Tag: Libraries

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Research Impact Challenge helps boost self-promotion, visibility

Open book with glasses and a pen sitting on top

York University faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students are invited to participate in the York University Libraries’ Research Impact Challenge to learn how to increase the visibility and reach of their scholarly works.

From May 27 to 31, the Libraries will run five fully asynchronous challenges to help teach York researchers tips, strategies and methods to curate their online presence and make their research more discoverable to academic communities in their disciplines. Each challenge will take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

“Researchers at all stages of their career benefit from leveraging research visibility best practices for their publishing and self-promotion strategies,” says Andrea Kosavic, interim dean, York University Libraries. “By completing the five challenges in this event, researchers will have a number of strategies at their fingertips to improve the discoverability of their research.”

Each day, participants will be asked to learn about a specific research visibility topic and complete a short research task to support them in making their scholarly outputs easier to discover. For example, participants will learn about curating their online presence using researcher profiles such as ORCID iD, a tool that makes it easier to identify authors and contributors of scholarly communication. Additionally, participants will explore the value of open-access publishing, scholarly research repositories and how to leverage existing Libraries supports such as YorkSpace to make their research more discoverable.

“Studies show that publishing your research open access is an effective research visibility strategy,” says Kosavic, “as access to subscriptions privileges those who can afford to pay. Publishing open access ensures the global community has access to your research and can build upon your discoveries, which translates into citation and social media uptake advantages.”

The challenges will also cover traditional and alternative research metrics and will highlight the Libraries’ subscription databases that can help researchers gather specific types of metrics.

To participate in the challenge, researchers are asked to do the following:

  • Step 1: sign-up for the challenge.
  • Step 2: during the week of the challenge, keep an eye out for the daily email with information on the day’s task.
  • Step 3: after completing each daily challenge, fill out the associated MS Form to be entered into a draw for a chance to win a set of Belkin wireless headphones or a prize of equivalent value.

“I’m thrilled about this engaging initiative that will allow our researchers to learn about strategies to help increase their research visibility, while also learning about specific tools and resources that can raise their profiles externally,” says Jennifer Steeves, associate vice-president research. “This will help increase awareness of the outstanding research being done by our colleagues at York.”

York University brings emergency management journal in-house

By Alexander Huls, deputy editor, YFile

The Canadian Journal of Emergency Management (CJEM), once published independently, has migrated to York Digital Journals (YDJ) – along with its back catalogue – to pursue a shared goal of providing practitioners and academics a resource to advance their efforts to manage disasters and save lives.

CJEM was launched in 2020 to promote awareness, knowledge and best practices of emergency management in Canada. That goal was one reason that, two years later, it formed a partnership with the York Emergency Mitigation, Engagement, Response, & Governance Institute (Y-EMERGE), the largest and strongest emergency management initiative of its kind Canada, to become its official journal.

Eric Kennedy
Eric Kennedy

When CJEM joined Y-EMERGE, it gained a new editor-in-chief in Professor Eric Kennedy, a leader in the field who is also associate director of Y-EMERGE and one of six speakers in York’s award-winning Microlecture Series in Sustainable Living. One of Kennedy’s goals to open up the journal – to other fields and contributors – was to build on something CJEM had already established: being open access.

“We’re wanting to do this in the right way and make it accessible to different audiences, including those who can’t pay for a journal subscription or might not have it in their budget to afford to buy an article,” says Kennedy, who stresses that – given the often life-saving value of the latest knowledge in the field of emergency management – it’s essential to remove as many access barriers as possible.

To keep doing so, Kennedy had the idea to approach a potential key partner: York Digital Journals.

An electronic journal-hosting service run through the York University Libraries, YDJ looks to help community members create new journals or migrate existing ones online through a platform called Open Journal Systems, which can streamline submissions, peer review, editing and publishing.

After some conversations, Kennedy asked if YDJ could help do just that for CJEM. “I thought it would be a great opportunity,” says Tomasz Mrozewski, a digital publishing librarian in the Department of Digital Scholarship Infrastructure, who wanted to bring to Kennedy and the journal what they’ve done for many others at York. “What we’re really doing is helping enable certain services and certain processes,” he says.

