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Long-time E&CE prof retires

"As a matter of fact, as the Principal Investigator, I recently received funding from the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology of Ontario under the Singapore-Ontario Collaborative Research Program, to conduct research in 'Resource Allocation for End-to-end QoS Provisioning in a Hybrid Wireless Wideband CDMA and Wireline IP-based Network'. Also, currently, I still have a large number of graduate students.

"Retirement will enable me to pursue my interests with a flexible schedule. I will now have more time to devote to writing. In the fall term, I will be in Singapore, mainly to pursue research, but will also be taking the opportunity to visit other parts of South Asia."

Born in China, Mark earned his degrees at the University of Toronto and McMaster University, and worked at Westinghouse before coming to UW as an associate professor in 1970. He was later promoted to professor, and served for a time as chair of what was then the electrical engineering department. Among his honours was the Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research, presented last year.

Ministers have an on-line vision

Says a news release: "Building on efforts already initiated by Ministers of education and postsecondary education, the common vision statement is intended to help Canada's provinces and territories continue as leaders in the emerging world of e-education."

"Individually and as a group, provincial/territorial governments have become increasingly involved in all aspects of on-line education," says Glenn Hagel, chair of the CMEC Consortium on Postsecondary Expectations and Saskatchewan's minister of post-secondary education and skills training. "This vision statement establishes common priorities for provinces and territories in e-learning, and will help ensure that on-line learning can be accessed by all Canadians who wish to increase their knowledge and skills in order to advance their education and career."

More from the CMEC news release:

The vision statement outlines important themes that provinces and territories can build on in current and future on-line learning initiatives, undertaken by individual jurisdictions or on a pan-Canadian basis. CMEC's e-learning priorities build on the existing initiatives of provinces/territories, making the most of best practices and potential collaboration. The CMEC Consortium on Postsecondary Expectations will be developing a detailed action plan over the next few months. An overview of all major on-line learning initiatives and programs currently in place across Canada and a high-level action plan on e-learning have also been released with the vision statement.

CMEC has an active interest in on-line learning. In February 2001, education ministers received the final report of the Advisory Committee for Online Learning, which was jointly established by Industry Canada and the CMEC Consortium on Postsecondary Expectations. The report called upon governments to take an active role in the development of Canada's on-line education community.

Other notes today Waterloo's annual Busker Carnival is about to begin. A "sneak preview" of the festival is being held for media this morning at UW's Ron Eydt Conference Centre, where many of the street performers will be staying during the four-day downtown festival. Tomorrow brings the second in a series of information meetings for graduate students about the new Quest on-line system: from 9 to 10:30 a.m., in Davis Centre room 1350.

Free microform printing continues

It's called "microform", and it's not the most comfortable format for library materials, but many items exist in microform that are available in no other way. To help make such items accessible despite the awkwardness of microfilm reading machines, the UW library says its offer of free printing from microform items, which has been available on a trial basis for the past year, will now be a permanent feature.

Sharon Lamont, who heads the library's user services department, notes that until last year the microfilm and microfiche printers in the libraries were operated by UW graphics. Prints cost 20 cents a page. "In an effort to make this information both user friendly and more readily available," she says, the library took over the service as of July 2000 and started offering printing at no charge.

There are four printers -- which can handle either roll film or microfiche cards -- in the Dana Porter Library, and one in the Davis Centre. The library is paying the cost for an average of slightly more than 5,000 prints made each month, Lamont said.

She says other library materials -- books, journals and so on -- are available to users free, and it seems fair that the riches available in microform should also be free. The micro collection contains more than 1 million different items, including newspapers, government documents, patents, theses, a large collection of early Canadiana, and business reports.

And no, the materials can't just be digitized and made available electronically. Not only would that be a huge and expensive task, but the material is mostly protected by copyright and the library has no authority to scan it and publish it.

In an effort to make the micro research room in Dana Porter more user-friendly, Lamont said, the library is planning major renovation that should be finished this year. She added that users who aren't familiar with micro materials and the use of the printers can ask for a quick training session ("it only takes five minutes") from the circulation desk.

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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