Celebrate Ada Lovelace’s legacy at Libraries’ Wiki Edit-a-Thon
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Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of women’s achievements in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Lovelace was a 19th-century English mathematician and writer who also happened to be the very first computer programmer. She wrote what were essentially computer programs for the analytical engine that computing pioneer Charles Babbage conceptualized, but never actually created. Her contributions and achievements had been largely overlooked – an issue that continues to exist for women in many fields, especially science.
Dawn Bazely
For the seventh time, York University Libraries – in collaboration with Professor Dawn Bazely from York’s Faculty of Science – will join the global celebration of Ada Lovelace Day with an event open to everyone with an interest in STEM subjects and the contributions of women.
The Ada Lovelace Day Women in Science Wikipedia and Wikidata Edit-a-Thon will take place on Thursday, Nov. 3 from noon to 3 p.m. online. Participants will have the opportunity to join an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students to create, expand and improve Wikipedia entries and Wikidata items about women in STEM, who are typically underrepresented.
“Wikipedia edit-a-thons help us rediscover the contributions of women in STEM over the centuries,” said Bazely.
In order to create a positive change, this informal workshop will critically examine the information represented on Wikipedia and Wikidata, while simultaneously providing hands-on editing experience. Those interested are invited to drop by any time. No experience is necessary, with training to be provided during the event.
“We want to engage the York community in a fun and easy way that really does make a difference in the representation of women,” said data visualization and analytics Librarian Alex Wong, an event co-organizer. “By editing Wikipedia and Wikidata, we can impact not only these platforms directly, but also indirectly impact how women get represented in larger technology projects like Google’s Knowledge Graph.”
“By improving how women in all the various STEM fields are covered on Wikipedia, just about anyone can make a concrete contribution towards making the world a better place,” said scholarly communications Librarian John Dupuis, another event co-organizer.
Opening our eyes to the possibilities of OER
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The decision to devote this issue of “Innovatus” to Open Educational Resources (OER) is a deliberate one. Across Canada, there is a national conversation happening about how academic institutions use OER, support OER adoption and creation in the classroom, and how OER facilitate innovative pedagogy.
Joy Kirchner, dean of Libraries
As the articles in this issue of “Innovatus” show, instructors at York University have already made great strides in adopting and creating OER.
There is a real opportunity for York University to be a leader in open education. In fact, I will be hosting a pivotal National Open Education Strategy Summit, Nov. 9 and 10, at York University. This event will gather major stakeholders across the country, including representatives from key national higher education organizations such as Universities Canada, Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), Vice-Presidents Teaching & Learning Table Canada (VPTL Canada), Campus Books Canada, Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association (OTESSA), the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), Student Union Etudiante, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, eCampusOntario and BCCampus. As well, faculty, librarians, educational developers and administrators from across the country will be attending to discuss how a federal strategy can be developed to support the adoption, adaptation and creation of OER on a national scale.
Open Education is a pedagogical philosophy that removes access barriers to education. OER are openly licensed, freely available educational materials that can be used, accessed, adapted and redistributed with no or limited restrictions. OER come in a variety of formats, including textbooks, courses, multimedia, streaming video, data and supplementary materials. As the COVID-19 pandemic required courses to pivot to an online format, instructors demanded more online resources, a situation that put OER into the spotlight.
Here at York University, there is a strong interest in open education. We actively support the adoption and creation of OER. I currently co-chair York’s Open Education Steering Committee (OESC) with Will Gage, associate vice president teaching & learning. The OESC focuses on coordinating and promoting the creation, mobilization, and discovery of OER produced by the broader York community, as well as investigating avenues towards adopting open course materials to enhance the student experience at York University.
In fact, open education and OER dovetail perfectly with York’s University Academic Plan (UAP). The UAP’s priority, From Access to Success, calls for the University to support students from all backgrounds in their educational journeys. OER are one of the tools that can help make the university environment more accessible to students by providing access to course learning materials from the first day of classes, for free.
Incorporating OER into the curriculum also helps the University advance the UAP priority, 21st century learning, as OER can help make York a more attractive learning environment for students since these resources are not only free, but instructors can also tailor them to the specific learning needs of York students. Finally, open educational practices also help York instructors, staff and students contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG). Using OER in the classroom helps instructors contribute to UN SDG 4: Quality Education, as it promotes no cost open access to teaching and learning resources. OER are embraced by UNESCO they encourage inclusive and equitable quality education and are a means to facilitate international cooperation. The York community has the opportunity to directly contribute to UNESCO’s OER in action program with linkages to other UN SDGs.
