated with colleagues across the country, in support of advancements for researchers at Waterloo and in Canada through discussions with the federal and provincial governments and our granting agencies.

In August 2020, President Hamdullahpur asked Dean to lead consultations and engagement with BIPOC individuals and groups on campus to inform, structure and initiate the work of the President’s Anti-Racism Taskforce (PART). Under her guidance as Executive Designate and PART Coordinator, the task force has organized and gained momentum in addressing systemic racism at the University. Dean has stated her tremendous honour in serving in this capacity and in supporting the creative work of the dedicated and outstanding members of PART who have been instrumental in driving the anti-racism actions the University has taken to date.

"On behalf of the Senate and Board of Governors, I would like to congratulate Charmaine and thank her for agreeing to serve in this important role," Hamdullahpur writes.

President provides update on fall 2021 plans

A message from Feridun Hamdullahpur, President and Vice-Chancellor.

At last week’s Town Hall, we let you know that the academic plans for fall 2021 were starting to come together. Today, we are letting you know what each faculty is planning for September as we begin a transition back to more in person experiences for all of us.  

Faculties have planned to deliver much more in-person learning than we have done at any point in the pandemic to date. We have published plans for undergraduate courses on the COVID-19 information website. It is our intention to keep expanding in-person experiences throughout this academic year, as public health conditions allow. 

Today, we’re letting incoming and current undergraduate students know more about the fall term to help them plan for the term. We are writing to undergraduate students today. We’ll be updating graduate students in the coming weeks as we further our academic planning. 

In developing these plans, these principles have guided our planning:  

• We have planned to offer as many in-person classes as possible with any required physical distancing and gathering-size restrictions to maintain safety.  

• Classrooms will be scheduled at 50 per cent of normal room capacity based on our current expectations of the public health guidelines for the fall.  

• We will stay prepared to reduce in-person delivery to meet any alternate public health restrictions. 

• We will work to ensure that students who are unable to come to campus to learn in the fall have options to progress toward completion of their program. Academic advisors will be available to help students consider the options available to them. 

• Fall-term courses will finish the way they start. If a course starts online, it will remain online until the end of term and will not transition to in-person. If a course starts in person, it will remain in person unless public health requirements dictate a move to online.  

Above all, we are guided by the need to protect your health and wellbeing. Whatever the conditions in September, we will be ready to adapt these plans to the public health requirements of the moment. 

These plans are not the end of our work to prepare for the fall term. Leaders are working together on plans to ensure that we can support expanded in-person campus experiences for students, researchers and other employees. As they have been throughout the pandemic, services including our Campus Housing, Food Services, The Centre, Health Services, Counselling Services, and Athletics will continue to operate and expand their in-person supports for student and employees.  

You can expect to hear over the summer months whether you will be in the first stages of return to campus working or if you will transition back to on campus working later in the academic year.  

Based on your frequently asked questions at the recent town hall, we have shared some answers about our fall plans on the COVID-19 information website. Please continue to check in on the website for more information in the coming weeks. If you have further questions, please email coronavirus@uwaterloo.ca or discuss with your supervisor. 

As the days pass and more people get vaccinated, we can all share a growing sense of optimism that we can see the end of pandemic restrictions. Please, take the first opportunity you get to get a vaccine and encourage others to do the same. The sooner we are all immunized, the closer we can get to “normal.” Thank you, again, for your perseverance and commitment throughout the pandemic. 

'We're playing Moneyball with building assets'

This article was originally featured on Waterloo News.

Researchers have developed a tool to help governments and other organizations with limited budgets spend money on building repairs more wisely.

The new tool uses artificial intelligence (AI) and text mining techniques to analyze written inspection reports and determine which work is most urgently needed.

“Those assessments are now largely subjective, the opinions of people based on experience and training,” said Kareem Mostafa, an engineering PhD student at the University of Waterloo who led the project. “We’re using actual data on buildings to make spending decisions more objective.”

Researchers looked at inspection reports on the roofs of 400 schools managed by the Toronto District School Board. A computer model was developed to search the one- to two-page reports for about 30 keywords, including words such as ‘damage’ and ‘leaks.’

