Daily
Bulletin

Classrooms switch to Polaris

Classrooms affected Arts Lecture 208 and 211 (each 104 seats) Engineering Lecture 101 (389 seats) Math and Computer 1085 (152 seats) MC 2017 and 2054 (each 104 seats) MC 2066 (192 seats) MC 4020 (126 seats) MC 4042 (66 seats) MC 4061 (122 seats) PAS (Psychology) 2083 (126 seats)

The computers in those classrooms are now part of the Waterloo Polaris network that is the basis of student computing in five of UW's six faculties (arts, engineering, applied health sciences, math and science).

The idea is that individual users' files are kept on a central server, while the local computer has standard software that the user doesn't change. The result: a student can work from any Polaris computer, picking up where he or she left off working last time.

Now the same will apply to the computers used for teaching in the big classrooms, usually in company with data projectors that let the instructor show a whole class what's happening on-screen.

A memo to faculty members succinctly explains why the change has been made: "Security. Only authorized people can use them. They will also have a standard set of software that can only be installed by Polaris administrators. This enables Audio Visual and IST to maintain consistency between all the rooms. A major benefit for the user is the protection of your files. Polaris makes daily backups, and no other user can delete or move your files. Your files are available to you on all the computers."

Faculty members who want to use the system will need Polaris accounts themselves, the memo noted, and it listed the consultants who can provide those accounts. The instructors were also advised to make sure that the software they want to use is installed on the Polaris system.

The information session to be held today "will cover general Polaris information and answer frequently asked questions", the memo said. "A demonstration of how to use the Polaris workstations will also be given." The meeting starts at 1 p.m. in Math and Computer room 2054.

Magazine eyes academic teamwork

Also in the spring issue of the UW Magazine: an interview with Michael Ignatieff, this year's Hagey Lecturer; a discussion of the suicide-prevention "veil" for the Bloor Street Viaduct designed by architecture professor Dereck Revington; pictures of construction projects on campus; news that Lori Saint-Martin, a 1980 BA graduate in French, was co-winner of this year's Governor-General's Award for translation.

She touches on environmental studies, cognitive science, the Canadian Water Network and systems design engineering as some UW examples of teams and units that draw on more than one discipline to approach academic problems.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"The real world is not organized along disciplinary lines, and many of the problems we face every day require a solution that involves more than one discipline. But interdisciplinarity involves much more than assembling teams of experts to hammer out solutions to complex problems. Especially in the last 30 years, the term 'interdisciplinarity' has been stretched to mean so many different things that some scholars have urged banning it from the language as meaningless.

"Most of the confusion has collected around the terms 'interdisciplinarity' and 'multidisciplinarity.' Most students and some professors are unclear on the distinction between these two, or even that there is a distinction, says Bruce Mitchell, Waterloo's associate vice-president, academic, and chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program Board.

"Both terms describe approaches to organizing knowledge in a way that encompasses breadth while not losing depth. Multidisciplinarity is still the most common approach, because it allows researchers to remain comfortably within their disciplinary boundaries. A multidisciplinary research project on poverty, for example, might recruit specialists in economics, sociology, political science, history, and urban planning. Each, working within his or her own specialization, independently of the others, opens a different window on the question. The final report presents the row of windows, then adds a commentary that tries to integrate the separate perspectives into something more comprehensive.

"Interdisciplinarity is rarer, because it's harder to achieve, Mitchell says. The specialists are in contact from the start, each working in his or her own research area, but constantly keeping in mind the goals of their colleagues and the overall project. They meet frequently to discuss and critique. The findings of each may influence the work of the others at any point. Their final report will show the same level of synthesis throughout.

"In teaching, again, it's the element of synthesis from the outset that distinguishes interdisciplinarity from multidisciplinarity. A typical multidisciplinary option consists of courses gathered from different departments -- easy and relatively cheap to put in place, but it leaves students to do all the integration themselves. A true interdisciplinary teaching program, Mitchell believes, would begin with a foundation course covering the concepts and language of an area and highlighting processes of synthesis, followed by a variety of courses reflecting the student's interests, and finishing with a capstone course to help the student pull it all together into a whole.

"Like Waterloo's cognitive science program, for example, one of nearly 20 interdisciplinary programs offered at the university. A relatively new field embracing psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology, cognitive science is as interdisciplinary as the mind itself. 'Everyone is interested in how the mind works, but there are many different ideas about it and there are many different approaches you can take,' says director Paul Thagard, who wrote his own textbook to integrate concepts when he found other texts merely talked about the component disciplines. 'A full account of mind requires combining all these ideas and methods. Even if you're interested in just one aspect of how the mind works, you can get a better handle on it if you consider ideas in related fields.'"

The talk of the campus

The call centre in the development office -- the student-powered arm that makes thousands of phone calls to UW alumni and other supporters -- has raised $966,000 in cash and pledges this term, manager Bob Copeland reported last week. "Our term goal is $1,156,000, so we should be very close to attaining this goal by the end of the month." As the phone calls continue, so do various mailings to groups of potential donors. Copeland notes that hiring of student callers for the fall term is starting. Students who might be interested in such work can call Jude Doble at ext. 3129 for more information.

The September-October brochure for the Skills for the Electronic Workplace program was mailed to staff members a few days ago from the human resources department. There is one new course this session, says Carolyn Vincent in HR: "Creating Drop-Down Menus Using Dreamweaver and Fireworks". A complete listing of courses can be found on the web, and more information is available from Vincent at ext. 2078.

A brochure is out from the St. Jerome's Centre for Catholic Experience announcing its program of lectures for the coming year. Clearly the star, and pictured winsomely on the cover of the brochure, is Jean Vanier, famed as the founder of the L'Arche communities in which adults of different mental abilities live together. He'll speak December 3, and give a special student-oriented talk December 4; free tickets will be available for distribution in early September.

The Canadian Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors is holding its "summer school" at UW this week. Some 200 participants are on hand, staying in the Ron Eydt Village conference centre and attending sessions on such topics as "Risk Management in Retirement" and "Back to Basics Estate Planning".

Reminder: the Tim Horton's outlet in the Davis Centre is closed today, the victim of maintenance work to the floor in that area. It's expected to reopen tomorrow.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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