The 24 Hours in Photos project returns

by Kirsty Budd, Student Success Office.

On Wednesday, October 2 from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m., you are invited to take photos (or videos) of what your uWaterloo life looks like. We want to see everything from what you eat for breakfast, your trek to campus, classes you go to (or teach), meetings you attend or even the lineup up for Bomber Wednesday. We’ll include all of the photos you take in a visual timeline on Storify to share a day in the life at Waterloo. We want to see photos from students, faculty, staff and alumni and sending in a picture could earn you a chance to win a $500 Retail Services gift card (sorry-just for students!)

We’ll post the top 15 submissions from students on the uWaterloo Life facebook page and open it up to the uWaterloo community for a week of voting with the winner announced on Tuesday, October 15.

You can submit your photos on October 2 through any of these channels:

• Twitter - #uwaterloolife 
• Instagram - #uwaterloolife
• Vine - #uwaterloolife
• Email - success@uwaterloo.ca

So before the day gets here, help us spread the word and think about the must-have photos that should be included in the timeline. This is a chance for you to connect with other students, staff, faculty and alumni and showcase a meeting or event you’re holding that day.

If you have any questions please email Kirsty Budd, Community Manager.

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Staff conference issues call for proposals

Organizational & Human Development (OHD) is inviting internal proposals from the campus community on workshop sessions for the Seventh Annual Staff Conference, which is scheduled to take place on April 7 and 8, 2014.

According to the organizers, proposals "should be for an educational and interactive session(s) focused on professional and/or personal development" from all areas of campus life, from work-life balance, to health and wellness and emerging technologies, and should "include discussion, activities, engagement, and learning outcomes" on the topic at hand.

For more information about the Call for Proposals, please review the 2014 Staff Conference: Call for Proposal guidelines.

The deadline for submission of proposal abstracts is Friday, October 18, 2013. 

If you have any questions about the proposal guidelines or the submission process please contact Mark Lisetto-Smith of OHD.

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Program announced for Gamification 2013

The full program for October's Gamification 2013 Conference, which will be held from Wednesday, October 2 to Friday, October 4 at the University of Waterloo's Stratford Campus has been released.

Academic and industry presenters will be providing their insights into the use of game elements to increase employee participation, student and workplace health, learning outcomes, citizen engagement, research participation, and more. More than 33 organizations from 8 countries will be presenting 50 sessions over the course of the two-day event.

Many of the presentations will feature research results and case studies that are uncovering best practices for game design and applications in areas like:

• Social game mechanics vs. traditional leaderboards;
• Applying metrics to educational games;
• "exergames" in the classroom and in the workplace;
• the place of games in the future of retail;
• emotive and relational effects of portraying realistic, inclusive characters in a contemporary disaster scenario game;
• gamification to improve crowdsourcing to forecast world events; and
• the impact of incorporating augmented reality into a learning system.

Specific sessions include:

“The Motivational GPS” session, which draws from neuroscience, paleoanthropology, development psychology, behavioral economics and sociology research to refine the understanding of motivation from rudimentary to the targeted capability of a GPS system.

“I want to be a Captain!” Gamification in the Old Weather Science Project, which found that what appealed to committed participants turned off casual users. In this session the presenters look at how to refine gamification designs to appeal to different types of participant groups to maintain engagement with each. 

"Gamification and On-the-Job Behaviour across 4 Countries", a study over 2 years in planning and involving hundreds of participants that extended a common gamification system to a CRM system.

The full agenda is available online, as are registration details. The conference even has a Twitter hashtag - #gameit13.

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Retail Therapy reminder and other notes

It's not too late to register for the 9th annual University of Waterloo Staff Association shopping trip to Erie Pennsylvania on the weekend of November 8-10. Registration closes on Friday, September 27. After that would be too late. Just so we're clear.

While we're on the subject of reminders, the Centre for Career Action is hosting a Further Education Boot Camp this Saturday, September 28, in the Tatham Centre. The all-day event is open to students and alumni with an interest in furthering their education. Workshops will be facilitated by CCA staff along with guest speakers who have extensive experience in their fields. There are several field-specific workshops including teaching, dentistry, pharmacy, rehab sciences, law, optometry, health-related careers, naturopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, and medical school. There are also review and strategy sessions for tests like the GMAT, MCAT, DAT, PCAT, OAT, and LSAT. Full details and registration information is available at the boot camp website.

The Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) is inviting the university community to take part in Energy Day 2013 on Friday, October 4, which promises to be "an enlightening day of energy research lectures, presentations and discussions." Participants will tour labs, meet researchers, make connections, and "spend the day with the minds that help to make Waterloo the most innovative university in Canada." Panel discussions will take place in DC 1302, and there will be coffee and networking and student posters in the DC ICR lounge (the fishbowl).

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