Tuesday, October 7, 2025

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• October is for supporting instructors: a showcase of teaching and learning supports

• New framework set to guide data reuse

• Remembering Bob McKillop
• Tuesday's notes

October is for supporting instructors: a showcase of teaching and learning supports

A message from the Office of the Associate Vice-President, Academic.

This October, academic support units from across the AVPA portfolio are coming together to offer a focused series of events designed for Waterloo instructors. The sessions will spotlight timely and relevant topics, including accessible education, generative AI, educational tools and technologies, innovative teaching practices, active learning spaces and strategies, and more. These events are an opportunity to both build and apply knowledge on these topics, connect with colleagues, and bring new ideas and strategies back to your learning environment.

October marquee events

• Accessible Education Day – Wednesday, October 15 (online)
  A full day of learning, dialogue, and campus-wide perspectives on steps to make learning more accessible. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome. Register here to attend.
• Celebration of Teaching Excellence & Innovation – Friday, October 17 (in-person | Invitational only)
  An afternoon to recognize the achievements of faculty, staff, and students who are leading the way in teaching excellence and innovation at Waterloo.
• Instructional Innovations Week – October 20 to 24 (online and in-person sessions)
  A week of workshops, presentations, and showcases highlighting the supports available to instructors, innovative teaching practices, new technologies, and strategies for engaging today’s learners in an ever-changing learning environment. Check out the Centre for Teaching Excellence’s online calendar of events for a comprehensive list of offerings during Instructional Innovation’s Week and for information on how you can register for individual sessions.

New framework set to guide data reuse

By Sarah Fullerton. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

An international study surveying microbiome scientists found that when it comes to data reuse, a universal set of ethical guidelines driven by the scientific community needs to be adapted.

Laura Hug, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Microbiology, was part of a team that surveyed over 300 scientists across the globe to gain their insights on data reuse. The study discovered outdated guidelines and an inconsistent approach to reusing data across institutions.  

The study, A roadmap for equitable reuse of public microbiome data, published in Nature Microbiology, proposes easy-to-follow guidelines that promote equitable sequence data reuse. For microbiome scientists who rely on shared data, adaptation of these guidelines could remove a major roadblock, saving hours otherwise spent tracking down dataset owners.

“Too often I’d find datasets that were valuable, but it would take me days to figure out who owned them,” says Hug. “The idea is to integrate these standards into databases with a flag on the data, to ensure there’s a clear connection back to the data owners.”   

The flag is a Data Reuse Information (DRI) tag for public sequence data, linked to at least one Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). This machine-readable tag signals to the researcher that the data owners prefer to be contacted before reuse and provides their information.

Implementation of these guidelines has already begun, with the European Nucleotide Archive implementing an ORCID metadata category that allows data creators to attach identifying information to their submissions.

Collaboration in science is increasingly important, and shared data sets from across the world help move research forward. But Hug stresses the need for caution when using data when you don’t have the full picture.  

“These guidelines are answering a need in the community,” says Hug. “There’s a fair amount of fear that if datasets are shared, it could be misused in ways that don’t accurately support conclusions drawn from others’ research.”   

The roadmap will ensure that data submissions are complete and reusable while encouraging researchers to contact dataset owners, which provides valuable context and promotes a collaborative approach to assessing the data’s suitability for reuse. This process also supports appropriate recognition of the original work, which could be listing the dataset owner as an author or acknowledgement within the paper, depending on its impact on the study.

The study, “A roadmap for equitable reuse of public microbiome data,” was published in Nature Microbiology. 

Remembering Bob McKillop

Photos courtesy of University of Waterloo Archives, Graphic Services fonds.

Former Waterloo Warriors coach and member of the Waterloo Warriors Hall of Fame Robert McKillop passed away on August 16, 2025.

Born in Toronto in 1942, he was signed by the Chicago White Sox as a free agent in 1960 and played four seasons with the organization until returning to Canada to attend the University of Waterloo.

While attending Waterloo, he played football for three years and served as captain for one year. At the time of his induction into the Waterloo Warriors Hall of Fame, he was 3^rd on the list of all-time scorers and 6^th on the list of all-time passers.

McKillop graduated from Waterloo in 1969 with a BA in Political Science and a Bachelor of Physical Education. He served as a Lecturer in Kinesiology and joined the Athletics department, where he worked from 1969 to 1990 as a coach.

“Bob’s impact on the Waterloo Warriors and greater Kitchener-Waterloo community is tremendous,” says a statement from Athletics and Recreation. “A Warriors football alumnus, he was the recipient of the inaugural Totzke Trophy in 1969, an award which still today recognizes the Warriors Male Athlete of the Year. In 1974 he was named the OUAA men’s hockey coach of the year and led the Warriors to their first and only Queen’s Cup and national championship.”

He also served as referee-in-chief for intramural hockey for two years. McKillop was inducted into the Waterloo Warriors Hall of Fame in March 1984

An award in his name is given annually to the Warrior who is recognized as the most improved player on the team.

“Bob was heavily involved in baseball in Kitchener-Waterloo and across Canada, serving various roles with the Kitchener Panthers, Baseball Ontario, Baseball Canada, and more,” the statement from Athletics continues. “Bob was inducted into the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame and the Waterloo Warriors Hall of Fame. His legacy will continue to inspire athletes, coaches, and fans across the region and beyond.”

Tuesday's notes

A Teaching Innovation Incubator information session will be held today from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. on MS Teams. Participants will learn about funding and support available, eligibility requirements, project themes, and tips for preparing a strong proposal for the 2026 TII Project competition. The session will also include time for Q&A with the Incubator team.

You can register for the session online.

The Fall 2025 Student Experience Survey (SES) has gone out to a representative sample of 10,000 undergraduate students and is open from October 6 to October 24.

The SES is administered by the University of Waterloo Statistical Consulting and Survey Research Unit (SCSRU) in collaboration with the Institutional Analysis and Planning (IAP) department, the Associate Vice President, Academic, the Associate Vice President, Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs, the Keep Learning Team, and the Student Success Office (SSO). The survey is a once-per-term pulse check for students and gathers feedback on strategic initiatives while gaining insight on students' learning environment and experiences.

The Pearl Sullivan IDEAS Clinic is inviting students to join them for the UN-Habitat Quality of Life Hackathon on October 26. The hackathon promises to be a "full-day innovation sprint where students, professionals, and community members come together to design solutions that improve urban well-being."

Attendees will have the opportunity to engaged in collaborative problem-solving for real-world urban challenges while networking with students and mentors from UN-Habitat. Free meals will be provided to all participants. There will be prizes for the top teams, and participants will receive an official certificate of participation. All backgrounds, experience levels, and faculties are welcome.

Register on Google Docs.