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Category: Faculty

Dr. Colin Conrad on his new role as Interim Director (Master of Digital Innovation)

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By: Toni Beaton (First-year MI Student)

Dr. Conrad headshotDr. Colin Conrad is an Assistant Professor with the School of Information Management (SIM). He is currently serving a 6-month interim directorship for the Master of Digital Innovation (MDI) program here at Dalhousie University. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Conrad to learn more about his new role:

Please tell us your new title and briefly explain your key responsibilities.

I am the Interim Director of the Master of Digital Innovation, and am filling in for Dr. Vlado Keselj for 6 months. The program is interdisciplinary between Computer Science and Management. The biggest things I do within this position are being responsible for cultivating both the program and the student experience, being able to regularly liaison with students on how they achieve their goals, deal with admissions, and guide the strategic vision for the program as it goes through a review.

How would you describe the MDI program to someone who is not familiar with it?

This is Dalhousie’s premier program for dealing with the intersection of technology and different applications of business. For instance, the MDI is designed to equip students to go into different areas of the economy and identify the ways in which digital technologies are transforming those areas. It’s about advancing digital technology and improving those areas of discipline. It is also a program for other professional disciplines, such as health informatics, and non-profit organizations, such as DeepSense. We have three certificates; one of them is in digital business for people primarily interested in business, there is one in health information for those who want to work in health industries, and one in data science for those interested in data science applications to other areas of society and the economy.

What courses will you be teaching in the MDI program?

I’ve been teaching a core course called “Digital Transformation;” it is the first of two core courses in the MDI program. It is a super cool course, because it involves business, management, communications, and technology. In this case, students learn about identifying problems that organizations face, how to prototype solutions using technology, and then guiding an innovation process from beginning to end. It is a very hands-on course and is taught by two instructors (one from Management and one from Computer Science). One of the features of our program is that it is very interdisciplinary; we want to offer an immersive experience where students receive mentorship. It’s been a great course, and I’m optimistic that it will once again be well received by students (this is my third year teaching it).

What connections do you see between the MDI and SIM programs?

There’s a lot! People come into MDI primarily to find a job in digital transformation; SIM students often have a broader interest. Whether that means they are working in non-profits, they really care about things like the social good. In SIM, students often come from interdisciplinary backgrounds, but especially from the Arts and Social Sciences. In MDI, students are mostly coming from Computer Science backgrounds. There’s also a different balance between international and domestic students; in SIM, there are mostly domestic, whereas in MDI, there are mostly international students.

Other than those differences, they have more similarities than anything else! They are both interested in the intersection of information in society (in the case of SIM), and digital technology in society (in the case of MDI). Those two things overlap a lot. There are opportunities for shared courses, collaboration, and social opportunities. A lot of MDI students take our “INFO 6540 Data Management” course, for example. There are students within SIM who have gotten involved and really been transformed by this community. Some of our SIM students who are more technical in their interests have taken a course called “Data Mining and Data Warehousing” offered through MDI.

Do you have any special goals you are hoping to accomplish during your time with the MDI?

I want to have a really good understanding of what motivates students to go out and meet other people. One of the things we saw during the pandemic was that it was very difficult to do that; I want to know how we can go about creating a greater sense of community within the MDI cohort. I also want to find the right way to structure the program in making everything more flexible. Right now, we don’t have a lot of flexibility within our rigid certificate programs; I want to have students use the MDI in a way that they are best able to achieve their goals. For example, if a student is passionate about user experience in health, how can we take our current structure and empower that student? Those are the two things I am looking at.

Do you have any other comments you’d like to add? 

SIM is a stakeholder in a new initiative called the College of Digital Transformation, and this is going to be an initiative related to the program. It’s a new partnership between Computer Science and Management. There will be lots of opportunities to collaborate and enrich each other’s communities. That’ll be something to watch over the next year!

If you’d like to learn more about the MDI program, please visit their website at: https://www.dal.ca/academics/programs/graduate/digital-innovation.html.

Job Posting: Two Limited-Term Faculty in SIM

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SIM invites applications for the following faculty positions:

Please share!

Inquiries may be directed to Philippe Mongeon, Chair of the Search committee (care of sim@dal.ca). Applications must be submitted through PeopleAdmin.

