Monday, July 22, 2024

Announcing WatProcure, Waterloo's new eProcurement system

A message from Finance.

Following an engaging campus-wide name game survey, “WatProcure” has emerged as the preferred name for our new eProcurement system. This name resonated strongly with the campus community and reflects our commitment to modernizing procurement processes here at UWaterloo. Moving forward, you may see references to WatProcure, Jaggaer, and WatProcure powered by Jaggaer. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed their creativity and enthusiasm to this initiative.  

Overall, the implementation of WatProcure is on track with significant progress made across the various modules being implemented. We are sprinting towards the finish line with an expected Fall 2024 rollout to the broader campus community.  

Most importantly for campus is the eProcurement (ePro) module within WatProcure which is what our campus community will be interfacing with most frequently. Individuals who order goods and services on behalf of themselves or their departments, or “requisitioners” as we call them in Unit4, will begin using WatProcure starting this Fall to submit orders for university business purchases. Exciting integrations with some vendors and catalogues exist directly from the system, with some examples including Amazon, Staples, Dell, and Apple to name a few.  

Business purchases and invoice approvals via WatProcure will replace all requisitioning and supplier invoice activity and approvals currently being done in Unit4.  

Using WatProcure will be a significant enhancement over our existing purchasing processes as it offers an ordering experience that more closely aligns with the familiar buying experience of Amazon and other online marketplaces and offering a much more user-friendly purchasing experience. It will modernize the entire procure-to-pay process, meaning faster ordering and quicker delivery times resulting in improved cycle time from start to finish, with fewer manual touchpoints throughout the entire procure-to-pay process for a large portion of our transaction base.  

Ultimately, WatProcure will provide greater visibility into and consolidation of University spend, through promotion of preferred suppliers.  This will result in greater buying power for the University and provide us with leverage for more attractive contracts with suppliers. 

Learning more and staying informed 

For the latest updates on the WatProcure eProcurement System implementation, including project timelines and key milestones, please visit the WatProcure Procurement website and the Jaggaer eProcurement System Implementation project website. There, you will find comprehensive information about the system's features and how the implementation will benefit our campus community. 

As we approach the Fall 2024 go-live date, we encourage you to stay informed and engaged. Your continued support and cooperation are vital to the success of WatProcure, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you in the coming months. 

Winding down an ambitious career in teaching and research

By Tienna Schade. This article was originally published on the Optometry & Vision Science website.

As Dr. Daphne McCulloch nears her retirement at the end of August, her career will come full circle. Almost 50 years ago to the day, the now-professor started her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo in the Faculty of Science.  

Having grown up across Southern Ontario in Sarnia, Simcoe and Oshawa, McCulloch first decided she wanted to pursue optometry at the end of high school and came to Waterloo intending to apply to the Doctor of Optometry program. She enjoyed taking care of people and knew she wanted to go into the health sciences.  

After graduating as part of the OD Class of 1979, McCulloch was among the first optometrists to enter a residency in primary care (at Pennsylvania College of Optometry, now Salus University). There, she realized her passion for teaching and research and decided to pursue a PhD to facilitate this career decision. 

“It’s wonderful to teach students who are so motivated and so bright,” she says. 

As her interests evolved, McCulloch found her niche: working with young children and people with special needs. Over the years, she has taught countless students the best ways to interact with these populations in a clinical setting – one of her favourite parts of her job. Additionally, she has completed extensive research, particularly in clinical electrophysiology.  

There are a variety of tests that fall under the umbrella of clinical electrophysiology, but they share one principal theme – measuring the electrical signals in the visual system as it responds to different visual stimuli. Gathering information in this way is extremely important when treating young children and those with special needs, since often these individuals may not be able to verbally express what they can or cannot see. 

McCulloch’s interest in clinical electrophysiology led her to serve as the past secretary-general of the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV). She now serves as the editor-in-chief of the ISCEV official journal, Documenta Ophthalmologica. In 2019, she was awarded the ISCEV Emiko Adachi Award for longtime outstanding service to ISCEV and significant contributions to clinical electrophysiology of vision. As part of the award, she delivered the Emiko Adachi Scientific Lecture. Her talk was titled, “What can my baby see? Clinical electrophysiology of infant vision.”  

In the decades since the beginning of her career, McCulloch has witnessed academia shift from being paper based to being strongly reliant on technology. She remembers sifting through research journals by hand and typing up documents on typewriters and word processors. She purchased her first PC during her PhD.  If you ask McCulloch what the overall biggest change has been, she’ll wholeheartedly say the availability and access to information. 

“Back then, the human genome hadn’t been mapped out, so when it came to genetic diseases, nobody would know what genes were involved,” she says, giving an example. “Now, we have gene identification tools”. 

McCulloch’s work has taken her to all corners of the globe. After completing her PhD in Indiana, McCulloch became director of the clinical electrophysiology units in the Ophthalmology Department at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto before heading south to the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles to undertake a similar role. The bulk of McCulloch’s career was spent across the pond as a professor at Glasgow Caledonian University. There, her research included hospital-based clinical trials with newborns at high risk for visual dysfunction – premature infants and infants with prenatal exposure to drugs of misuse. 