YDJ now provides CJEM with assistance in publishing content, navigating copyright agreements with authors and promoting articles within the scholarly communications ecosystem – all while ensuring the journal is free to read and publish. In adopting more of the logistical side of publishing, YDJ aims to provide help that can have a significant impact on the future of the journal. “By taking on some of the burden of managing that infrastructure, it allows CJEM to reinvest their energy into the more specialized and demanding areas that they’re experts in,” says Mrozewski.  

Among the areas Kennedy and CJEM are reinvesting their energies is dedicating time to publish and mentor early career researchers and non-academic voices. The editorial team is guided by questions like, “How do we provide coaching and support for practitioners writing for a journal for the first time? What does it look like to provide constructive and coaching peer reviews for early career researchers, and helping practitioners get their feet under them when it comes to rigorously documenting their lived experiences and lessons learned from real-life disasters?”

The goal is to get new voices into the field of emergency management and knowledge production to ensure there is a representative cross-section of perspectives not limited by experience, background or academic record.

“What we’re really excited to see is people using this knowledge and breaking down those walls between academic knowledge production and how people actually do practise in this field,” Kennedy says. “We think of our readership as being not just academics but also practitioners – fire managers, paramedics, emergency managers, and other professionals and community beyond the academy. The journal is trying to advance knowledge, but also trying to do so in a way that is relevant to the people who are at the frontlines of the climate crisis.”

To aid real-world applications, where knowledge is often time-critical and life-saving, the journal is also leveraging YDJ’s help to shift from publishing once or twice a year on a fixed timeline and moving to continually open submission calls and publication of articles. That way, the journal can publish case studies, reports or timely studies quickly – and, often, in response to an ongoing or emergent disaster – in the aim to provide help as much as it can.

“The journal can play a role in helping to avoid injuries and loss of life and the impact to communities by sharing what we’re learning about how to build resilience and how to manage disasters,” says Kennedy. “We want to be able to say, ‘The research we’re doing and mobilizing is helping to avoid adverse impacts that would be happening if we weren’t here.’ That’s the gold standard.”

For Mrozewski, that is what he hopes YDJ can help facilitate, too. “I would love to see the journal flourish with a minimal of worrying about the basics,” he says. With the future direction of the journal – and YDJ’s help – that gold standard looks very achievable.

Robarts Centre celebrates 40 years of Canadian Studies

Many books standing upright, pictured from above.

Established in 1984, the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies is a long-standing Organized Research Unit of York University that supports specialized research on key dimensions of a critical, collaborative and interdisciplinary study of Canada. As evidence of its far-reaching impact, it has a membership of over 300 faculty and research associates from all of York’s 11 Faculties.

Lorna Marsden
Lorna Marsden

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Robarts Centre has released a special issue of its flagship publication, Canada Watch, edited by York University President Emerita Lorna Marsden, a Distinguished Fellow at the Robarts Centre. In it, a carefully selected group of thought leaders recount the history of the centre and its key evolutions in the study of Canada, as well as the establishment of the York’s research infrastructure over the past four decades.

“In this issue, you will find first-hand accounts of key milestones in the history of the Robarts Centre and of research at York University, including from President Emeritus Ian Macdonald and first Vice-President Research and Innovation Stan Shapson,” said Marsden. “It also shows how the study of Canada has evolved since 1984, and the central role the Robarts Centre has played in creating relationships among disciplines, students and faculty to make this possible.”

This special issue is the first of the centre’s many celebratory activities for this milestone year. To help make its important work available to all, the Robarts Centre is working with the York University Libraries (YUL) to release the online archives of Canada Watch, which has been regularly published since 1992. These public archives, hosted through YUL’s York Digital Journals (YDJ) program, will make accessible many issues that were previously only available in print.

“YDJ’s mission is to facilitate free and open access to the work of members of the York University community,” said Tomasz Mrozewski, YUL digital publishing librarian “The release of the Canada Watch archives on this platform gives our community access to significant contributions in the study of Canada over the past 30 years, with new features, including the ability to search back issues by author and theme.”

