communication Archives | Research & Innovation

91��ɫ-led research projects and graduate students awarded more than $19.5 million from SSHRC and partners

muellerm — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Five 91��ɫ-led research partnerships have received $14.3 million through the��(SSHRC) Partnership Grants program, Partnership Development Grants program and partnership contributions from external research partners participating in the projects. In addition, more than $5.2 million was awarded to 145 91��ɫ master’s and doctoral students to support scholarships and fellowships from SSHRC’s Talent Program.

Stephen Gaetz (right), professor and associate dean in the Faculty of Education, has received more than $2.5 million in funding over seven years to lead “Canadian Observatory on Homelessness”, with more than 27 researchers – including Professor Janet Mosher at Osgoode Hall Law School, Professor Valerie Preston in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) and Professor Stan Shapson in the Faculty of Education − and 29 partner organizations. The project, a non-partisan research and policy partnership, aims to evaluate current policy directions and programmatic approaches to preventing and reducing homelessness, address key policy questions, and support the development and implementation of effective and sustainable solutions to homelessness in communities across Canada. The goal is to mobilize research on homelessness so it has a greater impact on policy and practice, leading to more effective solutions to homelessness. The project, which will also receive more than $2.5 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations, will leverage the collaborative, research and knowledge mobilization capacities of participating individuals and organizations.

Anna Hudson (left), professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, has received more than $3.5 million over six years to lead a major project titled “Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage: a multi-media/multi-platform re-engagement of voice in visual art and performance”, with 10 researchers – including Professor Susan Dion in the Faculty of Education and Professor Angela Norwood from the Faculty of Fine Arts – and nine partner organizations. The goal of the project is to conduct collaborative research on the contribution of Inuit visual culture, art and performance to Inuit language preservation, social well-being and cultural identity. The project will address the current disconnect for Inuit today between orality – being the voice that defines the self in relation to others – and materiality – being the environment in which one lives well together through three primary objectives: access to advanced information and communication technologies, connection of Inuit voice to objects of Inuit cultural heritage and expanded creation of Inuit cultural capacity. It will receive an additional $1.9 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations.

Leah Vosko (right), Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender and Work and political science professor, LA&PS, has received more than $2 million in funding over five years to lead a major national project with 33 researchers – including Professor Mark Thomas in the Department of Sociology and Professor Eric Tucker at Osgoode Hall Law School − and 16 partner organizations. The project, titled “Closing the Enforcement Gap: Improving Employment Standards Protection for People in Precarious Jobs”, will examine the role of employment standards enforcement in ensuring minimum conditions in areas such as wages, working time, vacations and leaves for workers in precarious jobs in Ontario, characterized by job insecurity, low income and limited access to regulatory protection. The objectives of the project, which will receive more than an additional $1.3 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations, are to map the nature and scope of employment standards violations and document enforcement practices to identify regulatory challenges and develop alternative models of enforcement that may be applied in Ontario and other jurisdictions within Canada and internationally.

“We are delighted by the results of these recent SSHRC competitions, enabling 91��ɫ to maintain our track record in leading the country in the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s large-scale awards competitions valued at $1 million or more,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research and innovation. “The projects led by 91��ɫ Professors Stephen Gaetz, Anna Hudson and Leah Vosko enable our researchers to work together with research partners to address persistent, social and economic challenges facing our society today. It will also enable our researchers and graduate students to make important contributions to our country’s knowledge base.”

Two 91��ɫ researchers were also awarded more than $397,000 in SSHRC funding through the Partnership Development Grants program.��The program encourages applicants to work collaboratively with partners to develop research in the social sciences and humanities.��This funding will support partnerships between 91��ɫ researchers and Canadian and international universities, a charitable organization and an international association.

Gary Goodyear, federal minister of state for science and technology, announced the funding on Friday, May 31, at the launch of the annual Congress of the Humanities & Social Sciences.�� In total, more than $63 million is being awarded over a period of seven years to support 78 research teams across the country through SSHRC’s Partnership Grants and Partnership Development Grants. An additional $104 million from SSHRC’s Talent Program will support more than 3,700 master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships and fellowships.

