UW among 'top' research universities

a release from UW's media relations office

Waterloo has been ranked Canada's No. 1 comprehensive research university in the annual "Canada Top 50 Research Universities" survey. The survey of research activity conducted every year by national consulting firm Research Infosource Inc. will be published in a special newspaper supplement in the National Post on Friday and the Ottawa Citizen on Saturday.

Waterloo's total research ranked in the "elite $100 million club," said a release on the findings. The survey tracks sponsored research for all Canada's universities for 2007. Waterloo had $121.6 million in total research income from government and non-government sources last year. The "comprehensive" university category essentially includes all universities with full undergraduate and graduate programs, but no medical school.

"This is great news for Waterloo," said George Dixon, vice-president (university research). "The credit goes to our outstanding researchers, our faculty and graduate students, who continue to shine on the national and international stage." Dixon added: "We believe Waterloo has a very innovative approach, combined with strengths in many critical areas, such as water, energy and auto research.

"Waterloo has the ability to transfer many of its pure research findings into practical applications for the benefit of society. It stands alone in its inventor-owned intellectual property policy that encourages the practical application of research by supporting technology transfer and company incubation."

Waterloo ranked first in the comprehensive category based on measuring "financial input, research publication output and impact indicators," with a combined score of 91.1, according to Research Infosource. After UW in the comprehensive category came University of Guelph in second place (88.76) and the University of Victoria in third (74).

Toronto placed first in the "medical/doctoral" category, while Royal Military College of Canada garnered top place in the "undergraduate" category.

Back to top

IST plans to improve wireless service

a memo issued Friday by Bruce Campbell, director of network services in information systems and technology

Many users have reported problems with UW's wifi service, particularly this term. The reported issues include being unable to connect, not receiving an IP address, being disconnected after login, and/or extremely slow response. Service in and above the Davis Centre library is particularly bad during the day.

A number of factors have lead to a deterioration of wifi service. The factors are outlined below, including how they are being addressed, and when acceptable service will be provided.

Density of users: This is a major issue in the DC library and nearby areas. A large number of wifi users are concentrated in a small area, and an insufficient number of wireless access points have been installed. We'll be installing additional APs in high density areas, in some cases doubling the number of APs serving a given area.

Private APs: This is also a significant issue in DC. Many users have installed their own AP in their office, usually after finding the uw-wireless service too slow. While this solves the individual’s immediate problem, the proliferation of private APs in an area creates additional radio interference, and puts multiple SSIDs onto the same wireless channel. Once we are sure we have adequate wifi coverage in an area, we'll be helping users migrate to uw-wireless, and phase out their local APs. In cases where research activity requires private APs (as is permitted by UW's Guidelines for use of wireless spectrum), we'll work with the research group to ensure their work, and that of their neighbours, can proceed in harmony.

High bandwidth users: We have no bandwidth limits in place on the new Aruba wifi system. (We had a locally developed variable rate traffic shaper on our old system.) Users can now download large volumes of data, which impacts service for all users. We're investigating commercial traffic shaping solutions, and have a joint pilot project with UW's Housing department in the works. In the meantime, we will be enabling flat rate shaping on the Aruba system.

Vista, IPv6, broadcasts, and roaming: The new Aruba wifi system supports roaming — you can connect in one building, walk to another building, and remain connected (in the areas where Aruba has been deployed). The roaming feature is convenient, but the layer 2 implementation we have used is such that it increases broadcast traffic on the wireless network. To make matters worse, Vista supports IPv6 by default, and Vista machines are constantly trying to find their IPv6 neighbours. The result is a 10-50 fold increase in broadcast traffic. This broadcast traffic impacts performance for all wifi users. Over the longer term, we'll be moving to a layer 3 roaming implementation that is more broadcast friendly. In the short term, we've enabled firewalling to block IPv6, which has dramatically reduced broadcast/multicast traffic, and restored acceptable service to many areas. We'll also be blocking Netbios broadcasts if possible.

We apologize for the degradation in wireless service, and the inconvenience this is causing. We recognize the importance of wireless service for UW, and are committing all available resources to provide a dependable service. Thank you for your patience.

Back to top

Hiring postponement: some details

The human resources department issued a memo to department heads yesterday with some clarification of the president’s recent announcement that hiring and “discretionary” spending are to be postponed for the rest of this fiscal year.