Research News: November 2022

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By: Toni Beaton (MI Student)

We are happy to share the following recent research accomplishments by SIM faculty:

From Dr. Mike Smit:

As previously announced, Mike Smit started a new role as Deputy Scientific Director for the Ocean Frontier Institute earlier this year. In that role, he helped lead a large, multi-institution proposal to the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, which aims to understand and transform the role of the ocean in assessing, mitigating, and adapting to climate change, and which includes a significant role for ocean data and information. Hopefully there’s good news on that proposal in our next newsletter!  Mike has also participated in the Digital Twins of the Ocean Summit, a WMO initiative to better collect and share data on Greenhouse Gas emissions, the Polar Data Workshop, the joint Canada-EU ocean data partnership forum, and many other national and international conferences.

From Dr. Louise Spiteri: 

Louise Spiteri is a co-applicant, together with other members of DefaultDal (https://defaultdal.ca/) on a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant for the project Fostering plant-based defaults in Canadian universities and colleges. Louise is continuing to work on another SSHRC-funded project that examines Scaling up trauma and violence: Informed outreach with women affected by violence.

From Dr. Philippe Mongeon:

Journal Publications 

  • Sauvé, J.-S., Mongeon, P., Larivière, V. (in press). From art to science: a bibliometric analysis of architectural scholarly production from 1980 to 2016. PLOS ONE.
  • Simard, M.-A., Ghiasi, G., Mongeon, P., Larivière, V. (2022). National differences in dissemination and use of open access literature. PLOS ONE, 17(8): e0272730.

Conference Proceedings 

  • Mongeon, P., Paul-Hus, A., Henkel, M., & Larivière, V. (2022). On the impact of geo-contextualized and local research in the global North and South. The 26th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. Granada, September 7-9 2022.
  • Mayhew, K., Rosati, D., Music, J., & Mongeon, P. (2022). On the citation relationship between industry funded and publicly funded Canadian Food Research publications. The 26th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. Granada, September 7-9 2022.
  • Mayhew, K., Henkel, M., Morrison, L., Svab, C., Krause, G. & Mongeon, P. (2022). A bibliometric analysis of the coverage of historical journals in Web of Science and Scopus. The 26th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. Granada, September 7-9 2022.
  • Hare, M., & Mongeon, P. (2022). The Impact of Mentorship on the Research Performance of LIS PhDs. The 26th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators. Granada, September 7-9 2022.
  • Taylor, S., Conrad, C., Mongeon, P. (2022). On achieving greater research impact through interdisciplinary collaboration in Canada. Conference of the Administrative Science Association of Canada. 3-7 June 2022.
  • Butler, L.-A., Matthias, L., Simard, M.-A., Mongeon, P. & Haustein, S. (2022). The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access Publishing. Proceedings of the 2022 conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science. 7-10 June 2022.
  • Mayhew, K., Henkel, M., Morrison, L., Svab, C, Krause, G. & Mongeon, P. (2022). On the coverage of historical journals in Web of Science and Scopus. Proceedings of the 2022 conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science. 7-10 June 2022.

Datasets 

  • Butler, L.-A., Matthias, L., Simard, M.-A., Mongeon, P., & Haustein, S. (2022). Annual Article Processing Charges (APCs) and number of gold and hybrid open access articles in Web of Science indexed journals published by Elsevier, Sage, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley 2015-2018 (Version v1) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7086420
  • Philippe Mongeon, Timothy Bowman, & Rodrigo Costas. (2022). Open dataset of scholars on Twitter (2020-08-23) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7013518

Research Grants 

  • Mongeon, P. (2022-2024). The role of scholarly journals in shaping knowledge: a bibliometric investigation of journal scope and journal fit. SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 44,270$, Principal investigator.
  • Westwood, A., Mongeon, P. & Falconer, M. (2022-2024). What constitutes effective knowledge exchange at the environmental science-policy interface? SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, 200,000$, Co-Principal investigator.
  • Mongeon, P. (2022-2023). Measuring engagement with equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in academic research. SSHRC Explore Grant, 5,000$, Principal investigator.
  • Taylor, S. & Mongeon, P. (2022). The Evolution of Teaching Effectiveness: a bibliometric perspective. Dalhousie University Scholarship or Teaching and Learning Grant, 3,000$, Co-Principal investigator.