Other anniversary celebrations include hosting the 2024 International Canadian Studies Summit, being held online from June 10 to 14, in collaboration with the International Council for Canadian Studies and the Avie Bennett Historica Canada Chair in Canadian History.

Jean Michel Montsion

“In recent years, the Robarts Centre has paid particular attention to the lack of support to our colleagues who study Canada from outside of the country,” explained Jean Michel Montsion, director of the Robarts Centre, “and we see it as our responsibility to connect them to some of our experts and specialists.”

With that mission in mind, the free summit, which is open for registration now, will be an opportunity for emerging and established scholars to learn about, discuss and help draft recommendations for better support of the study of Canada abroad. The event will include a Summer School component, which will be attended by 17 graduate students selected from 13 different countries, with many sessions led by York faculty members.

For more information about 40th anniversary celebrations and how to take part, visit the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies website.

Announcement of new dean of York University Libraries

Scott Library

Voir la version francaise

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to inform the York community that, following a national and international search and consultation process with staff, faculty and students from across the University, Joseph Hafner has accepted our invitation to become dean, York University Libraries, commencing July 1, 2024. On April 30, the Board of Governors concurred with this recommendation and approved his appointment for a five-year term.

Joseph Hafner
Joseph Hafner (photo credit: Owen Egan and Joni Dufour).

Mr. Hafner comes to York University from McGill University Library, where he has served since 2007 as associate director and then associate dean, collection services.

He joined McGill in 2004 and was awarded full librarian status in 2020. Prior to his tenure at McGill, Mr. Hafner began his career in public librarianship in Indiana, in the United States, where he worked in cataloguing, liaison, partnership development, leadership training and database management.

Holding an master of library and information science from Indiana University, Mr. Hafner is extremely active in his profession. An engaged participant in library associations, he is currently a member of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), where he is Chair of the Linked Data Technical Review Group and a member of the Advisory Committee on Standards, and has previously served as member and Chair of other committees, including the Linked Data Technical Sub-Committee, the Acquisition & Collection Development Committee and the LGBTQ Special Interest Group.

He served as the vice-president of the International Association of Music Libraries and is a member of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, the American Library Association, Canadian Shared Print, HathiTrust and other professional associations. As an active scholar, Mr. Hafner has also served as editor of numerous publications, including series, journal issues and newsletters, as well as an editorial board member and author of conference proceedings and scholarly articles in important print and electronic journals and publications in academic librarianship.

At McGill, Mr. Hafner has been central to multiple transformational projects, including the construction of a new $33-million, off-site robotic storage facility, involving the absorption of 2.5 million books and journals – a process highlighted in a short video. He brings to York extensive experience in budget management and process improvement, along with knowledge of frontline library services and current issues facing libraries, including open access and the use of artificial intelligence.

To complete research commitments, Mr. Hafner will take a leave of absence for the first six weeks of his term, during which time Andrea Kosavic will continue in the position of interim dean. I am deeply grateful to Ms. Kosavic, who has ably served the role of interim dean for the Libraries since July 2023 and made very important contributions during a time of substantial change.

I look forward to working with Mr. Hafner as he brings his insight and expertise to this important role. I hope that all members of the York University community will join me in congratulating and welcoming him as a core member of the University’s academic leadership team.

I would like to thank the members of the search committee for their contributions to this important process.

Sincerely,

Rhonda Lenton
President & Vice-Chancellor

Joseph Hafner est nommé doyen des bibliothèques de l’Université York

Scott Library

Joseph Hafner est nommé doyen des bibliothèques de l’Université York

Chers collègues, chères collègues,

Joseph Hafner
Joseph Hafner (photo credit: Owen Egan and Joni Dufour).

J’ai le plaisir d’informer la communauté de York qu’à l’issue d’un processus national et international de recherche et de consultation auprès des membres du personnel, du corps professoral et de la communauté étudiante de l’Université, Joseph Hafner a accepté de devenir le doyen des bibliothèques de l’Université York, à compter du 1er juillet 2024. Le 30 avril, le conseil d’administration a entériné cette recommandation et a approuvé sa nomination pour un mandat de cinq ans.