Ultimately, open educational practices herald a new way of thinking about teaching and learning, one that embraces a spirit of sharing and exchange where authors use open licenses that empower other instructors to share, reuse and even remix their learning resources to create custom learning experiences for students.
As you read through the stories in this issue, join the York University Libraries, the OESC and instructors engaged in this area in imagining a world where educators share and innovate through building upon each other’s teaching and learning resources to create a more equitable, inclusive learning environment. Then, take the next step and get involved. York has a robust group of people supporting the creation, adoption and adaptation of OER, and we encourage all York instructors to explore how OER can enrich the student experience in your classroom and beyond.
Joy Kirchner Dean of Libraries
An Open Educational Resources mini-course offers innovative options for York instructors
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By Elaine Smith
The Open Educational Resources mini-course provides instructors with the necessary background knowledge and skills to engage with innovative, open pedagogical tools.
Stephanie Quail
As busy as York University instructors are, it’s worth carving out the time for a new four-week mini-course as it provides the necessary tools to create or incorporate OER into courses, says Stephanie Quail, scholarly communications librarian.
“OER can save you time,” said Quail. “There are OER repositories that include high-quality teaching and learning resources. Instructors can either use the materials as is, or depending on the open license, they can revise and remix the content.”
Quail and colleague, Sarah Coysh, director of the Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Infrastructure Department, developed the course in 2020 at the behest of the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) steering committee. Any faculty member who receives an AIF grant is now encouraged to take the course and starting this fall, the course will be open to all instructors at York University.
OER are openly licensed, freely available educational materials that can be used, accessed, adapted and redistributed with no or limited restrictions. The online OER course, which will start in late November, will be offered by York University Libraries both synchronously and asynchronously. The four module mini-course covers a variety of valuable topics:
OER 101: What is OER? Including examples of OER and how they benefit students and faculty.
Copyright & Creative Commons licenses: An exploration of the range of open licenses available to creators and how to choose a licence that makes the most sense for their project.
Finding and evaluating OER: How to find OER for your subject areas and evaluate them.
Create or adapt pre-existing OER: Learn how to create your own OER or adapt those already online.
Quail says the course is designed to not be onerous, given the other demands on instructors’ time. Completing assignments is optional and assignments are structured to help faculty walk away from the course with a game plan for creating or using OER in their courses.
Sarah Coysh
The York University Libraries website also has a resource available that explains the procedure for depositing your OER into YorkSpace, York’s own institutional repository. Lukas Arnason, assistant professor of French studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional studies (LA&PS), took the OER training and said it was “the best professional training I’ve received at York. It was a cut above. I came out of it feeling that I had a handle on something that had been a complete mystery to me before. It was really empowering.
“I loved the way the course was organized. The separate modules were nicely self-contained and they built on one another.”
He was pleased to have the chance to work with H5P, a platform for building resources and something to which he hadn’t been exposed previously. “Rather than hand students a massive textbook, you can offer them a mix of resources and make lessons interactive,” Arnason said. “It’s especially useful for language professors, because you can build electronic components for practise and reinforcement outside the classroom.”
Sophie Bury, director of Learning Commons and Reference Services in the York University Libraries, took the training as part of a 2020 AIF grant to develop the Student Guide to Group Work.
“The excellent OER training program … formed the backbone behind this project and enabled us to take this guide to a new level by equipping our team with the skills needed to make this a true OER, featuring original content, the adaptation of existing OER, and best of all, by moving us beyond an initial conception of an exclusive focus on the York community, to ensure academic colleagues internationally can share or adapt this resource in line with the terms of our creative commons license,” Bury said.
Mary-Helen Armour
Mary-Helen Armour, an associate professor who teaches planetary science courses in the Faculty of Science, has been using OER for years and finds them an invaluable tool. She learned by doing, working with colleagues in professional associations in workshops and at conferences to test them and adjust them to her needs.
“In recent years, eCampusOntario has started supporting the development of OER, but they don’t have a discipline-specific focus,” she said. “The OER I use are ways to give students a different experience beyond multiple choice tests in the areas I teach. The OER also allow you to use current scientific data in some fairly simple ways, so students feel connected with how scientists actually do things.
“For instance, I can try to tie assignments into recent satellite space missions to show students how scientists use the data, or to slides created by mission experts where we can talk about the mission’s impact. OER slide sets from groups like NASA are great for those of us who don’t have time to assemble slick graphics. They make for a much richer student experience.”