From Dr. Colin Conrad:

  • Three journal articles were published during this time. They are listed below with citations.
    • Conrad, C., Deng, Q., Caron, I., Shkurska, O., Skerrett, P., & Sundararajan, B. (2022). How student perceptions about online learning difficulty influenced their satisfaction during Canada’s Covid-19 response. British Journal of Educational Technology, 53(3), 534-557.
    • Conrad, C. D., Aziz, J. R., Henneberry, J. M., & Newman, A. J. (2022). Do emotions influence safe browsing? Toward an electroencephalography marker of affective responses to cybersecurity notifications. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16.
    • Conrad, C., Moylan, R., & Diaz, G. O. (2022). University life has gone digital: influences of institutional mobile social network use during the COVID-19 emergency. Library Hi Tech, (ahead-of-print).
  • Three conference papers published as well, two in the Proceedings of the 2022 NeuroIS Retreat and one in the CONF-IRM 2022 Proceedings. We also have a forthcoming conference paper at HICSS 2023 this year. These papers are either related to remote work, mind wandering, or new educational technologies.
  • I had the pleasure of hosting Anika Nissen, a PhD student from the University of Duisberg-Essen in Germany this summer. Together with Aaron Newman, we worked with Anika on a cool project related to the brain processing of social robots and artificial Instagram influencers. This paper is complete and under review.
  • I was named a Data Champion by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, which provided $49 998 to support research and teaching related to computational social science and digital humanities.
  • We have multiple funded ongoing projects through Mitacs, largely to look into phenomena at the intersection of human-computer interaction and data mining.
  • I have many other ongoing collaborations (some funded) related to identifying factors in motivation of public sector workers, brain-computer interfaces, and mind wandering, and YouTube videos.
  • I had the pleasure of being featured as an emerging researcher (“Young Academic”) in the inaugural NeuroIS Society magazine, which was an honour!

SIM Welcomes New Tenure Track Professors

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For immediate release: Dalhousie SIM Welcomes New Tenure Track Professors

Tuesday, October 18th, 2022 (Halifax, NS) – SIM is excited to announce two new tenure track hires: Dr. Stacy Allison-Cassin and Dr. Jamila Ghaddar.

Dr. Allison-Cassin began her appointment as Assistant Professor on July 1st, 2022. She holds a BMus Honours from Wilfrid Laurier University, MMus from Duquesne University, MMISt from University of Toronto, and a PhD in Humanities from York University. Before coming to SIM, she held a limited-term appointment of Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto; and as an Associate Librarian at York University Libraries, as Teaching and Learning Librarian, Digital Humanities Librarian, W.P. Scott Chair in E-Librarianship, and Music Cataloguer at York University Libraries; and the National Librarian at the Canadian Music Centre. She is a Citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and Chair of the Indigenous Matters Standing Committee of IFLA. She sits on an a number of advisory roles including Library and Archives Canada’s National Union Catalogue Advisory Committee, the Researcher Council of CKRN, and recently was an advisor on OCLC’s Reimagine Descriptive Workflows project. Her research concerns the ways knowledge structures shape meaning and how we come to know and understand the world, especially as it concerns intangible culture, media, and marginalized communities.

Dr. Ghaddar will begin her appointment as Assistant Professor on January 1st, 2023, after completing a limited-term appointment. She holds a BA Honours in Anthropology with a Minor in Linguistics from McMaster University, and an MI and PhD (Information Studies) from the University of Toronto. She is currently a SSHRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manitoba (UofM), where she works with Raymond Frogner at the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation and Dr. Greg Bak at the History Department. She is also an instructor in the Archival Studies stream of the University of Manitoba and University of Winnipeg Join Master’s Program in History, and a Visiting Fellow at the University’s St. John’s College. Previously she was Project Coordinator of the Diversity of Design Project (PI: Dr. Nadia Caidi) at the University of Toronto; a Library Archival Fellow at the American University of Beirut; and a Senior Doctoral Fellow at the Equity Department at the University of Toronto’s New College. Dr. Ghaddar’s research explores the complex dynamics between race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship in archival, library, media, and digital domains.

As highlighted in their bios, Drs. Allison-Cassin and Ghaddar bring valuable experience in decolonizing curricula and collaborative research and will contribute significantly to D (equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, decolonization) initiatives in SIM and in the Faculty of Management. With these new positions, SIM and FOM can continue to build a strong foundation in all programs Faculty-wide that reflects social justice concerns within society.

From Dr. Sandra Toze (Director, School of Information Management): “As the information professions continue to respond and change, it is very exciting to be able to build capacity in the areas of social justice and decolonization. We welcome both Drs. Allison-Cassin and Ghaddar and are looking forward to supporting their important work, and collaborating with them on strengthening our programs, and providing excellent opportunities for our students to learn.”