M. Hafner vient de la bibliothèque de l’Université McGill où il a occupé successivement les postes de directeur associé (2007) et de vice-doyen des services des collections. Il y officiait depuis 2004 et a obtenu sa titularisation en 2020. Avant son mandat à McGill, il a travaillé à la Bibliothèque publique de l’Indiana dans les domaines du catalogage, de la liaison, du développement de partenariats, de la formation au leadership et de la gestion des bases de données.

Titulaire d’une maîtrise en bibliothéconomie et en science de l’information de l’Université de l’Indiana, M. Hafner joue un rôle très actif dans sa profession. Participant assidu des associations de bibliothécaires, il fait actuellement partie de la Fédération internationale des Associations de bibliothécaires et des Bibliothèques (IFLA) en tant que président du groupe de révision technique sur les données liées et membre du comité consultatif sur les normes. Il a été membre et a présidé d’autres comités, notamment le sous-comité technique dédié aux données liées, le comité d’acquisition et de développement des collections et le groupe d’intérêt spécial LGBTQ de l’IFLA.

M. Hafner a été vice-président de l’Association internationale des bibliothèques musicales et est membre de l’Association canadienne des bibliothèques musicales, de l’American Library Association, de Canadian Shared Print, de HathiTrust et d’autres associations professionnelles. Universitaire actif, il a également été rédacteur en chef de nombreuses publications, y compris des séries, des numéros de revues et des bulletins d’information, membre du comité de rédaction et auteur de comptes-rendus de conférences et d’articles scientifiques dans d’importantes revues et publications imprimées et électroniques dans le domaine de la bibliothéconomie universitaire.

M. Hafner a joué un rôle de premier plan dans de nombreux projets de transformation de McGill, notamment la construction d’un nouveau site d’entreposage robotisé hors campus de 33 M$, qui a permis de stocker 2,5 millions de livres et de revues. Vous pouvez visionner ici une brève vidéo sur ce projet. M. Hafner apporte à York une vaste expérience en matière de gestion budgétaire et d’amélioration des processus, ainsi qu’une connaissance des services de bibliothèque de première ligne et des défis auxquels les bibliothèques sont confrontées de nos jours, notamment le libre accès et l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle.

Afin de s’acquitter de ses engagements en matière de recherche, M. Hafner prendra un congé autorisé durant les six premières semaines de son mandat et Andrea Kosavic continuera d’occuper le poste de doyenne par intérim. Je tiens à exprimer ma profonde gratitude à Mme Kosavic qui assume brillamment le rôle de doyenne intérimaire des bibliothèques depuis juillet 2023 et a apporté des contributions majeures durant cette période de changements.

Je me réjouis de travailler avec M. Hafner qui mettra ses connaissances et son expertise au service de ce rôle important. J’espère que tous les membres de la communauté de York se joindront à moi pour le féliciter et lui souhaiter la bienvenue au sein de l’équipe de leadership pédagogique de l’Université.

Je remercie les membres du comité de recrutement pour leur contribution à ce processus important.

Sincères salutations,

Rhonda Lenton
Présidente et vice-chancelière   

Students create open educational resources to help future learners

Group of students working at a computer monitor BANNER

York University undergraduate students in the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program participated in an initiative to create open educational resource (OER) videos aimed at improving the practicum experience of future program participants.

Students in programs such as TESOL must often complete field placements in a wide range of environments – from post-secondary academic bridging programs to community-oriented Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada programs. Because these environments are unique, students are often unprepared for these teaching contexts.

Saskia Van Viegen
Saskia Van Viegen

That’s why the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics students in Professor Saskia Van Viegen’s TESL3300 class were assigned a project that could help.

Van Viegen’s 14 students received instruction on digital media creation, then formed groups to complete videos about the diversity of experiential education environments – culminating in the creation of four Creative Commons-licensed OER videos to help orient future English as a second language (ESL) teachers to their practicum. The students did this while completing their own field placement, gaining paid practicum experience and hands-on learning about digital media creation in the process.

Students Matthew Rawas, Tanishia Clarke, and Denise Suarez shre tehir Open Educational Resource video, which was filmed at the English School of Canada (ESC)
Students Matthew Rawas, Tanishia Clarke and Denise Suarez share their OER video.

