Three Minute Thesis 2014 registration is now open.  A preliminary heat schedule is available at http://3mt.grad.ubc.ca/schedule/ .

Curious about 3MT?  Come to the 3MT coaching session on Wednesday, Feb 12^th to learn more, practice presenting and learn tips for orally presenting your research.

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM , Live webinar

2:30 PM – 4:00 PM, in person (Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Lillooet Room)

To register, please visit: https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g2ef5

Registration is now open for:

GPS/SCARL Workshop: Two Group Comparisons and Beyond, Wednesday, February 12, 10:00am – 12:00pm

No prior statistical knowledge is assumed for this session; however, some mathematical formulas will be presented.

For a complete session description, visit: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/about-us/events/10639-gpsscarl-workshop-iii-two-group-comparisons-beyond

To register, please visit: https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g3069

There are still a few spaces remaining for this week’s Breaking Patterns of Procrastination

Thursday, February 3, 9:30am to 12:30pm

To register, please visit:  https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g3009

Drexel University College of Computing & Informatics Now Offering

Free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Introduction to Informatics

Taught by Monica Maceli, PhD, CCI Assistant Teaching Professor

Learn about field that’s the driving force behind our information world, at the intersection of information, people, and technology.

Course Features:

•  5-week course
•  Provides overview of the definition, history, and purpose of the field of informatics
•  Focuses on the users of information systems, the information that can be accessed through these systems and the social/organizational issues associated with the use of these systems
•  Examines why informatics is such an important field in today’s world by investigating how we organize, use, and develop information

Multicultural Resources for Diverse Populations

Taught by Vanessa Irvin Morris, EdD, CCI Assistant Teaching Professor and author of the award-winning book, The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Street Literature (ALA Editions, 2012)

Learn how libraries are responding to increased diversity in their communities and how they can improve multicultural resources.

Course features:

•  6-week course
•  Explores various literatures, materials, and online resources targeted towards diverse user populations in libraries and other educational organizations
•  Gives an overview of cultural competency models to provide a heightened understanding of the multiple identities library patrons, students, and customers encompass within any professional interaction
•  Geared toward librarians, educators, and all parties interested in a professional development experience with an immersive, reflective approach to reading diverse literatures representing various cultural groups

Courses begin February 24, 2014. Register today at: Drexel.coursesites.com

NOTE: These MOOCs are parsed representations of an undergraduate-level course offered in the BSIS curriculum (INFO 105 – Introduction to Informatics), and a graduate-level course offered in the Library & Information Science curriculum (INFO 780 – Multicultural Resources for the Diverse Populations) at the College of Computing & Informatics (CCI), College of Computing and Informatics at Drexel University. These MOOCs are not eligible for credit.  Those that complete the MOOC will receive a certificate of completion.

iSquares: A New Approach to Information Research and Education

Join us for a Webinar on Friday, February 7

FREE for ASIS&T members, $10 for non-members

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/webinars/Webinar-2-7-2014-register.html

This webinar introduces an arts-informed, visual approach to engage the concept of information afresh: the draw-and-write technique. Human subjects are asked to answer the question “What is information?” in the form of a drawing, generating a compact piece of visual data coined an “iSquare” (http://www.jennahartel.com/isquares.html). The webinar instructor, Dr. Jenna Hartel of the University of Toronto, has used the method to explore how people envision information (Hartel, in press, 2013a, 2013b). She also applies the approach in classrooms to help students, especially newcomers, theorize information (Hartel, 2014). Whether employed as a research method or pedagogical strategy, iSquares bring information science into the visual Information Age and create a richer multimedia genealogy for our central concept. The goal of the webinar is to help other information scholars and professionals experiment with arts-informed, visual methods and iSquares, specifically. First, the webcast outlines the theoretical framework, research design, and data-gathering specifications to produce iSquares for the purposes of information research. Then the session provides classroom activities and assignments to utilize iSquares for information education. The webinar also marks the launch of a website that displays the corpus of images gathered thus far (n=400 and growing). References: http://www.asis.org/Conferences/webinars/Webinar-2-7-2014-t5H7.pdf

This webinar is being sponsored by SIG-HFIS & SIG-USE.

Title:      iSquares: A New Approach to Information Research and Education
Date:     Friday, February 7, 2014
Time:     11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST

After registering you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer

Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet

North American Data Documentation Initiative Conference and Workshops:

The Conference

Research data management has become an important global issue as funding agencies, publishers, and disciplines increasingly require the sharing of publicly funded data. The Open Data movement treats curated data as a valuable resource available to support new research with the potential for new discoveries. Furthermore, the expectation that research findings can be replicated is pressuring researchers to make their data understandable and useable by others. Both the replication and reuse of research data is highly dependent on properly documented data. The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) provides two structured metadata specifications for describing the content and context of data about individuals or organizations (microdata) in the health, social, and behavioural sciences. This community-maintained standard for microdata is internationally recognized as a best practice in preparing, sharing, and preserving data.

Interested in learning more? Please join us in Vancouver for the second North American DDI Users Conference, to be held March 31-April 2, 2014. Organized by the University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas, the meeting will take place at at the Harbour Center, Simon Fraser University, with the theme “Documenting Reproducible Research.”

The Keynote Speaker for the conference is Ann Green. Ann is an independent research consultant focusing on the digital lifecycle of scholarly resources, including their creation, delivery, management, long-term stewardship, and preservation. She has significant history and experience with the DDI, serving on the original DDI committee in 1995 and coauthoring the first DDIspecification.

The conference will feature training sessions on Monday, March 31, and an opening reception on the evening of April 1. Monday’s training will cover an introduction to DDI in the morning and the use of DDI to document health-related data in the afternoon. Conference sessions focus on a wide range of innovative topics and projects — from field-testing multilingual clinical assessments using DDI to chaining together existing DDI tools to documenting qualitative data.

Registration and additional details available through http://www.rdl.sfu.ca/NADDI/