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Thursday, June 25, 1998
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Windows 98
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How hot is it? Put it
this way:
Alan
Plumtree of mechanical engineering isn't the only one on
campus doing "high temperature fatigue
studies"! (At 8:15 this morning, it was 25.5 Celsius, with a 33.7
Humidex, according to
UW's weather
station.)
Who's really loving this weather is the Americans who are here for the annual convention of the Association for Living Historical Farms and Agricultural Museums. "They're finding the campus quite beautiful," adds Dave Reynolds, manager of the UW conference centre, and he says they're keeping busy, this morning with a visit to the Stockyards Market. Last night's event was a banquet at the Transylvania Club, for which most of the participants donned bulky 19th-century costumes. "They looked cool," says Reynolds, but I think he means it as a term of admiration, not literally. The ALHFAM conference ends today, and arriving at the conference centre tomorrow are some 100 under-17 hockey players. The heat won't bother them much; they'll be spending their days at the Icefield. |
While an analysis of data from the Labour Force Survey shows significant growth in the sector -- a 92 per cent increase in jobs between 1992 and 1997 -- and an unemployment rate of only three per cent for programmers, figures don't support claims of a massive shortfall of workers. "The market is healthy, but it doesn't show signs of distress," StatsCan analyst and author of the report Dave Gower said in a Globe and Mail story. Such signs might include big wage gains for programmers or pressures to work longer hours.
In fact, Gower said, a study of pay
rates for programmers and systems analysts doesn't suggest "the kind of
wage bidding that would accompany a heated labour market". And the
average number of hours per week put in by programmers has dropped from
39.5 hours in 1992 to 38.8 hours in 1997.
Most high-tech jobs are in Ontario and
Québec, with Ontario adding 58,000 jobs in the sector between 1992 and
1997. Ottawa-Hull currently claims the highest concentration of
software workers at more than five per cent of all employed persons in
the region. In Kitchener-Waterloo the proportion of the local work
force in high-tech jobs is two per cent.
Although TOEFL, in conjunction with the Test of Written English (TWE)
and Test of Spoken English (TSE), will still be accepted, applicants
will have the option of passing a new computer-based TOEFL 2000, the
International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or the Michigan
English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB).
The changes were approved by UW's senate this month at the recommendation
of the undergraduate council.
The
requirements apply to "applicants whose first language is not
English, and who have lived in Canada less than five years as of the
first day of the month of the term in which studies are to begin".
Minimum acceptable test scores: TOEFL (600), TWE (5.0), TSE (50),
IELTS (7.5), and MELAB (90, with 80 minimum per section including a
minimum score of 3 in the speaking test component). A minimum score for
the TOEFL 2000 has not yet been set.
"These requirements are distinct from and in addition to the
requirement to present OAC English, or equivalent, where it is stated
as an admission requirement," the rules note.
An exception may be made for applicants to the math faculty who don't
meet the requirements but have "exceptional skills in
Mathematics". Since the math faculty administers an English Language
for Academic Studies program, which provides remedial assistance in the
English language for such students, it will consider admission for each
applicant on an individual basis.
A change in the English language requirements was also
approved by senate for
faculty
of science students.
The minimum acceptable mark on the UW English Language Proficiency Exam
has been raised from 50 per cent to 60. That brings science in
line with the requirements for math and engineering.
Or, science students have the option of successfully completing a
university-level English course where graded writing is a component of
the mark -- such as English 109, 129R or 210C -- with a grade of 60
(C-minus) or better.
Science and optometry transfer students from outside UW can also
get credit for English
courses taken at other universities and colleges.
Other options include obtaining a mark of 80 per cent or higher in OAC
English, and meeting the standards of UW's writing clinic.
Committee members got a demonstration of the new video surveillance cameras
in the Student Life Centre. ("Turnkey Desk staff were trained on
the use of the equipment June 9.") UW's police chief, Al MacKenzie,
advised that a similar camera for another area where it's been
suggested, the loading dock at Math and Computer, "will cost
about $8,000. Discussion followed about another possible
installation of cameras along the road beside Village I due to the
number of students who are involved in accidents (or near misses)
while walking along that path as well as the high amount of vandalism."
Denise Angove of health services asked for a special $10,000 grant to
pay for updating "Single and Sexy", now in its tenth year as an
attention-grabbing play presented to new students each September.
"We tackle the tough issues," Angove explains: "alcohol, assault,
homophobia, racism and violence." The play needs "significant rewriting
and modification of the existing script and production", and the
committee will consider providing the funds -- from UW's annual
personal safety grant from the provincial government -- to hire
students to do the overhaul.
The committee also talked about installation of a "help line" phone
in parking lot B, and about the continuing wish for a traffic light
at the corner of Columbia Street and Westmount Road.
"The SISP project to implement PeopleSoft Student Administration System
is not intended to go into production use under a Year 2000 deadline,"
Black says. "For those purposes, we constituted the Year 2000 project
team to repair our legacy student applications so they would run into
the next century without problems. That way we can take more time to
implement SAS as appropriately as possible."
So it'll be the 21st century before a full new system for registration,
marks, addresses and all the other aspects of "student information" can
be in place at UW.
The InfraNet Project
today presents Jagdeep Bachher, chief executive of Avenir Internet
Solutions, talking about "Electronic Commerce -- A Strategy for Your
Business?" His presentation starts at 2:30 in Davis Centre
room 1302.
In July,
IST is offering five
computing courses to UW faculty, staff and students:
Learning More About Unix,
Introduction to HTML,
Installing and Using Adobe Acrobat Reader,
Collecting and Analyzing Survey Data Through the Web, and
What's a Netscape Plug-in?
A brochure is not being mailed out to advertise these courses, Bob
Hicks of IST advises, but information is
available
on the Web along with a registration form.
I perpetrated a little error in yesterday's Bulletin (and
exactly one reader noticed it). I referred to Jean Monty, who will
chair the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, as head of
"BEC Inc. (the parent of Bell Canada)" -- that should, of course,
be BCE, not BEC.
CAR
Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris RedmondTOEFL has been toppled
Up to now, passing the
Test of English as a
Foreign Language was the only way prospective UW students whose
first language is not English could prove their English skills were
adequate to handle university work. But now there are alternatives.
Some personal safety issues
Minutes have arrived from the June 10 meeting of UW's
personal
safety advisory committee. Some of the highlights:
The student information project
Tuesday's Bulletin talked about
Year
2000 preparations for computer systems at UW, and in particular
it said the
Student Information
Systems Project could be seen as part of those preparations. "This
is inaccurate," writes Jay Black, associate provost (information systems
and technology).
Voice mail down, and other notes
The voice-mail system will be out of operation for "up to
four hours" tonight, says Christine Gillis Bilton in the
telephone
services section of IST. The shutdown will start somewhere
after 9 p.m. "Because
the auto attendant number is part of the
voice mail service, it will be out of service for the duration,"
she notes. "Direct in-dial numbers will not be affected unless they
go to voice mail. Sorry for any inconvenience."
Information
and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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