“I think this kind of digital storytelling project is wonderful,” says Dawei Jin, one of Van Viegen’s students. “At first I wasn’t sure what the connection was between this work and teaching ESL. But after we started, we experienced challenges with collaboration, video editing – all things we didn’t know how to do. We struggled to tell our story, but eventually we figured it out. That’s exactly how ESL students will experience the process of learning English. This program helped me understand the difficulties encountered by our students.”

“This work increases access to work-integrated learning for students, especially equity-deserving students,” says Van Viegen. “It helps them feel more connected to each other, to their program and to a community, by offering enhanced opportunity for participation, stronger partnership with field placement hosts and greater integration with technology.”

ESL 3300 students Oshawnie Ralph and Nicole Cecotka introduce their video, which orients student teachers to doing pkacements in a Language Instructors for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program
Students Oshawnie Ralph and Nicole Cecotka introduce their video, which orients student teachers to doing placements in a Language Instructors for Newcomers to Canada program.

The project was a partnership between TESOL and York University Libraries’ Media Creation Lab, funded by the Co-operative Education & Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL) Innovation Hub program.

One of the co-founders of the Media Creation Lab, librarian Kris Joseph, sees the initiative as the culmination of a vision the Libraries had for the lab during its inception. “The lab launched in 2022, but I think Saskia’s project is a sign that the booster rockets have been ejected and the shuttle is heading out to explore space. This kind of work ticks all the boxes for us: digital literacy and media creation, experiential learning and the development of open, accessible resources for the benefit of others.”

Sarah Coysh, associate dean of digital engagement and strategy at York University Libraries, adds: “One of the biggest successes of this project was that the grant included funds for a dedicated librarian as well as additional library media lab staff to support the students’ learning and media creation work. Saskia’s foresight in this area ensured York University Libraries had the capacity to partner on this project, and this is a terrific model for future grants, the process for which we have outlined on our new library support for grant-funded research web page.”

The students’ videos, as well as their reflections on the project, are available on YouTube. In addition, full-resolution copies are being deposited into York’s institutional repository, YorkSpace, so they can be discovered and reused by other ESL teaching programs.

Open Education Month puts spotlight on accessible education

Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change students in class

March is Open Education Month, a time to celebrate open educational resources (OER), which are openly licensed, freely available educational materials that can be used, accessed, adapted and redistributed with limited restriction. York University’s engagement with OER has continued to expand and grow over the recent years, helping faculty create inclusive and adaptable learning environments while advancing a number of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) – specifically, UN SDG 4: Quality Education, UN SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities, and UN SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

In an upcoming series of webinars scheduled for this month, Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, an associate professor in linguistics at York and co-lead for Camerise, York’s French-as-a-second-language (FSL) hub, will spearhead efforts to promote the use of Camerise, H5P, and Pressbooks for developing inclusive OER for FSL and English as a second language (ESL). Supported by a $5,000 award from eCampusOntario, Scheffel-Dunand and her co-presenter, education technology consultant Sushumna Rao Tadinada, will deliver these webinars in both English and French.

“The events that York is hosting and participating in for Open Education Month show that the University is making great strides to support the University Academic Plan’s priority of Access to Success,” said Sarah Coysh, associate dean of digital engagement and strategy at York University Libraries. “Open educational practices in the classroom help provide students with access to course learning materials from the first day of classes. Our York eCampusOntario OER Rangers have also been instrumental in helping to spread awareness of open education on campus and providing faculty, staff, and graduate students with training and guidance on embedding these practices into their teaching and outreach programs,”

The first webinar, titled “Creating Accessible Interactive OER with H5P for Language Teaching (FSL and ESL),” on March 14 from 8 to 9 a.m., will demonstrate the use of the Canvas (LMS) and H5P platforms to design massive open online courses (MOOCs) – open-access courses with unlimited participation – in both English and French, focusing on the values of openness and diversity.

The subsequent events will delve deeper into using Pressbooks and H5P to publish interactive and inclusive learning modules.