An analysis conducted by the Strategic & Institutional Research Initiatives Unit, in the Office of Research Services at 91��ɫ, revealed that between 2006 and 2013, 91��ɫ researchers received more SSHRC awards valued at $1 million or more than any other institution in Canada. SSHRC’s large-scale awards offered between 2001 and 2013 have included the Community-University Research Alliance (CURA), Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI), the Strategic Knowledge Clusters and the SSHRC Partnership Grants.

For a complete list of Partnership Grant and Partnership Development Grant awards, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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91��ɫ professor awarded Trudeau Fellowship prize

muellerm — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Professor Janine Marchessault has been awarded the prestigious Trudeau Fellowship prize from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

“91��ɫ was proud to learn that Professor Janine Marchessault was awarded the Trudeau Fellowship prize,” says Mamdouh Shoukri, president & vice-chancellor. “The Trudeau Fellowship is an incredible honour bestowed upon the finest thinkers who have demonstrated outstanding research achievements, creativity and social commitment in all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. We are thrilled that one of our own is being recognized as part of this esteemed group.”

Janine Marchessault accepts her Trudeau Fellowship prize

Through her groundbreaking creative work and research, Marchessault aims to interpret and illustrate the city and its sustainability issues, combining urban planning, public art and the media. The Fellowship prize recognizes her work in this area. Marchessault, Canada Research Chair in Art, Digital Media and Globalization in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, is one of four new 2012 Trudeau Fellows announced Tuesday at a ceremony at the University of Toronto.

“Among the primary activities that the fellowship will support is an international site-specific art exhibition called Land/slide: Possible Futures on Sept. 21 to Oct. 31, 2013, devoted to reflecting on the future of land use in one of Canada’s largest and fastest developing suburbs in Toronto – Markham, Ontario – with a specific focus on the Green Belt,” said Marchessault.�� “The fellowship will help to fund this exhibition, as well as different activities related to it, including a large international symposium at the Royal Ontario Museum devoted to land and climate change.”

Janine Marchessault (right)��with Michael Longford, associate dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts

Marchessault’s urban research has focused on the creative cultures of cities, such as Berlin, Havana, Helsinki, Montreal and Toronto. She directs the and an online archive that brings together more than 50 interviews with artists, urban planners, designers and curators from a variety of countries to consider how art and communication are manifested in different geopolitical contexts. This research and archive project is an ongoing research endeavour.

One of Canada’s best-known McLuhan scholars, Marchessault takes up McLuhan’s tragic and utopian vision of the global village. In Marshall McLuhan: Cosmic Media (Sage Publications, 2005), Marchessault argues that McLuhan understood the value of artistic practices not in terms of creating decorative objects, but as the means to produce new kinds of awareness and perception, along with new forms of human communication and community.

Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president, research & innovation, speaks at the Trudeau Foundation ceremony

Each Trudeau Fellowship prize is worth $225,000 payable over three years. Trudeau Fellowships are awarded to individuals who set themselves apart through research achievements, creativity and commitment to critical social issues of importance to Canada.

A Canadian institution with a national purpose, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation is an independent and non-partisan charity that was established in 2001 by the family, friends and colleagues of the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1919-2000) as a living memorial to the former Canadian prime minister. In 2002, with the unanimous support of the House of Commons, the Government of Canada endowed the foundation with a donation of $125 million. The foundation also benefits from private sector donations.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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interPLAY symposium explores the link between creativity and information

fmaquito — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

"interPLAY: between creativity & information" is the intriguing title of��a one-day symposium at 91��ɫ that is dedicated to exploring and challenging definitions of “information” from a diversity of perspectives.

Hosted by the 91��ɫ Libraries, interPLAY will take place Monday, March 26, from 9am to 7pm, in��the Senate Chamber, 940 South Ross Building, and the Scott Library on the Keele campus.��

The symposium is informed by the ongoing publication of the , an experimental online catalogue raisonné (or complete list) currently being developed at the 91��ɫ Libraries by Adam Lauder��(left), the University's inaugural��W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship.