York faculty create Open Educational Resources, advancing UN SDGs
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By Angela Ward
Faculty develop innovative Open Educational Resources (OER) that are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and reveal the positive impact on teaching and learning.
Faculty members who are engaged in the process of creating OER reveal the impact this has on the teaching and learning experience, both in the classroom and beyond. They note that the interactive resources provide a tremendous opportunity for both instructors and students to learn and adapt as the world becomes increasingly more digitized.
Raymond Mar
Raymond A. Mar, associate professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, and the creator of OER tutorials for data analysis, notes the financial difficulties students face when it comes to purchasing expensive textbooks. He says that OER not only reduce costs for students but also increase access to a wider audience, aligning with UN SDG 1 (no poverty) and UN SDG 4 (quality education).
“I think that making these resources more accessible increases the likelihood that they’ll be used more widely, which can really magnify your impact,” says Mar.
The OER tutorials he created are grouped in the resource “Research Methods: Interactive Demonstrations in ‘R’ at York (ReMInDeRY),” and are designed to help students learn a statistical programming language called R.
Mar explains that learning this software can be quite challenging for students as they move from a point-and-click interface to writing lines of code. R is becoming the predominant way of analyzing data for many fields, and being able to analyze data using R is a valuable skill to have in the workplace. When he first reviewed the available introductory tutorials for R, Mar thought that they remained intimidating.
“Even downloading and installing the software can be tricky for people,” he explains. “I created these tutorials to be the smoothest and easiest on-ramp to learning R, with everything available in a web browser window and no need to install any software.”
In this OER, students visit the website link, and receive an introduction to the basics of R with easy-to-understand language and quizzes to show their progress. From these tutorials, students can move onto learning more advanced skills in the software.
As a result of R being open source and free, packages have been created to improve its capabilities in creating interactive maps and websites. Mar points out how R can contribute to other SDGs by allowing users to produce persuasive data graphics that can speak to SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and SDG 13 (climate action).
Similarly, Tsvetanka Karagyozova, assistant professor (teaching stream), Department of Economics, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), sees connections to many SDGs in the OER she developed with an interdisciplinary team.
Tsvetanka Karagyozova
“I was interested in creating OER because textbooks and peer-reviewed course materials are the gold standard in economics but over time they become more expensive,” adds Karagyozova. “At York, I typically leave one copy of the textbook required for the course on reserve at the Scott Library, so I can see how well-used that textbook is.”
Karagyozova was part of a group of York collaborators, including Ida Ferrara, associate professor, LA&PS, and Edward Furman, professor, Faculty of Science, and Ricardas Zitikis, an associate professor of statistics from Western University. They also secured support from research assistants, a project manager and Xpan, an external contractor for the virtual reality (VR) experiment.
United under the Risk and Insurance Studies Centre (RISC) at York, they received funding from eCampusOntario Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS) program to develop a fully online course, Economics of Insurance and Decision Making Under Risk, accompanied by a VR behavioural lab. Because this OER uses a Creative Commons licence, it allows others to freely adopt, adapt, and build on the materials.
“Some of the SDGs are embedded in the course materials,” Karagyozova explains. “One of the modules, for example, is dedicated to microinsurance and economic growth. We look at how microinsurance can promote sustainable and inclusive growth in developing countries, serving as a risk mitigation mechanism that can break the poverty cycle and elevate women out of poverty.” This directly addresses UN SDG 1 (no poverty) and UN SDG 5 (gender equality, and empowering women and girls).
She adds that with the high cost of textbooks, students in developing nations sometimes do not have access to basic learning materials. OER within niche fields like hers can be shared with learners globally, opening them up to the world.
Eric Armstrong
Eric Armstrong, chair and associate professor, Department of Theatre, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), also touches on the global reach OER can have on communities. His open textbook, Lexical Sets for Actors, is internationally accessible and has garnered interest from the United Kingdom (U.K.), fulfilling a need they have for accent training.
“There are lots of resources to teach people accents and phonetics (the sounds of language) but the lexical resources available are outdated, buried in a philosophy and pedagogy that’s often biased towards a standard speech,” he explains.
Armstrong says he is open to working with others to make variations of the book for different audiences and needs. He has even received feedback from his U.K. partner on changes they would like to see. Because Armstrong’s OER is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, his OER allows for other instructors and educational institutions to remix and adapt the OER to tailor it to their local teaching context.
