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October 2007
ORION moves London PoP
ORION undertook a major move of its Point of Presence (PoP) in London this summer, moving all the equipment and fibre to another building on the University of Western Ontario (UWO) campus. The move was completed in phases over a two-week period and was necessary because the university is moving its central computing facilities to a new building currently under construction and slated for completion by summer 2008. The ORION PoP move took place this summer so as not to interfere with UWO's major IT move next summer, and to ensure uninterrupted connectivity to institutions that connect to ORION at the London PoP. The equipment was shifted from the central computer room at UWO's Natural Sciences building to the University College building, which is more centrally located from a fibre and physical access perspective.
Netera becomes Cybera
Alberta's Netera Alliance is now part of Cybera Inc., a new organization created to support research discoveries and public-private partnerships across the province. Its mandate will be to provide provincial leadership by coordinating, integrating, leveraging and sustaining investments in cyberinfrastructure (CI) technologies in Alberta. Cybera will facilitate access to ICT resources, including existing ICT tools around the province as well as new resources acquired through partnerships with Alberta's four universities, other public and private sector partners, and Netera Alliance. Visit www.netera.ca.
CANARIE and NLR partner
National LambdaRail (NLR), a dedicated national network infrastructure serving U.S. research and higher-education, and CANARIE recently announced their agreement to partner to expand each other's network infrastructure and further enable international research and collaboration. The agreement will expand NLR members' access in the Northeastern U.S., connecting Boston and New York to Chicago through Canada, and provide an alternate path between western and central Canada through the U.S. for CANARIE users. Read the release for more details.
Loyalist and Seneca join HPCVL
The High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL) welcomes Loyalist College and Seneca College as its newest members. Providing researchers with secure High Performance Computing (HPC) resources, tools and user support, HPCVL was originally formed as a consortium of Carleton University, Queen's University, the Royal Military College of Canada, and the University of Ottawa. It has since grown to include Ryerson University, and now Seneca College and Loyalist College. "Ontario's colleges now have a research mandate, and we are extremely pleased that Loyalist and Seneca have chosen to help further their research infrastructure by becoming partners in HPCVL," said Dr. Ken Edgecombe, Executive Director of HPCVL. Visit www.loyalistc.on.ca and www.hpcvl.org.
CANARIE call for funding programs
CANARIE is calling for expressions of interest under its Network-Enabled Platforms Program to support eScience and other applications. CANARIE is seeking proposals addressing infrastructure at the edge of the network and the services supporting distributed communities of collaborators. These would include data, servers, sensors, equipment and other resources used by the community. Web services, Web 2.0 and workflow tools are the most common middleware for linking these resources and supporting their ease of use. Deadline is Nov. 15. CANARIE is also inviting submissions under its "Infrastructure Extensions Program". The IEP is designed to support extensions to the network to enhance/accelerate research, enable national and international collaboration, improve access to knowledge and contribute to the development of cyber infrastructure and e-research in Canada. Specifically, connections of government labs, education institutions and other facilities are to be supported. Deadline is Nov. 1. ORION expects it may be involved in a supporting capacity in proposals from Ontario. Visit www.canarie.ca.
ePresence 4.0 released
The Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the University of Toronto has released the latest version of ePresence Interactive Media. The software is tagged as "the world's first open source webcasting, conferencing and rich media publishing solution." With Version 4.0, users now have access to ePresenceTV, a portal that enables them to link their published presentations to the ePresence website, and attract the interest of a greater virtual audience. One of the major benefits of the software is that all presentation media are synchronized and accessible through one convenient interface. To learn more, visit http://epresence.tv.
YouTube for scientists
A new Web site operated in partnership with the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), allows scientists to post video along with published articles in order to provide opportunities for sharing, feedback and collaboration among colleagues. Created for scientists, by scientists, SciVee allows scientists to communicate their work as a multimedia presentation incorporated with the content of their published articles. Other scientists can view uploaded presentations and engage in virtual discussions with the author and other viewers. SciVee also facilitates the creation of communities around specific articles and keywords. Visit www.scivee.tv.
VROC and ABEL partnership
The Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) program recently announced a new collaboration with Virtual Researcher On Call (VROC), an educational initiative of Partners in Research. Designed to link Canadian high school students in their classroom setting with top researchers and their trainees from the scientific community, VROC provides an interactive learning opportunity for students in all aspects of the natural and health sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. ABEL will provide support for and assist in planning VROC interactions for its members when they engage in VROC sessions. Visit www.abelearn.ca and www.vroc.ca.
Megaconference IX
Students, teachers and researchers from all over the world prepare to meet in virtual space next month at Megaconference IX. The annual event, taking place on Nov. 8, connects people from across the globe, including ORION member institutions, in order to further the use of videoconferencing in education and research and to advance the art of videoconferencing technology. New for this year is the ability to view the conference in higher definition. Megaconference is the world's largest videoconferencing event with 400 locations. To register to participate, visit www.megaconference.org.
Government of Ontario announces $10-million for broadband access
Residents and businesses of 18 rural municipalities in southern Ontario will soon have access to high-speed Internet services thanks to funding from the Ontario government. A one-time, $10-million initiative will see 18 municipalities that are ready to implement and sustain broadband capability in their communities receive funding to help with infrastructure and implementation costs. The program is a joint effort between the ministries of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, Government Services, and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. "This funding will allow municipalities to provide broadband access to their residents and businesses which will benefit the entire community," said Gerry Phillips, Minister of Government Services. Read the official announcement.
People News
Alan Anderson has been appointed project manager of CONCERT, the Consortium on New Media, Creative and Entertainment Research and Development in the Toronto Region, responsible for working with consortium partners to build the region's R&D capacity, enhance access to funding and strengthen links between academic research, industry and government policy makers. The University of Windsor recently announced the appointment of Dr. Ranjana Bird as Vice-President, Research. She is currently Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Waterloo and will begin her five-year term on October 1. The University of Waterloo has announced that Bruce Campbell, former Manager, Science Computing, has been named Director, Network Services in the Information Systems Technology department, replacing Roger Watt who recently retired. Jan Donio, who has served as Executive Director of Corporate and Information Services since 2005, will be winding down her responsibilities at the Council of Ontario Universities, where she has been working part-time since accepting the position of Vice-President, Information Systems and Operational Change Management at the United Way of Greater Toronto in February. Peter Marshall recently stepped down from his position as Advanced Networks Applications Specialist at CANARIE Inc. to pursue other opportunities. Dr. Michael Owen, former Associate Vice-President, Research and International Development and Professor at the Faculty of Education at Brock University, becomes Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design, effective October 1. Kevin Pashuk is the new Chief Information Officer at Sheridan College, having recently left the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as Director of Technology. Prof. Pekka Sinervo will end his term as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto on June 30, 2008, one year early, in order to refocus on his leading scholarship in particle physics as one of his long-term research projects, the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, is scheduled to begin data-taking in spring 2008. The University of Toronto announced the appointment of Professor R. Paul Young as Vice-President, Research. Currently Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, Prof. Young will begin his term on November 1.
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