Lauder is working to develop the catalogue raisonné with��Canadian Conceptual artist (the artist recently added the ampersand to his name),��and an international team of collaborators.��The development of the catalogue offers an ideal��opportunity to respond to the visionary information art of IAIN BAXTER& with fresh approaches to information, information technology, and library and information science from across the disciplinary spectrum.

Inspired by Canadian scholar and philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s transformation of information theory, from a “matching” model of communication to one of active “making”, IAIN BAXTER& began in 1966 to explore the creative possibilities of “information” as a medium.��The 45-year process of exploration that followed has led��the��conceptual artist��to engage with, and creatively reinterpret, information concepts across a range of disciplines, including business, computing, and linguistics.

Marshall McLuhan

University��of British Columbia English Professor��Richard Cavell, author of McLuhan in Space: A Cultural Geography (University of Toronto Press, 2003) will present the symposium's keynote address. Cavell's book was the first to��propose that Marshall McLuhan be read as a spatial theorist.

To learn more about other presenters and symposium proceedings and to register, visit the website.��

More about Adam Lauder

Lauder has joined the Libraries for a two-year term as the first W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship. He holds a master in information studies��from the University of Toronto and a masters in��art history��from Concordia University.

His research project encompasses many areas of e-librarianship including critical information studies, digital archives, scholarly communication and metadata standards. Lauder is applying��the catalogue raisonné publication model in an online environment, with a focus��on IAIN BAXTER&.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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What is knowledge mobilization and why does it matter to universities?

fmaquito — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

David Phipps, director of 91��ɫ’s Office of Research Services, spent part of December in Edinburgh, Brighton and London exploring knowledge exchange and knowledge brokering in the UK, said The Guardian March 9, introducing the first in a series of four articles about knowledge mobilization by Phipps in The Guardian‘s Higher Education Network blog. University knowledge and talent have the potential to contribute to new approaches to wicked problems, but they cannot benefit society if social sciences and humanities scholars limit themselves to traditional academic paradigms of scholarly communication and dissemination, wrote Phipps. Since 2006, 91��ɫ, Canada, has employed a knowledge-mobilization unit to broker relationships between university research and expertise (both faculty and graduate students) and non-academic partners. .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Emeritus Ronald Burke: What to say when your business takes a body-blow

fmaquito — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Your small business has just taken a serious blow – a key customer cancelled a big order for the fall. How do you deliver the bad news in-house? It’s best to take an upfront, honest approach, wrote The Globe and Mail Sept. 9.��

Share industry reports to support your case: “If the world is getting tougher, then provide documentation that shows how tough things are,” says Ronald Burke, professor emeritus, organizational studies, at 91��ɫ’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto. “You can say, ‘Here's the industry picture, and here's our company picture. Here are the changes going on, and the threats we are facing. We need to do more, with less, if we are going to survive this together.’”��

Communicate that you, as owner-manager, are in the same boat: “It's critical for the person at the top to say, ‘I'm going to make sacrifices, too,’” says Burke, who is co-editor of a textbook titled Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance.��

Encourage employees to come up with cost-saving ideas: “Employees know how the business can save money and operate more efficiently,” says Burke. “I would certainly encourage them to find ways to cut costs without cutting people.” In this lacklustre economic environment, employees are keen to ensure the business's survival. “The job market is not that great,” says Burke. “People are interested in keeping their jobs, and making sacrifices is easier to pull off in a small business.”��

Some cost-saving measures include short-term salary reductions, shorter work weeks and an end to merit pay. “There are a lot of ideas that a small business can tap into, without layoffs,” says Burke.��

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Robert Drummond gives politicans how-to guide for connecting with averages joes

fmaquito — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Is having an ordinary-guy, awshucks image really that important when it comes to an election race? wrote the Toronto Sun April 3:

A 91��ɫ political science prof says it's hit or miss. "Populism is an overused term," said . "It means having ordinary people making decisions rather than experts – it's appealing, but I think it's often a type of smokescreen for a set of policies that's not going to satisfy ordinary people, but elites," he said. "To those of us who are involved in academic life, it's frightening. It implies that information and facts can be ignored if you have a 'common sense' approach to things."