He approached the creation of the textbook learner with variability in mind. There are sample sentences for actors to practice their accents, which employs a creative writing component. It was also written with accessibility and many demographics in mind, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and non-binary communities. The OER’s inclusivity impacts areas outside the university as well.
“I’m also using the book with colleagues who are learning to be this type of teacher or trainer,” he adds. “Not working just in university settings but with professional actors, coaching them for roles. This resource stretches beyond the walls of academia.”
In looking towards the future of OER, Armstrong says, “The OER we are creating now will serve as models for others to get involved and to show that it can be done. People start to think differently about the nature of teaching, the nature of resources and about the nature of our responsibility to create a different kind of learning experience.”
OER projects developed by York faculty for eCampusOntario’s virtual learning strategy
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By Elaine Smith
York University, through its talented faculty, contribute to eCampusOntario’s virtual learning strategy Open Educational Resources (OER) collection.
In December 2020, the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities unveiled its Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS), an initiative designed “to drive growth and advancement in virtual learning across the province’s post-secondary institutions,” and York University faculty members have been happy to contribute.
The ministry’s calls in 2020 and 2021 for expressions of interest presented instructors with the opportunity to create projects that expand “options for traditional and lifelong learning through the accelerated use of both online and hybrid learning.” VLS project leads are tasked with “fostering collaborative practices and emphasizing reusable and adaptable resources that can be shared through a common repository.” In other words, VLS project leads created open educational resources (OER) and other resources that have been made freely available through eCampusOntario’s Open Library.
Robert McKeown
Robert McKeown, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) answered the call. He joined forces with Catherine Pfaff, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Queen’s University, and Sumon Majumdar, associate professor and head of the Economics Department at Queen’s University, to create two asynchronous VLS courses to help social science students bridge the gap between high school and university mathematics, probability and statistics. Anita Lam, associate dean, teaching & learning in LA&PS at York University, helped gamify the GAMES: Intro Statistics modules. All members of the York University community can now access the modules via eClass.
“Our aim was to comprehensively cover concepts for a diverse set of learners, whether they are high school students who come to university without a strong background or just want to refresh their knowledge, or mature learners who are looking to upskill,” said Majumdar.
The courses, named GAMES 1 and 2, offer a Gentle Approach to Math, Excel and Statistics. Together they offer a comprehensive and practical refresher for students in the social sciences, economics and business. One module, GAMES: Intro Statistics, has been gamified to enhance student learning and retention.”
“Because of the pandemic and the need to teach online, I gained some experience with digitizing classes, as well as the pros and cons,” said McKeown. “I learned how to create content at home and got a sense of how to create content on a budget.”
Anita Lam
The team is making the courses practical, using problems that are relatable, using examples from subjects such as business, politics and sports. Each has multiple modules that allows students to focus on one particular topic at a time and teaches them to interpret data when it appears in social science coursework or in the news in the form of survey data with a margin of error, for example.
To ensure that the courses were understandable and workable with York’s eClass platform, McKeown hired students to review the modules. The statistics module is now live on eClass, with the others rolling out during the year.
“This is an innovative pedagogical and practical approach to teaching math with a focus on the social sciences, which can be pretty daunting for students,” said Majumdar.
Meanwhile, Marcia Annisette, former associate dean, academic, at the Schulich School of Business, and her colleagues worked collaboratively with Itah Sadhu and the team at the Blackhurst Cultural Centre to create an online Black Youth Entrepreneurship course. The online course, “provides participants with the tools for developing successful businesses while decolonizing the business curriculum and providing students with role models to whom they can relate and perspectives that are relevant to their experience as Black people,” said Annisette.
Marcia Annisette
Each of the seven modules consists of a lecture by a York faculty expert on the topic; a fireside chat between a leading Black entrepreneur, a faculty member and a Black graduate student to discuss the entrepreneur’s life and work history, as well lessons from the topic at hand; and Black student and community perspectives, providing insights and comments that reinforce the day’s lessons.
“Each module will reflect the coming together of business academia and the Black community; and the theory of business and the practice of business as it relates to Black business and entrepreneurship,” said Annisette. “Given the chasm that exists between business – as a field of practice and as a field of study – and the Black community, the symbolic value of demonstrating these collaborations cannot be understated.”
By the end of the course, students will have used their ideas to develop a business plan and a pitch for an enterprise that can create both social good and economic gain.