The second and third event, titled “Libérer la puissance de l’apprentissage interactif et inclusif avec Pressbooks et H5P en FLS et ESL,” will be offered first as a webinar and then as a hands-on workshop by Scheffel-Dunand and Tadinada Ra. Delivered in French, the sessions will illustrate using Pressbooks to publish collections of training modules developed with H5P and made accessible on Lumi, H5P.com, HTML or in PDF format. The two events focus on how to conceptualize the interoperability between various tools and publishing platforms such as H5P or Pressbooks to foster accessible and interactive learning, from K-12 to post-secondary education.

Interested individuals can attend the March 21 webinar from 8 to 9 a.m. or the March 28 hands-on workshop from 8 to 9:30 a.m.

“These webinars and workshop have been co-designed with Ontario educators to ensure stakeholders in FSL and ESL in the province and beyond explore how to author high-quality content and why it matters that such content be discoverable, reproducible and modified for localized contexts to meet community needs for language and culture,” said Scheffel-Dunand.

During the first week of March, eCampusOntario – a nonprofit organization supporting technology-enabled teaching, learning and innovation at Ontario’s publicly funded universities, colleges and Indigenous institutes – will also be hosting several webinars to promote OER and open educational practices. Charlotte de Araujo, an assistant professor in York’s Faculty of Science, and Stephanie Quail, acting director of the Libraries’ Open Scholarship department, were accepted into eCampusOntario’s OER Ranger program last August, making them York’s institutional champions of the use of OER.

De Araujo will be speaking at the eCampusOntario Zoom webinar titled “Designing and Publishing OERs: Creator Panel Discussion” on March 7 from noon to 1 p.m.

“The OER Ranger program has provided us with the opportunity to share the benefits of OERs with our academic community, promoting a collaborative dialogue between stakeholders and encouraging OER integration in our teaching practices,” says de Araujo. “Being able to implement OERs, whether it is a textbook chapter or an ancillary resource to review course content, can be one solution to help alleviate cost challenges, enabling students to freely revisit course material, fostering lifelong learning for all stakeholders.”

Quail adds, “Being an eCampusOntario OER Ranger has provided me with the opportunity to build my network of open education advocates across Ontario, while also co-creating events at York University with my fellow ranger to support faculty, staff and student engagement with open educational practices.”

As York University continues to champion OER and open educational practices, it exemplifies its commitment to accessible and inclusive education, paving the way for innovative pedagogy and community-driven learning initiatives.

Teaching Commons’ program joins forces with University of Guelph

books on grass rustling pages

By Elaine Smith

Participants in the Teaching Commons’ Reading for Teaching program at York University got a glimpse of the commonalities and differences in teaching practice at another institution thanks to a collaboration with a similar group at the University of Guelph during the Fall 2023 term.

Scott McLaren
Scott McLaren
Lisa Endersby
Lisa Endersby

Reading for Teaching is an informal opportunity for colleagues from across campus who are interested in reading and talking about teaching. A type of book club that focuses on works dealing with pedagogy, the program is the brainchild of educational developer Lisa Endersby and teaching and learning librarian Scott McLaren.

The two started the group pre-pandemic in 2019, building on early iterations of a Teaching Commons Journal Club facilitated by Endersby, and it has been running in the fall and winter terms ever since.

Members read works, both fiction and non-fiction, related to teaching and meet monthly to discuss the ideas set forth in the reading and how they relate to each individual’s experiences in the classroom.

Earlier this year, Endersby discovered that educational development colleagues at the University of Guelph in the Office of Teaching & Learning ran a similar group, and she suggested collaborating. She and McLaren talked with the two Guelph group leaders – educational developers Jenn Reniers and Christie Stewart – and tested the waters this fall.

Jenn Reniers is on the left; Christie Stewart on the right
Jenn Reniers (left) and Christie Stewart (right).

“One of the strengths of the group is that it brings people together from across the University and allows discussion among people at all levels of the profession, from teaching assistants to tenured, full professors,” McLaren said. “By reaching out to another institution, it takes the group to another level, making it even more diverse.”

Their Guelph counterparts agreed.

“Within the university, context is important, and it’s interesting to talk to people from different contexts,” said Reniers. “Our two institutions are different, in terms of commuter students versus students who live in residence, size and programs offered. We were interested in continuing our own club while connecting with others from different contexts.”