For the past 11 years, she has been back in Waterloo, where conferences and other work obligations have taken her to places such as South Korea, Japan, and most recently, Hong Kong.  

McCulloch with colleagues at the iCover 2024 conference in Hong Kong.

After she retires, interacting with little children will be one of the things McCulloch will miss most, since all the babies in her life have grown up. She’ll also miss mentoring her students and seeing the lightbulb go off in their heads when something clicks. As much as she’ll miss her patients and students, McCulloch looks forward to being less busy and sleeping in more. She hopes to renovate parts of her house, particularly the kitchen, and is eager to spend more time travelling. She doesn’t have any fixed plans but is excited to have added flexibility to explore more of what the world has to offer.  

This isn’t the complete end of the road for McCulloch’s career, though – she plans to stay with the School of Optometry and Vision Science as an adjunct professor to tie up loose ends and finish a few research projects.  

“I’m excited to turn the focus to work I want to do and spend less time doing work I have to do,” she says with a laugh. “I’m retiring, but not gone yet”.

Participants needed for soft contact lens study; power shutdowns on campus; other notes

The Centre for Ocular Research & Education (CORE) is seeking soft toric (for astigmatism) contact lens wearers to evaluate the performance of 2 lens types. "CORE researchers are working on a new study to evaluate and compare the fit and vision with two different soft toric (for astigmatism) contact lenses after wearing for 15 minutes. We are seeking individuals aged 17+ who wear soft toric contact lenses to participate."

Both study lenses are commercially available in Canada and will only be worn during study visits (no lenses will be dispensed).

"Our past research has helped develop many of the contact lenses and related products relied upon by consumers around the world," CORE's message continues. "Participation in our research contributes to new or improved product development and contributes to our understanding of eye health."

Participants will have two in-office visits, totalling about 3.5 hours, and will receive $70 upon completion of the study. Parking tokens will be provided as required.

Participant requirements are as follows:

• Age 17 and older, with full legal capacity to volunteer
• Currently wears toric (for astigmatism) soft contact lenses
• Can successfully be fitted with both study lenses and achieve good vision
• Achieve 8 hours of comfortable wear time with your own lenses
• Exclusions: Currently wears Proclear toric or Biofinity toric contact lenses.

"If you fit the requirements and are interested in participating, please email COREstudies@uwaterloo.ca and reference study name POND in the subject title. We will contact you by email with more information," says the note from CORE. "If you have questions or would like more information about this study, please contact us:

Phone: 519-888-4742
Email: COREstudies@uwaterloo.ca
Web: https://COREstudies.ca/POND

All studies conducted at CORE have been reviewed and received ethics clearance through a University of Waterloo Research Ethics Board.

Plant Operations has announced a partial cancellation and delay of its Primary North Electrical Replacement Project, but reports that limited electrical shutdowns will be going ahead this week. "Please note that due to a delay in equipment delivery for a significant portion of this project, the majority of this project has been delayed," says the note from Plant Operations. "We are diligently working with both the supplier and the contractor to clarify the new dates for the electrical shutdowns and will notify everyone when information is available." 

There will be several building-level electrical shutdowns to accommodate the replacement of existing equipment, which is being done to increase the capacity, resilience, and minimize risk of future failures on campus.

The shutdowns will be as follows:

• C2, Tuesday, July 23, 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.;
• ERC, Wednesday, July 24, 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m.;
• CSB, Wednesday, July 24, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., with Chiller 3 offline for the duration of the shutdown;
• C2, Thursday, July 25, 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.;
• ERC, Friday, July 26, 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m.;
• CSB, Friday, July 26, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.

With the Course Add/Drop period upon us, here's a reminder that Peace and Conflict Studies is offering new academic plans in Restorative Justice that include a Diploma and a Specialization in Restorative Justice. The Restorative Justice website has been updated with a new YouTube video outlining the academic plans.

In addition, PACS is offering a New Special Topic Course entitled PACS 301: Special Topics in Peace and Conflict Studies I, “Prison and Police Abolition as Moral Imagination."

“Ideas about what's right and wrong, good and bad, what's true, and what's beautiful often come from religious sources,” says the course topic description. “How have moral perspectives and values from religion contributed to policing and incarceration in Canada and the U.S., and their especially deadly impacts on Black and Indigenous lives? How can anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist approaches to moral imagination enable the potential abolition of policing and prisons, and the creation of a new society in which safety is not premised on violence? Examining these questions, this interdisciplinary peace and conflict studies course integrates insights from Black studies, liberation theologies, gender studies, contemporary anti-violence movements, and other sites of emancipatory knowledge production.”

Students must be in level 2A or higher to be eligible for this course. For more information about the course, watch a YouTube Video featuring Dr. McCants-Turner, who will be teaching the course. For further information, email Dr. McCants-Turner.