“The objective of the course itself is to contribute to a more equitable society by making business education accessible to Black youth and by providing them with role models of success in business,” Annisette noted.
The course itself is designed for delivery via any modern, standards-based learning management system.
Andrew Skelton, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science, used the eCampusOntario funding to take the First Year Experience Learning Modules developed with a Faculty of Science fund and an Academic Innovation Fund grant and turn them into generic, widely available resources.
Andrew Skelton
The revised First Year Experience Learning Modules address three types of first-year student needs: mathematical skills (how to learn from homework problems, effective mathematical communication, multiple representations and other aids); study skills (avoiding procrastination, notetaking and the neuroscience of learning); and life skills (managing academic stress, how to send an email and combating perfectionism).
Skelton recruited partners from the University of Guelph and Western University to ensure that the modules were widely applicable to university students, despite the nuances of each institution. Most of the material has been developed by students at the three institutions with the professors providing supervision and quality control.
In order to ensure the modules could be posted online as OER, Skelton met with Patricia Lynch from the office of York’s general counsel, to ensure he understood the different Creative Commons licenses available, how to choose among them and how to track content and sources.
“I wanted to get the modules out to a wider audience,” said Skelton. “I’ve used them extensively in my courses, and I’m passionate about the content, so to see people pick it up and run with it will be huge.
“I would love to get feedback and see what others do with it.”
Libraries event celebrates ‘precious moments’ of Vivienne and Neville Poy
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On Oct. 17, Vivienne and Neville Poy will have dialogue with Jack Leong, associate dean of Libraries, to share the remarkable life stories that lead to their collaboration of the Precious Moments book project.
York University Libraries invite members of the University community to the event.
From their childhood memory of Hong Kong and Southern China, the stroke of luck that brought them to Canada, the remarkable services and achievements in their professions and community services, to their enthusiastic pursuit of gardening and photography, Vivienne and Neville Poy share with Leong the events that lead to their collaboration of the Precious Moments book project.
The Precious Moments of Vivienne and Neville Poy will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. on the second floor of Scott Library and will feature remarks from Joy Kirchner, dean of Libraries, and other University leaders.
The event will include a Q-and-A discussion, a book donation ceremony and reception. Proceeds from book sales at the event will support the development of distinctive collections at York University Libraries. Those interested in attending are asked to RSVP by Oct. 10.
“Vivienne and Neville Poy have a special relationship with the Libraries,” said Leong. “I am excited for members of the York community to join us and learn about their remarkable lives.”
Precious Moments is an art-quality coffee table book made of the finest quality materials showcasing the photography of fine art photographer Neville Poy and accompanied by the observations of nature and tranquility, including gardening techniques of Vivienne Poy.
Vivienne Poy is an author, entrepreneur, historian, fashion designer, board member of for-profit and non-profit institutions, and community activist. In 1998, she was the first Canadian of Asian heritage to be appointed to the Senate of Canada where she focused on gender issues, multiculturalism, immigration and human rights. She was instrumental in having the month of May recognized as Asian Heritage Month across Canada. She is Chancellor Emerita of the University of Toronto and the author/co-editor of numerous publications. Since her retirement from the Senate in September 2012, she remains an active participant in communities across Canada.
Dr. Neville Poy received his medical degree from McGill University in 1960. He completed his training in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the same university and practised his specialty in Toronto until his retirement in 1995. He played leadership roles in both medical and non-medical communities, receiving recognition for his contributions to medical education, the visual and the performing arts, the military, philanthropy and voluntarism.
This event is hosted by York University Libraries, with support from York’s Division of Advancement, and co-sponsored by York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and the York Centre for Asian Research.
Media Creation Lab’s Open House offers opportunity to explore content creation
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Take content creation and learning with media to the next level at this exciting, hands-on event, Oct. 4. Participants will have an opportunity to explore virtual reality, audio and video recording during the open house.
York University Libraries’ new Media Creation Lab (MCL) is inviting all members of the University community to a launch and open house event on Oct. 4, from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Scott Library Atrium at the Keele Campus.
The event will offer four interactive stations placed throughout the second floor of the Scott Library, where attendees will have the opportunity for hands-on access to audio and video recording equipment and virtual headsets, guided by MCL staff. Formal remarks will be given by Joy Kirchner, dean of Libraries, Carolyn Steele, assistant professor, Department. of Humanities, and Rianka Singh, assistant professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies.