Stewart added, “Many of the books we read were based on research from the United States. By talking with each other, it helped us work through whether the differences were due to a difference in our own university and theirs or if it reflects differences between post-secondary education in Canada and the U.S.”

The leaders met in August to consider how they could work together and still maintain the individuality of their programs. Since Guelph faculty meet bimonthly and York’s monthly, they decided to make introductions asynchronously at the start of the term and meet as a group at the end of the term, separately discussing the chosen book in the intervening months. The book they selected was Relationship Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College by Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).

“There are a lot of institutional structures that can facilitate or hinder connection,” McLaren said. “It’s interesting to talk about this across different universities and discuss what works and what doesn’t.”

The leaders of each group maintained a strict “whatever is said in the group stays in the group” policy to encourage openness and honesty and allow people to drop their guards when they met unfamiliar colleagues.

“In a group like this, you come face-to-face virtually with people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet and you don’t want to worry that you might be sitting across from them in a meeting,” McLaren said.

In September, the two groups used Padlet, a virtual bulletin board software, to introduce themselves to each other individually. Throughout the term, participants were able to post comments about the readings, although the groups met separately.

“Throughout the term, we updated each other about the conversations that were taking place,” said Stewart of the leaders.

The leaders also met to arrange December’s online joint session, creating reflection questions and planning for breakout sessions, as well as a large group discussion. The December gathering featured discussions about such topics as the impact of having a third space besides the classroom or home to meet and how to create a welcoming environment in large classes, even if one-on-one connections weren’t possible.

“It was very useful,” Stewart said. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when bringing in others after 12 weeks of building our own bonds, but I didn’t find reluctance. People were willing to contribute, and it offered validation of their experiences by people at another institution.”

Endersby agreed.

“Despite our sense of working in a York bubble, the Guelph participants felt the same way about some of the challenges and opportunities inherent in relationship-rich education. It was affirming for me.”

York’s Reading for Teaching program begins its winter term program on Jan. 16. For more information and to register your participation, complete the registration form.

Digital Library launches new upgrades, marking 10-year anniversary

hand holding magnifying glass with colorful background

In alignment with its 10-year anniversary, the York University Digital Library (YUDL) has introduced new software upgrades that bring increased accessibility and visibility to its cultural and heritage collections, protect future acquisitions and enable public exploration of more than one million unique objects.

The new extensive upgrades to the Digital Library platform include a full migration of the University’s existing collections, and the integration of a user interface that provides easy access to content by type, location, subject, and creator, and is supported by a search engine for more general queries.

The updates reflect the YUDL’s ongoing goal to be open to the public and provide low-barrier access to materials not often seen outside the walls of a physical archive, a mission it has pursued for a decade, serving as a preservation platform for unique collections of digital objects – including photos, videos, audio and text records in many formats – that reflect Toronto’s cultural heritage and the work of York researchers.

“York’s archivists collaborate with faculty and graduate students to build unique collections that preserve the cultural heritage of Toronto’s richly diverse society. The Digital Library allows us to share these documents with global diasporas to promote discussion and understanding of issues shared by people separated by oceans and continents, especially at a time when travel is more challenging,” says Michael Moir, university archivist, York University Libraries.

In its lifespan, it has grown to house 147 collections featuring a breadth of materials, including: photographs and interviews from politician and community activist Jean Augustine‘s collection; more than 1,300 recordings of Iranian radio programs from 1956 through 1979; digitized maps from York’s Map Library and the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections; and nearly 18,000 digitized photographs.

Furthermore, the collections in the Digital Library provide visibility to the materials of marginalized and equity-seeking communities, whose histories are still under-represented in online spaces. Digital objects from BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, Indigenous, immigrant and women’s communities, as well as a reflection of a broad range of social and economic statuses, can be surfaced using the platform. For example, the Burmese Colonial Cultures Collection provides access to rare books, pamphlets and journals published in Burma (Myanmar) between 1874 and 1930. The Egypt Migrations: a Public Humanities Project collection provides access to multimedia resources that document the history and activities of Coptic immigrants in Canada and the Egyptian diaspora. Other unique collections include the Kenneth Shah fonds, which provide access to organizational documents and promotional materials related primarily to the Caribana Festival, and the Mariposa Folk Foundation fonds, which provide access to digitized and born digital recordings, photos and other festival materials.

