February 2004




Baker reports to ACAATO
In a report to members of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario's Annual Conference, in Kingston February 22, ORION President and CEO Phil Baker indicated that nearly half of all Ontario colleges of applied arts and technology have now signed on to the ORION network. The colleges include including Cambrian, Centennial, Confederation, Durham, Fanshawe, Fleming, George Brown, Humber, Lambton, Loyalist, Seneca and Sheridan Colleges. More will be connected in the weeks and months ahead. "This is the beginning of a new and exciting era for Ontario's colleges of applied arts and technology, which now have the same access to global research and education network resources as Canada's major universities," said Baker. "ORION represents clear opportunities to explore efficiencies in shared administrative systems and services, from data storage to disaster recovery for computer systems. Ontario's colleges are also now in a better position to explore collaborative research and advanced education services and technologies, such as virtual learning environments, access to large databases and multimedia archives and libraries, to name just a few", he noted.

Scherer awarded prestigious prize
Dr. Stephen Scherer of The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) and the University of Toronto (U of T) has been awarded the 2003 Steacie Prize in the Natural Sciences. The prize is one of Canada's most prestigious science awards. Dr. Scherer received the prize for his seminal contributions in the fields of human genomics and genetic disease research. He is a senior scientist in Genetics and Genomic Biology and an associate chief of Research at Sick Kids, and an associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics at U of T. Traditionally awarded to chemists, physicists and mathematicians, the prize was established in 1964 in memory of former National Research Council (NRC) President E.W.R. Steacie and gives a young scientist under the age of 40 a $15,000 prize and guest lectureship at the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences in Ottawa. Previous awardees include luminaries such as Nobel Prize Winner John Polanyi from U of T. "It is an absolute honour to be awarded the Steacie prize and for our important research to be acknowledged," said Dr. Scherer, who also holds an investigator award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and an international researcher scholar award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Scherer recently served on the ORION Reference Working Group, which was asked to provide strategic advice on the future and direction of the network.

ORION staff recognized
Randy Neals, ORION's Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships was recently recognized as a nominee for the 2003 Premier's Awards. The awards are presented annually to college graduates who have excelled in their careers and made a significant contribution to society. Neals, a graduate of Sir Sanford Fleming College, was among the recipients and nominees honoured at the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario's Annual Conference, in Kingston February 22. "All the nominees have extraordinary careers and provide important role models for younger students now making choices about their future education," said Training, Colleges and Universities Minister Mary Anne Chambers, who presented the awards and plaques. "I congratulate each of them on this honour, and also extend congratulations to the colleges for their proven track record in providing high-quality education and training that equips students to excel in our fast-changing world".

Global R&E club gets bigger, faster
The world's Research and Education (R&E) network community is expanding. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently joined with a broad consortium of Russian ministries and science organizations and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to announce the start of operations for the first round-the-world computer network ring, which will be used for joint scientific and educational projects. Known as Little GLORIAD, the ring "begins" in Chicago at the NSF-supported StarLight facility, managed by the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University. The network crosses the Atlantic Ocean to the NetherLight facility in Amsterdam from which it continues to Moscow, then to the Russian science city of Novosibirsk, across Siberia to the border at Zabajkal'sk. After crossing the border to Manzhouli, the network continues to Beijing, then Hong Kong and crosses the Pacific Ocean to complete the ring in Chicago.

Abilene, the most advanced research and education network in the United States recently announced the completion of its upgrade from 2.5 Gigabits per second Gbps to 10 Gbps. The Internet2 backbone network upgrade quadruples the capacity to more than 15,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection. Abilene partners, Indiana University, Juniper Networks and Qwest Communications, provided the equipment and services to successfully implement the network upgrade. The Abilene upgrade gives researchers, students and professors at more than 200 Internet2 member institutions a more robust network, on which to conduct research; supports both Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and native IPv6 networks; and increases overall network performance.

Closer to home, federal and provincial dignitaries gathered at the University of New Brunswick's Fredericton campus February 16 for the official launch of the New Brunswick-PEI Research Grid. The new grid is linking as many as 10 institutions within the two provinces and to the CA*net 4 national backbone. UNB's CIO Greg Sprague says the one-gigabit ethernet network can scale to up to 10 gigabits. The Grid is a joint initiative of the Government of Canada, the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, CANARIE Inc., the National Research Council, the New Brunswick/Prince Edward Island Educational Computer Network, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission and 360 Networks/Group Telecom.


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