That announcement, made in a campus-wide memo two weeks ago, has had national publicity as part of several news stories about the hard times universities are facing since the recent stock market slump and bleak economic forecasts. Most recently it figured in yesterday’s Toronto Star.

The memo gives administrative details on what is and isn’t going to be permitted between now and next April 30, when the 2008-09 fiscal year winds up:

• “Faculty recruitment is postponed until the next academic year.”

• “Staff recruitment on operating funds is postponed until the end of April ’09.”

• “Requests for exceptions to the postponement of regular on-going full or part-time staff recruitment must be made by the appropriate Executive Council member directly to the Vice President Academic & Provost. If an exception is granted, the Office of the Vice President Academic and Provost will notify Human Resources before the recruitment process can begin.”

• “Recruitment of positions, regular and temporary, funded by external sources (research, grant funds, etc.) may proceed as usual.”

• “Hiring of Coop students (usually on a Temporary Authorization for 4 months) will continue.”

• “All temporary authorizations, funded on operating, of 4 months to 24 months, require the signature of the appropriate Executive Council member. The responsibility of the Executive Council member to sign off cannot be delegated. A reminder that under Policy 54, Temporary Authorizations are not to be used for appointments of less than 3 months.”

• “All new casual earnings request forms, as well as new online casual earnings entry, must be approved by the appropriate Executive Council member or delegate before forwarding to Human Resources for processing. All existing casuals will continue to be paid as usual.”

• “Secondments, maternity leaves, and parental leaves will continue to be processed as usual. However, the use of temporary employment of 4 months or more to fill any gaps must be approved by the appropriate Executive Council member, provided it is deemed to be mission critical.”

• “Salary administration activity (reclassification requests) will continue to be processed by Human Resources.”

Says the memo: “Requests for exemptions to any of the above must be directed to the Executive Council member. Human Resources does not have the authority to make any decisions in this regard. The Executive Council would like to thank you for your understanding and support in this time of uncertainty.”

Back to top

Happenings at a happening place

Engineering undergraduates are going to the polls this week — or rather, the polls are coming to them, as the Engineering Society conducts its annual election online for the first time. Sarah Scharf of electrical engineering is on her way to being acclaimed president of EngSoc A for the next year and a half, while voters will fill a couple of vice-presidencies and other offices. They'll also vote yes or no on a proposed increase to the EngSoc fee, from the present $14 a term (unchanged in five years) to $16. That change would also require approval from EngSoc B during election season next March. Voting closes today at 4:30.

"It must be fall," writes Frank Seglenieks of the UW weather station, "with the battles between cold air from the north and warm air from the south. This showed up in the temperature record for October with lots of days that were either well above or well below average. But as often happens in this case, they cancelled each other out and we are left with an overall temperature within the average range (0.3 degrees below average for the month). For the first time since April, we had a below average month for precipitation. Only 45.0 mm fell during October in lots of small storms throughout the month, with only 1 day having double digit precipitation (11.2 mm on the 8th). We have now had 907.9 mm of precipitation this year compared to the average of 754.9 mm for the end of October. So even if we don't get anything in November and December, we have now surpassed the average annual precipitation for the area (904.1 mm)." The average daily high in October was 13.4 Celsius, with the highest temperature reached all month being 26.2.

Alternatives magazine, published from UW's Faculty of Environment, is inviting articles for a future issue "that describe how our approach to ecology has changed over time, and how these changes are translating into new and exciting understanding, practices and approaches". • The Centre for International Governance Innovation held its "second annual gala dinner" last week in Toronto, and presented its Globalist of the Year award to Cheng Siwei, a former government official in China and now chairman of the China Democratic National Construction Association. • The Political Science Student Association is hosting a student-faculty get-together tonight at McGinnis Front Row restaurant to bend some elbows and watch history unfolding in the American presidential election.

And . . . I now have a bit more information about the picture of "PEACE" lighting up the Dana Porter Library that appeared in yesterday's Daily Bulletin. The photographer has identified himself as knowledge integration student Eric Kennedy, and he writes: "The blind adjustments were care of a small group of students living at Conrad Grebel (I suppose expected, considering the message). It wasn't tied to any specific topic, event or group, simply a way to cause people to think, a way to hopefully cause some passers-by to smile, and a way to have some fun in a positive and productive way."

CAR

Back to top