Multimedia experiments often use short texts because readers seem unlikely to tolerate long passages of type in a video or interactive environment. "Maybe the chunk is not the chapter; maybe the chunk is the paragraph, and one paragraph can lead to more, different paragraphs," says Caitlin Fisher, Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Fine Arts], who used that approach in her 2001 multimedia novella These Waves of Girls. "People have been figuring out how to get their message onto a single screen. It makes some writing better and some writing worse."

91��ɫ's Fisher agrees that the issue is how to draw the reader through the text. "It's interesting to say maybe people would navigate your novel like a game environment," she says. "People find a game environment compelling. [But] does it always have to be a puzzle or maze? Could great writing draw you through it?... We don't have serious writers experimenting with it."

Fisher also notes how seductive video is, hoping books will not simply be replaced by some version of interactive film or augmented reality. "We have this push that all literature can become movies. Everyone can cheaply make and edit moving pictures. It is pushing out interesting experiments in writing."

"I'd be happy to purchase an $80 electronic novel that promised to take me places I hadn't been before, but it's a hard sell," says Fisher, who wants to see writers making technology work for them rather than technology shaping the form. "It is crucial writers be there asking what kind of tools might be useful...and not just accept what computer science hands them."

Posted by Arielle Zomer, research communications officer,��with files��courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Registration is now open for Connected Community Learning: The Next Decade taking place Aug. 22 to 24 on 91��ɫ's Keele campus.

Over the past decade the Internet has affected society in many ways, including��democratizing access to information, creating opportunities for individual voices to be heard, sharing ideas and knowledge, allowing instantaneous responses to questions, creating social networks that expand knowing and doing, developing new regulations and policies for information access, copyright and use, digital citizenship – and the list continues. ASI 2011 asks what will the next 10 years bring?

Conference delegates��will investigate this question and the power of a connected community to effectively use technology for teaching and learning. This two-and-a-half-day professional learning event features speakers and information sessions.

Keynote speaker�� will open ASI 2011, delivering a speech titled “The Flat World has Swung Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education”. Bonk is professor of Instructional Systems Technology at and president of .

Left: Curt Bonk

Bonk received the CyberStar Award from the Indiana Information Technology Association, the Most Outstanding Achievement Award from the US Distance Learning Association, and the Most Innovative Teaching in a Distance Education Program Award from the State of Indiana. A well-known authority on emerging technologies for learning, Bonk reflects on his speaking experiences around the world in his popular blog, .��He has coauthored several��technology books, including (2009), (2008), (2006) and Electronic Collaborators (1998).

On Aug. 23, Dean Shareski, a digital learning consultant for��the Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan, will be the spotlight speaker. Shareski works with teachers and students in understanding the power of��"Read/Write Web" and is a strong advocate of design and storytelling and the power of sharing.

Right: Dean Shareski

Shareski has presented and led many workshops locally, nationally and internationally.�� He's been modeling much of this on his own blog () for more than six years.��The site is consistently ranked among the top 100 educational blogs. He also is an adjunct professor at the University of Regina, where he's developed innovative instructional practices for pre-service teachers.

To close ASI 2011 on Aug. 24, Norm Vaughan will discuss “Student Engagement and Web 2.0 in Blended Learning”. An educator and researcher with interests in blended learning, faculty development and��kindergarten to Grade 12 schooling, Vaughan is an��associate professor��in the Department of Education, Faculty of Teaching & Learning at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.

Left:�� Norm Vaughan

Vaughan recently co-authored the book Blended Learning in Higher Education (2008) and has published a series of articles on blended learning and faculty development.��Vaughn is the co-founder of the Blended Online Design Network (BOLD), a member of the Community of Inquiry Research Group, the associate dditor of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning. He serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Excellence in e-Learning, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, the Journal on Centres for Teaching & Learning, the Learning Communities Journal and the Journal of Information Fluency.

The ABEL Summer Institute is intended as both a guided and self-directed exploration of technologies as educational tools with learning engagement and knowledge building potential for all.

For more information on ASI 2011, including the agenda, click . Register early to avoid disappointment. To register online,��click .