The MCL is a 1700-square-foot lab offering students, faculty, staff, instructors and researchers access to high-end audio and video recording equipment, an audio-visual media creation space, dedicated virtual reality spaces, a sound-isolation audio booth, portable virtual reality headsets, and workstations for hands-on digital media production. It allows users to produce podcasts, virtual reality projects, music recordings, and other creative multimedia outputs. To view a video about the MCL, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU6IOhrown8.
The lab is part of York University Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Centre which is recognized for its leadership and innovation through equity, sustainability, and responsible citizenship.
“The Media Creation Lab supports consultation services for all students and faculty that coalesces the Libraries’ expertise in digital fluency. This includes content expertise in media creation and digital humanities to open access publishing expertise backed by a suite of publishing infrastructure and tools to enhance assignment production, teaching materials, scholarship, and student work,” said Kirchner. “Our experts are on hand to help our entire community engage with their material in digitally enhanced collaborative spaces.”
The MCL Launch and Open House will offer students the opportunity to explore media creation work for their fall assignments and will provide information about upcoming fall workshops for media creation skills development and related programming. The event is aligned with Digital Inclusion Week, Oct. 3 to 7.
“In alignment with York’s commitment to advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals we want to emphasize the launch of the MCL as one of the ways the Libraries are enhancing the use of enabling technology and promoting the inclusion of all members of the university community with equitable access to spaces, equipment and resources,” said Sarah Coysh, Acting Director, Digital Scholarship Infrastructure for York University Libraries.
Visit the MCL Launch and Open house event page for more information and to RSVP.
Contributions of the acclaimed economic theorist Nanak Kakwani will be celebrated Sept. 28
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The international event will feature a number of keynote presentations and is organized by Glendon Professors Omar F. Hamouda and Betsey Price. Pre-registration is required, all are welcome.
The two Glendon professors are playing an integral role in an international event to mark the contributions of the acclaimed economic theorist, Nanak Kakwani. The event, which will feature the launch of a special issue of theJournal of Income Distribution dedicated to Kakwani along with an accompanying celebratory event, will take place on Sept. 28 over Zoom, is open to the University community. Pre-registration is required and can be completed at https://tinyurl.com/yum23m6u.
Nanak Kakwani
The launch of the special issue of the Journal of Income Distribution in honor of Kakwani’s legacy on the “Study of Income Inequality, Poverty, and Tax Progressivity,” will feature contributions from an impressive number of keynote speakers, including economists and thought leaders Jacques Silber, Hyun Son, Stephen Jenkins, Nora Lustig, Gary Fields, Kunal Sen and Francisco Ferreira.
The gathering introduces the next issue of the journal, guested edited by Jacques Silber and Hyun Son, on the central theme of “Nanak Kakwani’s Legacy on the Study of Income Inequality, Poverty, and Tax Progressivity.”
Kakwani’s imposing and inspiring theoretical and empirical economic contributions are impressive, both in depth and breath. The central focus of his research is the development of measurement tools needed to evaluate poverty, inequality, and disparity and to provide the empirical evidence and policy guidance required to help lift the underprivileged from their deprivation and destitution. He has developed many statistical methods and sets of indices, along the lines of the Lorenz curve, the Gini coefficient, and social-welfare functions, that bear his name, as published in the top economics journals: Econometrica, Econometric Theory, Applied Econometrics, Applied Welfare Economics, Quantitative Economics, the International Economic Review, and many others, including the Journal of income Distribution, Journal of Economic Inequality, and the Review of Income and Wealth.
Aware that poverty has multidimensional characteristics and consequences, Kakwani has skillfully set out to disentangle its facets through theoretical and empirical methodologies. He investigates and studies the various aspects of deprivation and tackles each one from the angles of its specific impact on growth, taxation, standard of living, social protections, prices, labour opportunities or health prospects. In each of his studies, Kakwani’s intuitive approach is original and has pioneered empirical research in economic development.
Kakwani’s theoretical research in the concept of measurement was designed mostly for empirical performance application in specific case studies, in either one or a group of countries: poverty levels in Côte d’Ivoire, redistribution in Australia, poverty alleviation in India, aging in Africa, growth and the labour market in Brazil, cash transfers in African countries, inequality in Thailand, social pensions for the elderly in Sub-Saharan Africa, welfare in Ukraine, poverty program in China, and many other international comparison studies in welfare and growth performance. Dozens of examples of his studies are published in applied journals and various international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
Kakwani has advised many governments and worked for many international organizations, such as UN Development Program (UNDP) director and chief economist of what was then called the International Poverty Centre UNDP, consultant to the Welfare and Human Resources Division of the World Bank, and economist of the Brazilian Development Bank.