In the case of Ignatieff, voters get the sense they don't know him well, Drummond said. "But do they know Stephen Harper or Jack Layton?" he asked. "They come across as more ordinary folk. There are times when Harper does look stiff, but the sweater and the piano playing probably does help him."

Being an intellectual can be problematic in this election, simply because many people make an assumption that Ignatieff may be aloof and "probably doesn't think of himself as ordinary folks."

"That may be unfair to him, that's why...all these photo opportunities of him doing things he doesn't do very often are supposed to give him a common touch, but it doesn't work well if you look stiff and uncomfortable doing it," Drummond said.

Ignatieff is pulling out all the stops to project a more down-to-earth image, but time is against him. "He's visiting a lot of places where people get to see him up close and personal, but I don't think you can do a lot during a campaign to make that sort of dent," he said. "It's not the type of campaign in the 19th century where people appeared in person a lot – a lot of it is televised or online pleas."

Drummond's research explores public policy with a specific focus on provincial politics. He is a frequent media commentator during elections.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Audio: Professor Anne Russon speaks to Quirks & Quarks about how orangutans communicate using mime

fmaquito — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Anne Russon, a cognitive ecologist and professor of psychology in 91��ɫ’s , spoke about orangutans’ ability to communicate using mime, on CBC Radio’s “Quirks & Quarks” Sept. 18.

You can listen to Russon's interview with host Bob McDonald on .�� The interview begins at the 1:30 mark.

Russon has observed 18 cases of orangutans in Borneo using mime to communicate both simple and complex messages.�� In one example, an orangutan asked a researcher for help cracking open a coconut by acting out the motions required.�� Another wanted to share the memory of having had a researcher remove a sliver from a foot by repeatedly miming the action.�� It is thought that this form of communication among these great apes could provide a clue to the origins of human language.

Related Links, courtesy of CBC online:

in Biology Letters
Original news release from the Research Website
(with video of the coconut incident)

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professors Anne Russon and Kristin Andrews' study shows how orangutans use mime to communicate

fmaquito — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Just like humans, orangutans will resort to mime to get their message across, scientists report, .

Just like humans, orangutans will resort to mime to get their message across, scientists report. A team from Canada found the great apes would sometimes use elaborate gestures to explain what they meant. They mimed the action of being scratched to get an itch attended to, and enacted opening a termite nest to prompt a partner to do just that.

The study, published in Biology Letters, suggests ape communication is more complex than was thought. The researchers uncovered the primates' propensity for mime by looking through 20 years of observational studies that had been carried out on orangutans in Borneo. These animals had all previously been captive, but were now living free or partly free in the forests. The team found 18 cases where orangutans had been spotted performing mimes.

Professor Anne Russon, from Glendon College at 91��ɫ in Ontario, Canada, said: "When I observed the events, yes, I was surprised - in the sense that it was very unusual and in one case their behavior seemed, at the time, entirely bizarre and way out of character."

Some of these gestures were quite complicated.

One orangutan, Kikan, had injured her foot, and had been helped by a conservationist who dug out a small stone and then dripped latex from the stem of a fig leaf on to the wound to seal it.

A week later, Kikan attracted the same conservationist's attention and then picked up a leaf and re-enacted her treatment.

Professor Russon said: "She's not asking for anything, which is the most common aim observed of great ape communication, but appears simply to be sharing a memory with the person who helped her when she hurt her foot.

"It shows her understanding of how events had unfolded in a particular situation, which was very complex."

. . .

The researchers said that while miming in orangutans seemed to be rare, it did tell us more about how the great apes communicated.

In their paper, Anne Russon from Glendon College in Toronto, Canada, and Kristin Andrews from 91��ɫ, also in Toronto, wrote that the complex "pantomimes" showed some of the properties of natural language.

Professor Russon said: "Orangutans, and other great apes have more sophisticated communicative abilities than currently believed.

"Pantomime has been proposed as the basis for the evolution to language because it broadens the range of messages that individuals can send - basically, anything you can act out. It allows you to create the sentence-like message: 'You do action X using tool Y on object Z'.