By analyzing the frequency of the keywords, plus factors including the age of roofs, the AI software divided the schools into four categories based on the urgency of repair or replacement. The goal was to give the school board an objective way to target its limited funds, speeding up the assessment process and helping it spend money where it makes the most sense.

“We’re playing Moneyball with building assets,” Mostafa said. “By using data on buildings instead of opinions, our model also takes potential political headaches out of the process.”

Although the software was developed to assess the need for roof repairs, it can be tweaked to help prioritize other kinds of work for organizations with budget limitations and many buildings to maintain.

Mostafa is also working to incorporate other kinds of data, including AI analysis of photographs, into the assessment model.

Tarek Hegazy, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Waterloo, and Ahmed Attalla, a project manager with the school board, collaborated on the study.

A paper on their work, Data mining of school inspection reports to identify the assets with the top renewal priority, appears in the Journal of Building Engineering.

Members of University community asked to update WatIAM passwords

A message from Information Systems & Technology (IST).

Later this morning, Information Systems & Technology’s Information Security Services (IST-ISS) team will send an email notification to approximately 8,200 members of the University of Waterloo community whose WatIAM password appears on one or more lists of compromised passwords that are publicly available. These individuals will be encouraged to log in to WatIAM to change their password, though there is currently no strict deadline to complete this request.

It is important to note that this request is not in response to any cybersecurity event or incident. This is a precautionary measure that will help to ensure the integrity of the accounts by improving resiliency to credential stuffing attacks. There is no evidence that any of these accounts have been compromised.

Lifelong learning, the 60-year curriculum and other notes

April Philpotts, associate director, professional development.

"In a society that increasingly requires continuous learning, the future of education is shifting to a lifelong learning approach," says a note from Professional Development. "April Philpotts, associate director, professional development at Waterloo recently shared her perspective on the concept of a 60-year curriculum in The EvoLLLution."  

“It’s key for the institution to have a centralized strategy around lifelong learning. [Everyone at an institution needs] to be working toward the same vision in order to truly enact a 60-year curriculum. We’re starting to move in that direction at Waterloo, where [lifelong learning] is one of the University’s top strategic priorities right now. It’s requiring the entire organization to be working together to make sure we’re moving along that same path.” 

Read the full article on The EvoLLLution.

Information Systems & Technoloyg (IST) is inviting people to participate in beta 2 testing as part of the Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) 3 Rebuild project. "As we continue to move development of our new WCMS 3 website environment forward, we would like to invite you to participate in the next part of our testing strategy, the beta 2 testing phase," says a note from IST. "Beta testing provides a structured approach to testing the features and functionality of WCMS 3, helping to identify bugs/issues/unexpected behaviours that cannot be caught through automated testing processes. Taking place between May 19 and June 8, 2021, this testing phase is open to members of the University Community who have completed the WCMS for Content Maintainers (WCMS 2) training course."

So, what can you expect during this testing phase?

• Beta 2 websites will be built in the Pantheon environment and will not contain any content.
• You may choose to rebuild a WCMS 2 website in WCMS 3 for the following reasons:
  • You want to rebuild a small site to familiarize yourself with the new platform.
  • You want to revamp an existing site entirely.
  • You have a non-standard (FDSU) site that you are eager to get in WCMS 3 and feel the current functionality will cover your use case (Reminder: only standard FDSU sites and some single-page site functionality will be supported in WCMS 3 at launch).
• Alternatively, you may choose to begin building a brand-new website in WCMS 3.
• Migration of WCMS 2 websites to WCMS 2 is not supported at this time.
• WCMS 3 training notes will not be available during this testing phase.
  • Support requests may be submitted to wcms@uwaterloo.ca.
  • Training and support resources, and information on completing required WCMS 3 training courses, will be shared when ready.
• Websites built during beta 2 testing are eligible to move from development to the live Pantheon environment on or after June 29, 2021.

If you are interested in participating in beta 2 testing, or want to learn more, submit a site request or contact the WCMS team with any questions you may have at wcms@uwaterloo.ca.