“The Digital Library offers a vital space to preserve cultural materials and make them available to groups who would otherwise be denied access,” says Alicia Turner, associate professor of humanities and religious studies. “In the midst of war in Burma/Myanmar and the military regime’s long-standing practices of censorship and suppression of education, we are able to preserve materials and make them available to students, scholars and activists inside the country and around the world.”

In addition to providing public access to rich archival material, the YUDL serves as an entry point to the much larger collection of physical items at the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, housed within York University Libraries.

“The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme reminds us that the world’s documentary heritage belongs to us all, and that the sharing of documentary heritage fosters dialogue and mutual understanding between people and cultures. York University Digital Library is integral in helping York University to advance this important mission,” states Andrea Kosavic, interim dean, York University Libraries.

Questions or comments about the YUDL’s new interface or collections can be directed to the Digital Library. Note: the YUDL has a strict Collection Policy, which can be viewed here.

Special exhibit celebrates York’s contribution to technological breakthrough

MCM Model 70 Microcomputer designed and built in Canada from 1972-74 (Kingston and Toronto), AC and/or battery power, two tape cassettes for programs and storage, plasma display screen (credit: Nash Gordon/Wikimedia Commons)

A new exhibit at York University’s Steacie Science and Engineering Library celebrates the history of technology and highlights York’s contributions to a milestone innovation more than 50 years ago.

Zbigniew Stachniak
Zbigniew Stachniak

On Sept. 25, 1973, members of the Canadian press gathered at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto to witness what would become one of the most significant events in the history of computing in Canada. In the hotel, a Toronto-based electronics company, Micro Computer Machines (MCM), unveiled its MCM/70 computer – noted as the world’s first personal computer, and one of the first microcomputers.

“What MCM introduced that day was not only its portable personal computer but also a new computing paradigm that challenged the domination of massive and expensive mainframe computers requiring the kind of space and financial resources that could only be mustered by large corporations,” says Zbigniew Stachniak, an associate professor at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering and expert on computer history. “Small PCs, claimed MCM, would redefine the relationship between society and computers and make widespread, personal information processing a reality.”

The development of this groundbreaking technology is also traced back to York, with two former employees of the York University Computing Centre (located in the Steacie Science and Engineering Library) among the key software engineers working on the MCM/70 project. Gord Ramer and Dom Genner worked at York University before joining MCM. While at York, they developed the York APL programming language and that proved critical for the writing of software for the MCM/70 computer.

The Sept. 25, 1973 announcement of the MCM/70 in Toronto's Royal York Hotel (from left: Mers Kutt, Gordon Ramer, Edward (Ted) Edwards and Reg Rea with a prototype of the MCM/70. (Photo by Parkway Production courtesy of York University Computer Museum)
The Sept. 25, 1973 announcement of the MCM/70 in Toronto’s Royal York Hotel (from left: Mers Kutt, Gordon Ramer, Edward (Ted) Edwards and Reg Rea with a prototype of the MCM/70. (Photo by Parkway Production courtesy of York University Computer Museum.)

The MCM/70 @ 50 exhibit, organized by the York University Computer Museum and York University Libraries, celebrates the momentous appearance of the MCM/70 computer – a technological marvel that offered an early glimpse of a new digital reality. It pays tribute to the makers of the MCM/70 for their contributions to personal computing.

Curated by Stachniak – who authored a book titled Inventing the PC: The MCM/70 Story – the exhibit features a complete line of MCM computers from the York University Computer Museum’s MCM collection, including an MCM/70 computer and its first prototype. Among the exhibited images are those taken during the unveiling of the computer in Toronto, and those depicting former MCM engineers reunited with the MCM/70 computer, reflecting on the creativity, enthusiasm and dedication it took to realize their personal computer concept and deliver their creation into the new world of personal computing.

The exhibit opens on Tuesday, Nov. 14 with a special event at 4 p.m. in the Steacie Science and Engineering Library at York University’s Keele Campus. To learn more about the MCM70 @ 50 exhibit, visit the online catalog here.