"This is a powerful communication tool indeed."

Often, the primates resorted to mime after other methods of communication had failed. The researchers said that while miming in orangutans seemed to be rare, it did tell us more about how the great apes communicated.

In their paper, Russon and , wrote that the complex “pantomimes” showed some of the properties of natural language.

Russon said: “Orangutans and other great apes have more sophisticated communicative abilities than currently believed. Pantomime has been proposed as the basis for the evolution to language because it broadens the range of messages that individuals can send – basically, anything you can act out. It allows you to create the sentence-like message: ‘You do action X using tool Y on object Z.’ This is a powerful communication tool indeed.”

Andrews is a philosophy professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies; Russon is a psychology professor at Glendon. The complete article is available on .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Philipp Angermeyer: Kids + txting rn’t killing the language

fmaquito — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

The idea that our dependence on technology is ruining the English language is not a new one, :

Members of the media, linguists and grammar gurus are on both sides, pushing and pulling over the implications associated with texting, blogging and e-mailing. Many who think language is being flushed down the toilet put the blame squarely on younger generations. Is this criticism accurate or even relevant?

“In some ways, it’s a reaction to change and a reluctance to accept change, but to some extent it’s also a fictitious topic that doesn’t have any merit,” says Philipp Angermeyer, a linguistics professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Many experts feel the same way.

. . .

So, considering how little research there is to back up the claim that technology is destroying language, why does this hell-in-a-handbasket opinion persist? Prof. Zwicky talks about the “adolescent illusion,” where adults pay selective attention to the language and writing of adolescents, and see the mistakes they make as the source of this “trend.” In fact, adults are responsible for as much as 80 to 90 per cent of text messaging, so if it’s hurting the language, why should young people be held responsible?

“To some extent, it has to do with attitudes toward people,” says Prof. Angermeyer. “The columnist wouldn’t write this if they didn’t also think there was something else wrong with the people they speak about.” These types of criticisms, he explains, are considered politically acceptable complaints meant to be aimed at certain groups of people, motivated by some other dislike.

This intergenerational tension goes both ways. A 2009 Conference Board of Canada survey of more than 900 Gen X, Gen Y and baby boomer respondents revealed that each generation marked the other two with unfair stereotypes. Boomers were considered less accepting of diversity and change and uncomfortable with technology. Gen Xers were cynical and independent. Gen Yers were lazy and difficult to manage. While each generation viewed the other two negatively, most participants were alike in many ways, with similar personality types, workplace motivations and social behaviours. While we all may come from different social groups, our language dialects and writing styles are very similar, and are not about to change any time soon.

It all boils down to what is appropriate in what context. “If I write a text message, my text might be inappropriately long and full of punctuation,” says Prof. Angermeyer.

“Ultimately, from a theoretical perspective, the only distinction you can really make is between native speakers [of a dialect] and non-native speakers. Every native speaker is a competent language speaker, and depending on what you are exposed to and what environments you use the language in, you acquire different skills.”

The complete article is available on .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Alan Middleton on BP's attempts at damage control: Play it cheap

fmaquito — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

The company responsible for what is being called the biggest ecological disaster in US history is facing a flood of criticism being spread through social media and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight, wrote the Toronto Star June 10 in a story about efforts by the company to redirect Web traffic to its own sites to convey positive messaging about the cleanup effort:

, a marketing professor with the Schulich School of Business at 91��ɫ, said communicating with consumers through options that appear to cost very little is an important part of BP’s strategy at this point. “If they are seen to be wasting their money on fighting back too hard that is going to trigger a whole new wave of opposition,” said Middleton.

BP has purchased space in newspapers to spread their message, but they are being selective, said Middleton.

“The trick is you can’t be seen as spending too much because it is going to result in the very obvious question,” which is why aren’t you using the funds to improve safety procedures or support fisherman about to lose their livelihoods, he said. At this point the best BP can do is to appear transparent and attempt to moderate what is being said about them online, he said.

BP must be seen as apologetic and responsible but remind consumers there were two other companies involved in the crisis, he said.

The complete article is available on .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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