The Journal of Income Distribution is hosting the event in connection with the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim. The editorial office of the Journal of Income Distribution is housed at the Glendon Campus at York University. Its website, https://jid.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jid and its electronic publication are hosted by the Digital Scholarship Centre of York University Libraries.
A project in preservation: archiving digital documents, articles and images
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An important aspect of YFile‘s 20th anniversary is preserving its archived content for future generations at York University. What does the process involve when considering a digital publication with such a lengthy history? What should University community members consider when thinking of archiving their digital records?
To find out, YFile turned to the archivists at the University’s Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections Department of the York University Libraries (YUL). They are contributing their expertise to the YFile archiving project, which is of extraordinary proportions with more than 26,000 electronic posts in the publication and three accompanying binders with hundreds of images backed up on compact discs (CDs). Sitting down to answer our questions are Michael Moir, University archivist; JenniferGrant, archivist and Nick Ruest, digital assets librarian in the YUL.
Q. Why is it important to archive electronic newsletters, images and blogs such as YFile?
A. Unlike the minutes of Senate or other official University records that the archives is mandated to preserve for the long term, content like YFile documents a broad range of activities and news relating to all members of the York community – students, staff and faculty – with an eye to highlighting the people who make the University what it is, in all its multi-faceted complexity, packaged in an easily consumable, multi-media format. So, it’s important to preserve records that capture not only the content of information communicated from the University to its communities, but also the ever-changing format of that communication. For example, in the past, this type of information may have been disseminated through analog methods like newsletters or newspapers (published weekly, monthly or quarterly), reports, departmental memoranda, etc., which were easy to store and collect for the longer term. The relative ease and frequency with which information can now be shared means that there is not only much more content out there to keep track of, but it also requires concerted effort to capture and preserve for the long term, in large part because electronic media is much more fragile and ephemeral than similar information products that once were paper based.
The Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections Department is located in the Scott Library at the Keele Campus
In the archives, we can no longer expect this type of information to just come to us like once would have happened (when a community member would have boxed up their full run of departmental newsletters and reports, for example, and transferred them to us). Instead, we all (content creators, archivists and digital preservation managers) have an active part to play in ensuring that digital content being created now, which documents the activities and functions of the University in the present moment, can be easily accessed in the future to ensure that the historical record accurately reflects how the University operated in the early 21st century.
Q. What does the process for the experts in the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections to handle the YFile materials?
A. Like with all archival donations and transfers that come to the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, our focus is a dual one. Our first priority is to ensure that these materials can be safely and easily accessed. In this case, this means making copies of digital files without altering their contents and documenting what is on each photograph CD, capturing file titles and all the technical metadata that is available embedded in the CD, and creating checksums (used to verify the integrity and uniqueness of individual files). Once we’ve done this, the process begins to figure out what that content actually is and how to describe it so it can be discoverable to researchers and users (and us) via our descriptive database. During this process, we will want to match images to their corresponding issues of YFile and weed out duplicates.
Q. How long do you envision the project to archive YFile will take?
A. There is now a bi-monthly web crawl of the YFile site that takes several days to complete. This is an ongoing process. The management of the content that has been transferred via CD is a bit more complicated. As with many archival projects, the timeline will depend entirely on the availability of archives staff to do this work. In some ways, the first step, which is to copy and then transfer content from CD to server, will be the most time consuming, as it involves working with one CD at a time on a computer terminal that still has a CD drive, creating a manifest for each CD that documents its contents and creates checksums for each digital file (which will allow us to compare files to identify duplication), and then transfer these copies to a server for temporary storage. Once these digital files are backed up and more easily accessible, the appraisal work begins to determine what needs to be kept, then work to create descriptions of content that can be added to our archival database can begin, followed by transfer of the objects and related metadata to digital preservation platforms. There is no way to say for sure at this point how long this might take, but six months would be an optimistic guess, given our many competing priorities.
Q. Aside from the YFile website, where can University community members access the archived YFile materials?
A. York University Libraries has an instance of OpenWayback available here. For those unfamiliar with OpenWayback, it is the open source version of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Previous captures of the YFile website can be found here.
Q. Looking back, what should YFile have done with respect to archiving of its newsletters and content? What can University community members learn from the YFile experience?