ABEL is a unit within the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation. For more information about its event and programming,��visit the website.

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

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The event will take place April 27, from 7 to 9pm, in the Rosedale Room of the Marriot Bloor-91��ɫville Hotel, 90 Bloor St. E., Toronto. Everyone is welcome to attend. It is sponsored by the 91��ɫ Centre for International Security Studies and the at 91��ɫ.

The forum will feature analyst, author and educator Daryl Copeland, 91��ɫ law Professor of Osgoode Hall Law School and director of the��Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, and Dutch and Australian media theorist and innovative philosopher Geert Lovink. 91��ɫ political science Professor Robert��Latham, director of the 91��ɫ Centre for International & Security Studies, will be the forum’s moderator.

Lovink is a research professor of Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, a professor of new media at the University of Amsterdam and is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam.

Before joining Osgoode, Scott was the Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in 2000 and a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, from 1989-2000. Scott is currently a commissioner on the civil-society (Truth Commission) in Honduras in the context of which information sourced from WikiLeaks plays a significant role. He is also convening editor of the quarterly journal�� and series editor of the��. He was named a 2010�� Visiting Fellow and is an editor of�� (Hart Publishing, 2001).

Latham’s research is focused on technologies of border surveillance; critical theories of sovereignty, global governance and migration; international communication; the politics of knowledge and large-scale monitoring systems. He is the author of B and co-editor of and .

Copeland is an adjunct professor and Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, who specializes in foreign policy, global issues, diplomacy and public management. He is the author of��. From 1981 to 2009, Copeland served as a Canadian diplomat with postings in Thailand, Ethiopia, New Zealand and Malaysia. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was elected five times to the executive committee of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers. From 1996-1999 he was national program director of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in Toronto and editor of Behind the Headlines, then Canada's international affairs magazine. In 2000, he received the Canadian Foreign Service Officer Award.

For more information, visit the 91��ɫ Centre for International & Security Studies website.

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

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Papagiannis is an artist, designer and researcher specializing in augmented reality (AR). Hailed as being among the top 10 forces currently shaping the AR industry, has been working with AR since 2005, exploring the creative possibilities and theoretical implications for this exciting emerging technology. Recently, her interactive artworks were featured in an exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. The Amazing Cinemagician: New Media Meets Victorian Magic was also featured at Tedx91��ɫu, providing an intriguing entrance through which attendees entered.

Papagiannis is completing her��doctorate in communication and culture under the supervisor of Professor and Canada Research Chair Caitlin Fischer, and is a senior research associate at the . Prior to her graduate studies,��Papagiannis was a member of the��Bruce Mau Design studio, where she was project lead on .

You can view all of the Tedx91��ɫu talks via the event's .

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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Through his research, Wershler is working to bring about policy change. He is a principal investigator for , an initiative to build an online archive of publicly licensed Canadian art and literature.

Wershler and fellow Artmob researcher Rosemary Coombe, Canada Research Chair in at 91��ɫ, are editing a volume of essays by a diverse spectrum of writers, legal scholars, artists, anthropologists and cultural studies professors that will be called Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online.

Wershler and Coombe will explore current practices of dynamic fair-dealing. They will look at how artists and writers are actually creating, circulating and managing digital cultural objects, and how these practices can present alternatives to traditional intellectual property and cultural policies.

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

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Professors Caitlin Fisher, David Hood, Joel Katz, Steve Mason, Wendy Taylor and Peer Zumbansen will continue their respective research in digital culture, cell physiology, health psychology, Greco-Roman cultural interaction, experimental particle physics, and transnational economic governance and legal theory.

With the renewals, 91��ɫ maintains its total of 28 research chairs. “Federal research investments are crucial to attracting and retaining the world's best researchers,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation. “The Canada Research Chairs program allows us to sustain 91��ɫ’s globally competitive research across health, the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Our researchers’ findings help improve the quality of life, economic, and social well-being of Canadians and people around the world.”

Caitlin Fisher, Canada Research Chair (CRC)��in Digital Culture and film professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, investigates the future of narrative, interactive storytelling, and interactive cinema in the emerging area of virtual reality research. Her research develops techniques and narrative strategies for use in augmented reality (AR) environments, which is increasingly important for Canada's culture and entertainment industries as AR and associated technologies like smart phones become more commonplace.

