ORION Newsletter

April 2007

ORION completes core network upgrade with new equipment from Juniper Networks and JDSU
ORION completed a significant core network upgrade, expanding from 4,300 km to 5,800 kilometres, on March 15, which included fibre diversity and new optical and routing equipment. Ontario's R&E network installed next-generation optical gear from JDSU and new routers from Juniper Networks. The expansion involved new routes from North Bay to Peterborough and St. Catharines to London, with JDSU's WaveReady DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) optical gear. Juniper Networks' new M120 routing equipment was installed at ORION Points of Presence (PoPs) in Peterborough, North Bay, Toronto and London. The M120 gear supports next-generation Internet Protocol applications, including IPv6, MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) and QoS (Quality of Service). The expansion allows break-outs along the new routes to previously unconnected communities: Orillia and Huntsville along the North Bay to Peterborough route, and Vanessa, St. Thomas and Middleport along the St. Catharines to London route. The network upgrade, made possible with financial support from CANARIE, is very important to ORION's users since the new links add critical back-up and resiliency to the network. For more information, please read the official releases: ORION Selects Juniper Routing Equipment.pdf and ORION Selects JDSU Optical Equipment.pdf.

Brian Desbiens moves on
Brian Desbiens has completed his final term as a member of the Optical Regional Advanced Network of Ontario (ORANO) Board of Directors. Desbiens was among the original members of the Board when it was created in 2001 to establish the ORION network across Ontario. The former President of Fleming College attended his last meeting in Waterloo on March 29. Led by Board Chair Dr. Stan Shapson, Vice President Research and Innovation, York University, the board expressed thanks and formally recognized Desbiens' significant contribution to the organization over the years. ORION President/CEO Phil Baker noted that Desbiens helped lead the organization from its very beginnings to a solid footing as a self-sustaining organization providing critical infrastructure for Ontario's research and education community. Terry Mosey, past Executive Vice President of Bell Canada, takes over his duties as Board Secretary/Treasurer. The full list of ORANO board members is available on the ORION web site at www.orion.on.ca/about/board.

York first Canadian university to join World Community Grid
York University has become the first Canadian university to partner with World Community Grid - joining a group of more than 220 companies, associations, foundations, nonprofits and academic institutions. York University is encouraging its students, alumni, faculty and staff to contribute their idle PC time to assist humanitarian research by joining World Community Grid and by becoming a member of the York University Research team. The grid technology provides researchers with a readily available pool of computational power that can be used to help find cures for cancer, AIDS and muscular dystrophy, for example. Grid technology works by joining together many individual computers, creating a large system with massive computational power that far exceeds the power of a few supercomputers. In only a few short weeks, the York University Research team on World Community Grid has attracted nearly 150 users, placing it near the top 100 of more than 14,000 teams worldwide on the Grid. The York team has accounted for more than 2,000 results returned to the grid to date, which has translated into almost two full years of accumulated research on various projects. or more information, visit www.worldcommunitygrid.org.

CFI grant awarded to digital libraries supporting social sciences and humanities research
Researchers and students in the social sciences and humanities in Canada will benefit from a $25 million investment by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to support the development of new digital research systems. A $19.1 million investment was awarded to the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), a consortium of Canadian universities that provides its members with desktop access to a wide range of research content through licensing and purchase agreements with Canadian and international publishers. The University of Ottawa will be the host institution for this new national infrastructure. A $5.8 million grant was awarded to the Synergies project, a national consortium of 21 universities developing a new, decentralized digital system for disseminating research results and enhancing researcher access. Hosted by the Universite de Montreal (and with the University of Toronto as the lead institution in Ontario), the project promotes Canadian research through the digitization and creation of digital journals in the humanities and social sciences. To learn more, visit www.innovation.ca/media, http://researchknowledge.ca and www.synergies.umontreal.ca.

UOIT partners with SHARCNET and Trent to deliver new MSc program in Materials Science
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), one of 16 institutions in the Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET), is spearheading its deployment for research collaboration opportunities. Through the collaborative facilities of AccessGrid (AG), a group-to-group interaction add-on to SHARCNET, UOIT will participate in the Research Seminar Series being accessed by participating SHARCNET sites across Ontario. Furthermore, UOIT plans to use AG to deliver most of the courses in the new UOIT-Trent University Master of Science in Materials Science program. UOIT will also use AG to deliver a jointly offered course in high-performance computing across several SHARCNET institutions later this year as part of its Master of Science in Modelling and Computational Science program. For details, visit www.uoit.ca.

ACAATO becomes Colleges Ontario; announces new President/CEO
The Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario (ACAATO), has changed its name to Colleges Ontario. The change was implemented to help strengthen the organization's work to make college training of the workforce a top-of-mind issue for politicians and opinion leaders. Colleges Ontario has also appointed a new President/CEO, Linda Franklin, a veteran advocacy and communications specialist. Most recently serving as president of the Wine Council of Ontario for 13 years, Franklin is well apprised of the role of colleges, having worked with Niagara College to establish a teaching winery and related programs. For more information, visit www.collegesontario.org.

Distance E-Learning technology brings courses to remote area students
The Ontario government has partnered with Contact North/Contact Nord to create more opportunities for students in Wallaceburg, Ontario to access college and university courses by establishing a new distance education access centre. All local students, including francophones and those living in First Nations communities, will have equal access to the best learning opportunities in the province, without having to travel a long way to a postsecondary institution. With an investment of almost $1.2 million by 2007-08 from the Ontario government, Contact North/Contact Nord, northern Ontario's distance education and training network, will help implement the network. For more than 20 years, the organization has been using advanced technology to bring high school, college and university programs and courses in English and French to students living in small and remote northern communities. To learn more, visit http://ogov.newswire.ca.

OCAD receives $367,000 from Canadian Heritage for mobile technologies project
The Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) recently announced major Government of Canada support for Portage, a mobile media lab initiative led by OCAD Professors Paula Gardner and Geoffrey Shea. Provided by the Department of Canadian Heritage through its New Media R&D Initiative, part of the Canadian Culture Online (CCO) Strategy, the $367,000 contribution will be used for further research already underway in the mobile media lab. OCAD's mobile media lab investigates the use of wireless technologies to enhance the delivery of cultural and entertainment content. Portage will create a virtual theatre, a vibrant entertainment park, on a downtown Toronto street, installing a number of experiences in the John Street corridor that are triggered or controlled by cell phone users. Players can change content, upload information and experience the environment they're in by interacting with content that changes as they move through the street. A new design engine called MEE can be used to port content to the cell phone. A goal of Portage is to investigate how broadly mobile technology, and content created for it, can be deployed. For more information, visit www.ocad.ca/news.

People News
After 14 years, Dr. Mark Poznansky steps down as President & Scientific Director of Robarts Research Institute at the end of the month (April 30). Renowned orthopedic surgeon and Robarts board member Dr. Cecil Rorabeck will become interim Scientific Director. After four years, Dr. John Challis steps down as VP Research and Associate Provost at the University of Toronto, effective June 30.

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