Presidential Musings from Dawn

I love it that ICS students write their term papers after classes are done. They have completed all of the course readings (in theory, at least) and class discussions this term and can now focus on their own research and writing. This approach seems to facilitate excellent learning with reduced stress throughout the term. Maybe students are stressing now, but we don't see it. Someone was really thinking when they came up with this approach!

The Institute is implementing a new “institutional repository” (IR). I asked a student if she thought our Junior Members might be interested in publishing their papers after it is launched. She said that it sounded like a great idea. Isabella Guthrie-McNaughton, our librarian, writes: “There is a section in the IR for Graduate Student Research and Publications. This section will contain both class papers (put into the IR only after they have been vetted by their Professor), preprints or postprints of published articles and conference papers and/or presentations." I am looking forward to reading student papers in the future.

I have followed some discussions about schools asking students to submit a summary video related to their papers. This sounds like an exciting direction for education, in general. The IR can address audio and video media as well as papers. Not everyone is inclined to sit down and read academic papers, but for someone like me, watching a short video where the student provides an overview is something I would definitely enjoy.  I hope we see more video from academics in the future.

There are many ideas for how we can share research from the Institute with the community. If you have ideas you would like us to hear, feel free to email me at dwolthuis@icscanada.edu.