California dreamin' at the AAAS and GIS

This week, back-to-back events will bring together some of the world’s top innovators, academics and science and technology evangelists in the home of the high tech revolution.

The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is set to take place from from February 12 to 16 in San Jose, California, followed by the Global Innovation Summit from February 17 to 21.

The University of Waterloo will be celebrating the innovative spirit and our deep connections to Silicon Valley and the Bay area with the University of Waterloo Innovation Showcase and Reception, a night of food, drink, music and discovery, tonight at 7:00 p.m. in San Jose.

This gallery-style networking reception at the ZERO1 Garage shines a spotlight on some of the top research and technology to come out of the University of Waterloo. The venue features an exhibit by internationally-recognized conceptual artist Adam W. Brown called ReBioGeneSys - Origins of Life.

Invited guests include top alumni, employers, industry and academic leaders, policymakers and potential research and advancement partners, either based in the Bay area, or in California to attend the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting or the subsequent Global Innovation Summit.

Exhibitors at the Global Innovation Showcase include:

• BlackBerry;
• Clearpath Robotics;
• Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience;
• Institute for Quantum Computing;
• Nicoya Lifesciences;
• Nuvation Engineering;
• Palette; and
• WAVELab.

University of Waterloo professors participating in the AAAS 2015 Annual Meeting include:

• Linda Nazar, Canada Research Chair and Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science, Saturday, February 14, 1:30 p.m. PST;
• Raymond Laflamme, Executive Director of the Insititute for Quantum Computing and Professor of Physics, Faculty of Science, Saturday, February 14, 3:00 p.m. PST; and
• Dmitri Pushin, Research Assistant Professor, Institute for Quantum Computing, Sunday, February 15, 1:30 p.m. PST.

Nazar will present a perspective on the promise and reality of lithium-sulphur batteries while Laflamme will look to the future for quantum information technologies. Pushin will present on work to investigate neutron beam from noisy three-blade perfect crystal neutron interferometer.

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Please engage with students after the beep

by Josh Neufeld. This piece originally ran on the Centre for Teaching Excellence blog.

When teaching a large second-year “Fundamentals of Microbiology” course with 800+ students each fall, connecting with individual students is an important, yet challenging, goal. In addition to in-class student engagement, email helps me make connections with students outside of class, assisting them with particularly difficult course concepts. That said, with hundreds of student emails received every term, typing responses can become time consuming and burdensome. This year, I discovered a simple technique that saved me a lot of time, provided increased student engagement on a personal level, and surprised students pleasantly. The technique? Voice mail.

In September 2014, when a long student email with five different questions arrived one day, I decided to pick up my phone to respond instead of typing. Because the University of Waterloo has a service that allows employees to have voice mails forwarded to our email accounts as a .wav file attachment, I simply dialed my own phone extension and left a message: “Hello Isabel…”. After answering her questions in under three minutes, the time limit of our answering service, an email arrived with my audio file.

I replied to Isabel and attached the file, simply stating “Hello Isabel, Please see attached. Let me know if you have additional questions. JDN”.

By replying to the email verbally through voice mail, I was able to answer all five of her questions with detail beyond what I would have written in an email. Isabel heard me talking to her, using her name, and responding in a friendly and helpful tone. A surprising additional benefit was efficiency for me: this process took approximately five minutes, from reading her questions to sending the voice mail reply.

Isabel’s response to this new form of communication? “It was actually a brilliant idea! At first, I was kind of worried it would be difficult to answer all those questions via an email; just cause you have to type it out and sometimes it makes less sense than in an actual conversation. However, when I received the audio message, it was clear and I think it’s easier to understand.”

From then on, when an email required thoughtful responses, when general student questions were best answered with a suggestion to review a podcast or videocast for more detail (i.e., we covered that topic in class), when questions moved beyond the scope of course material and required more in depth responses, when I needed to decline requests for exam accommodations, when students asked for career advice, voice mails have made my life easier in every case, saved me time, and left the recipient thrilled with the personal touch.

Student feedback on the voicemails has been 100% positive since I first used this technique in September. Feedback was sufficiently enthusiastic that I began using voice mails for responding to emails from colleagues and graduate students when I don’t have time to type a response, or when the tone of the conversation is important to convey correctly.

Drawbacks? One downside is poor email searchability. For me, this has been a minor issue; I’ve not yet needed to search for any of the dozens (hundreds?) of voice emails sent since September. File size is another drawback. A three-minute audio file (e.g., .wav, mp3, m4a) can range between 300 kb and 3 mb, depending on the method used to generate the file. These days though, emails with attachments are common. Voice mails certainly don’t exceed the size of a photo or journal article. It may also worry some to have voice audio files circulating on the internet. That said, sending an email to a student is similar in that ideas are out there for posting or sharing anyway.

And how will I will carry this practice forward in 2015? Now that I am overseas on a sabbatical, calling my University of Waterloo extension is no longer feasible. Instead, I’ve discovered an excellent alternative. Creating audio recordings with Vocaroo is effortless. Vocaroo is a website that can be used instantly, without membership or software installed. An advantage to Vocaroo is that audio files can be downloaded directly or, alternatively, a short url link is provided that can be sent to a recipient instead of an email attachment. It is even possible to upload an audio file to Vocaroo in order to share a link that allows the recipient to listen instantly. In this way, I uploaded an example audio recording sent to one of my 2014 students (“Jennifer”) who sent a six-question email, providing an example of how the approach can be used to respond to students. Additionally, here is a link to a video for educators explaining the features and functionality of Vocaroo in a step-by-step manner.

In summary, voice mails help increase student engagement outside of class and provide a personal touch for instructors wanting students to know that they are more than a number in their class. In the process, leaving a message after the beep saves a lot of time. I hope this simple practice helps you and your students as much as it did me and my Fundamentals of Microbiology class.

Note: to set up your university voice mail so that messages are emailed to you as .wav files, send a request to request@uwaterloo.ca.

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Students find real success in business sim

A group of Waterloo students, primarily based in the Faculty of Arts, are performing well against business schools and MBA programs from around the world in a classroom simulation experienced called Capsim.

Capsim is based in Chicago, and the students are enrolled in the Arts and Business 400 course.

“We have one team that is in the top ten in four categories, including number one in the world in the Return on Equity measurement after two rounds,” writes Professor Geoff Malleck, the director of the Management Studies program. “This is measured against over 900 teams including India and numerous schools in the United States. It is common to find Waterloo teams in the top 20 per cent each semester,” Malleck continues. “They possess the healthy combination of motivated and knowledgeable.”  

Capsim provides students with an opportunity to apply material learned during their Waterloo experience as Arts and Business students and those enrolled in the Management Studies Minor.

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Dean of Arts Committee seeks nominations

The Secretariat & Office of General Counsel has issued a call for nominations for a staff member to sit on the Dean of Arts Nominating Committee.

Doug Peer’s term as dean of arts expires on June 30, 2016 and, as required by Policy 45, The Dean of a Faculty, the Secretariat & Office of General Counsel is preparing to constitute a Dean of Arts Nominating Committee.

Nominations are requested for one staff member elected by and from the regular staff of the Faculty of Arts. At least three nominators are required in each case. 

Completed nomination forms should be submitted to the Chief Returning Officer, Secretariat & Office of General Counsel, Needles Hall, Room 3060, no later than 3:00 p.m. on Friday, February 27. An election will follow if necessary.

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