R&E community learns how O3 can make collaboration easier

Researchers, scientists, educators and VIPs from throughout Ontario's research and education community gathered in Toronto recently to celebrate the official launch of O3, ORION's new collaboration and professional networking service.

Held at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in downtown Toronto, the O3 reception was a chance for many members of the research and education community to learn more about how the new service can be used.

Dr. David Phipps, Director of Research Services and Knowledge Exchange at York University, an early champion of O3, described why and how York finds value in O3 and how they use it to connect researchers from all institutions to collaborate and share expertise and research findings.

"Transforming research into better public policies, more effective professional practice and new commercial products requires researchers and partners to collaborate in novel ways," said Phipps. "O3 provides many of these tools to help foster collaboration, manage content and enhance dissemination of the products of research and knowledge mobilization."

York University and ResearchImpact, Canada's knowledge mobilization network based at York, have been using O3 since its pilot launch earlier this year. ResearchImpact is just one of the project teams that have adopted O3.

Introduced as a value-added service for member institutions, O3 was developed to encourage collaboration, the sharing of ideas and research results, and connecting with colleagues across academic disciplines. It is a unique professional networking and collaboration platform developed by and for the research and education community.

As well as facilitating collaboration, O3 is also designed to foster the sharing of ideas and research results, shorten the time to discovery, and connect colleagues across academic disciplines.

"O3 enables Ontario's innovators in coming together from different institutions and disciplines to launch their own interactive, collaboration service over the network without having to invest money in building and managing their own tools," said Phil Baker, ORION President and CEO. "We're very proud to make the service available to every researcher, scientist, teacher, faculty and student at institutions connected to ORION."

The launch marks an important milestone for ORION. O3 Collaboration is the first of several new value-added services being launched to support Ontario's research and education community.

"An online collaboration service that fits researchers' and educators' specific needs is just the beginning," said Baker.

Available at no cost to researchers, students and educators at ORION-connected institutions, O3 is designed to become the "go-to" place to find colleagues and experts, share ideas, gain feedback from different academic perspectives on early research, build communities of interest, and work with team members online.

Any researcher, educator or student based at an ORION-connected institution is welcome to form a community on O3 and may invite others to join their community, even from outside Ontario. ORION encourages principal investigators and research team leaders to sign up and invite team members onto O3.

ORION will be launching a series of Webinars this fall to introduce new users to O3 Collaboration as well as showcase specific functions for existing users. O3 Community Manager Gary Hilson is also looking to schedule on-campus events to introduce O3 to faculty members and researchers interested in setting up a free space to collaborate online. Finally, O3 is looking for contributions to the site in the form of blog postings, calendar events and Wiki entries. For more information, contact Gary at gary.hilson@orion.on.ca or 416-507-9860 ext. 232.

Visit www.othree.ca for more information and to sign up.