Left: Caitlin Fisher

Under her direction, 91��ɫ’s AR Lab, part of the in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, is conducting research at the forefront of art and science collaborations. The��lab makes use of��both established and emerging technologies to produce innovative research methods, expressive tools for artists and award-winning content that challenges cinematic and literary conventions while enhancing the ways in which people interact with their physical environment and with each other.

David Hood, CRC in Cell Physiology and kinesiology & health science professor in the Faculty of Health, is an internationally-recognized authority in muscle health, exercise and mitochondria. His publications have expanded on the important role that mitochondria play in muscle, and the beneficial effect of exercise in enhancing energy production, preventing cell death and attenuating disease processes.

Right: David Hood

Hood operates one of the world’s most advanced laboratories in the cellular physiology of mitochondria. In January 2010,��he became the first director of the newly opened 91��ɫ Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC), which is unique in Canada. The MHRC integrates research in mitochondria with biomedical research across the University.

Joel Katz, CRC in Health Psychology and psychology professor in the Faculty of Health, is a world-class researcher in the study of pain. His research has significant impact on the way pain is understood and managed in both preventative and rehabilitative medicine.

Left: Joel Katz

His major accomplishments include using a preventative approach to advance the treatment of acute post-operative pain, increasing our understanding of neonatal pain and how to manage it, identifying factors that predict the transition of acute to chronic pain, and discovering previously unrecognized gender differences in the experience of pain. Katz is coordinator of the 91��ɫ health psychology Graduate Diploma Program, the only��program in Canada offering specialized training in health psychology leading to a diploma.

Steve Mason, CRC in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction and history professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, explores issues of cultural identity among the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean under Hellenistic and Roman rule (200 BCE to 300 CE). He focuses on Judea and the Jewish Mediterranean diaspora in the context of other diasporas.

Right: Steve Mason

The most important literary sources for these questions are 30 surviving volumes by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 - c. 100 CE), and Mason is at the forefront of research into these works. He leads an international team of 14 scholars in supplying Josephus with a new translation and the first comprehensive . He has published five books and many articles on related subjects while editing and co-authoring another seven. He manages the popular online database, , and is completing a volume on the fateful Judean-Roman War of 66 to 74 CE.

, CRC in Experimental Particle Physics and��physics professor in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, studies the high-energy particle collisions at the and at the accelerator. Her research aims to understand matter’s smallest indivisible components and the forces of interaction between them. Taylor is recognized by her peers as an expert in b-quark physics analysis and particle detector electronics development.

Left: Wendy Taylor

Her primary analysis found the first evidence of spontaneous matter-antimatter transitions of B0s mesons, composite particles that contain both a b-quark and an anti-s quark. She contributed to developing a new calorimeter trigger, which allows high-rate data collection. She is now developing low-noise radiation-hard readout electronics for a new particle detector and algorithms to search for the Higgs boson, the particle believed to be responsible for why matter in the universe has mass.

, CRC in Transnational Economic Governance & Legal Theory and professor in��Osgoode Hall Law School, explores globalization’s impact on national political economies, concentrating on changing forms of production and on the politics of privatization and deregulation.

Right: Peer Zumbansen

Zumbansen's��research is advancing the development of both a comparative and methodological perspective of globalization on national political economies.��His work��also explores broader questions concerning political sovereignty and the changing relationship between the state and the market, particularly in the European Union, Canada and the United States. Widely published in both German and English,��Zumbansen is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the .

Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science��& technology), announced the nationwide renewals in Ottawa on March 26. “Our government is investing in science and technology to create jobs, strengthen the economy and improve Canadians’ quality of life,” said Goodyear. “The Canada Research Chairs program is helping our universities develop and attract talented people, strengthening our capacity for leading-edge research, while creating jobs and economic opportunities for Canadians now and in the future."

The CRC program attracts the best talent from Canada and around the world, helping universities achieve research excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences and social sciences and humanities.

For more information, visit the Web site.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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