A. Hindsight is always 20-20 and we all often must do the best we can with the resources available. The first step is always recognizing that something is worth saving and preserving. Once you take that important step, the next necessary step is finding allies to help you do this work. In this case, reaching out to York University Libraries will help to gain those allies and then get access to our resources and knowledge of best practices.
Q. In the last 20 years, the way we store and share information has evolved significantly. What are some methods of archiving that remain important today, and what are some of the methods that we have left behind?
A. This is a large question! I think the principles of archival practice have not changed, but the methodology and timelines for this work have. Archives still are responsible for ensuring the authenticity, preservation and accessibility of records of enduring value, and our methods for doing this work continue to change with the evolution of record formats and the progression from analog to digital. The bigger issue, however, is that people are producing these records at a rate not comparable to any moment in the past. We also don’t necessarily think about the digital records we create in the same way. Email replaced the letter, but one could argue that direct messaging and text messaging have replaced email – yet we don’t think of preserving our text messages in the way that we think of letters or even email. So, I think that information professionals have a much larger role to play in intervening early in the life of the record, in the lives of potential donors to archives (such as records creators in a university context), to ensure that we identify and then capture and preserve important information objects for future transfer to the archives. The consequences of not doing this will mean that important information either does not survive, or, if it does, it may be lost or hard to discover amidst gigabytes and terabytes of unorganized digital files. Successful archival practices will depend on archivists and records creators working together at an earlier stage in the lifecycle of the record to ensure the survival of important information, which is definitely a change from past practices where the archives would wait for the analog records to become inactive and then our work would start when those records entered our physical custody.
Q. What are the risks associated with not archiving electronic materials properly?
A. There is no such thing as a complete archive of anything, so even under the best circumstances, we never save everything we should or could or have perfect record-keeping practices. However, one of the biggest challenges in preserving digital records is accounting for the real specter of technical obsolescence. Not preserving your digital records properly in a basic sense really means not ensuring that digital files of value continue to be authentic and accessible when the media that houses it, or the software that opens it, or the hard drive that it lives on become obsolete or unworkable. This is already a challenge for archives that have digital records transferred to us that are either difficult or impossible to access because of these issues. One of the main things that digital records creators can do is be aware of the need to safely migrate forward their digital records to new hardware or storage media while it is still in active use, and if you don’t have the tools to do this yourself, figure out who can help you. We have yet to really understand what impact the transition from an analog to digital world has had on documentary heritage and the historical record in general.
Q. Looking forward, what should University community members consider for their electronic documents, images and newsletters? How should they contact you and what would you need from them?
A. The York University Common Records Schedule applies to both analog and digital records, so the first thing that York University staff and faculty should do is figure out what their obligations are for corporate recordkeeping by using this as a guide. Another piece of advice is to be proactive with your digital recordkeeping, whether they are records to be kept for the long term or for the short term. Think about what information will help future users of this content understand and use these records. One of the easiest things you can do is be consistent about file naming conventions and file formats that allow discoverability and access to digital content. Don’t wait until you’re in a recordkeeping crisis to reach out to us – collaborative problem-solving and information sharing is essential to the proper management and stewardship of digital records for long-term preservation. That said, if you don’t know what something is and why it’s worth keeping, don’t assume we will either – we rely on records creators to accurately identify and name digital records to make our work possible.
York University Libraries appoints new scholarly communications librarian
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On July 18, Priscilla Carmini joined the York University Libraries (YUL) for a two-year term as scholarly communications librarian.
Carmini joins the University Libraries from the Toronto District School Board where she served as a library systems technician.
Priscilla Carmini
She brings a wealth of experience from her time at University of Toronto Libraries where she served as a graduate student library assistant with the Information Technology Services department. She was also editor-in-chief of The iJournal, the student journal of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, serving in the role for two years, and was part of the organization committee for the 2020 and 2021 Student Journal Forum. Her professional experience also includes work as a freelance document accessibility editor, student curator with the Museums of Mississauga, and as an archival volunteer for The ArQuives and Royal Regiment of Canada.
In addition to her BSc in biomedical science from the University of Guelph, a master’s of information, archives and records management, and a master’s of museum studies from the University of Toronto, Carmini brings her passion for open access research, knowledge of institutional repositories, open educational resources, the scholarly publishing landscape, and deep experience with outreach and collaboration to YUL.
She enjoys volunteering and has been involved with organizations including Planned Parenthood Toronto, Habitat for Humanity, and the University Health Network. Carmini is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese.