From Dr. Kim Brooks (Dean, Faculty of Management): “It is exciting to have a new colleague with Stacy’s depth of experience joining us at the Faculty of Management.  I’m particularly fascinated by her engagement with ‘wiki’ publications and am confident that her research and teaching will help us expand our Faculty’s footprint in important ways. Jamila has already brought so much to our Faculty.  Her work with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has enhanced the experience she brings to her research and teaching.  I know that her course on Antiracism and Diversity in the Information Professions was a real inspiration and change-maker and look forward to having her talents within our community.”

When asked about their new appointments, Drs. Ghaddar and Allison-Cassin said the following:

Dr. Stacy Allison-Cassin: “I’m thrilled to join the School of Information Management and excited to build capacity in relation to research on knowledge justice and Indigenous matters in information studies. I’m also excited to have the opportunity to work with students, faculty at SIM and beyond on issues related to social justice. There’s such a need in librarianship, other information professions, and in related domains for substantive change to practice, culture, and technology.”

Dr. Jamila Ghaddar: “SIM is an incubator for new ideas, fresh thinking and critical perspectives on information, its institutions, and infrastructures. It is as exciting and dynamic as it is warm and welcoming. Here, you can aim high and find the support you need to succeed. I look forward to continuing to work with the amazing SIM team as I further expand and deepen my work for equity, decolonization and antiracism through curriculum development, partnership building, research, community engagement, and knowledge mobilization. My work begins from a strongly held belief that within our increasingly information driven and technologically mediated world, information scholars and professionals can play a crucial role in addressing the social justice issues of our time.”

Media contact:
Dr. Sandra Toze
Director, School of Information Management
Dalhousie University
Sandra.toze@dal.ca

SIM Professors Win Data Champions Competition

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Re-posted from Dal News. Click here to read the full article:

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada has announced Mike Smit, Colin Conrad and Darren Abramson as winners of their Data Champions competiton. Dalhousie’s Data Champions will receive up to $50,000 each to develop activities at the local, regional and national levels that advance awareness, understanding, development and adoption of research management tools, best practices and resources in Canada.

Mike Smit, Faculty of Management

Accelerating Research Data Management in Ocean Observing & Research

Understanding the ocean is essential for coastal communities, access to food, and moderating climate. Challenged but undaunted by its vast expanse and depth, researchers from across disciplines rely on observations of the ocean. This project will advance research data management from ocean observations in support of ocean research, beyond what would otherwise be possible. The Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System (CIOOS) will accelerate research data management by:

  • Informing, educating, and guiding new and emerging researchers in how to manage, share, and find ocean data from a growing array of sources;
  • Review and renew research data management advocacy and support for sharing ocean data based on the results of a previous SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis grant;
  • Build on existing collaborations and engagement, consult with First Nations communities on how Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural labels might be incorporated in data management systems when it is appropriate to include this type of data.

The research team includes Dalhousie data experts like Louise Gillis (Research Data Management Librarian, Dalhousie Libraries) and Shayla Fitzsimmons (Executive Director, CIOOS Atlantic) along with expertise from some of Canada’s leading ocean data management centers, including Ocean Networks Canada, Observatoire global du Saint-Laurent, and Memorial University. During the pilot phase, the team will work with academic institutions and organizations on the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast, and the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Colin Conrad, Faculty of Management and Darren Abramson, Faculty of Arts and Social Science

Beyond the Black Box: Unlocking the Potential of Digital Humanities

Digital technologies and data now play a pivotal role in our world, yet many university researchers are poorly equipped to create knowledge with them. This issue is particularly pertinent to researchers in the social sciences and humanities who are limited by funding and resources tailored to pre-digital methodologies. There is also a growing interest among digital researchers in the insights from the social sciences and humanities related to the intersection of digital technologies and society.

Drs. Conrad (pictured) and Abramson aim to address disciplinary divides through a series of events aimed at equipping humanities researchers with digital and data skills. Their immediate goal is to foster interest and cultivate expertise. Their long-term goal is to create a hub for equipping social researchers with ever-changing research tools for the digital era with a vision to position Canada as a leader in data-driven social sciences and digital humanities.

Dr. Mike Smit appointed Deputy Scientific Director (Ocean Frontier Institute)

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SIM Professor, Dr. Mike Smit, has been appointed Deputy Scientific Director of the Ocean Frontier Institute. OFI is a partnership led by Dalhousie University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and University of Prince Edward Island. This will be a part-time role while Dr. Smit continues to fulfill his duties as Associate Dean, Academic (Faculty of Management).

From Dr. Smit: “I work with the leadership team to develop and implement strategy (pertaining to research themes); represent OFI within Dalhousie, regionally and nationally; work with colleagues to synthesize and share ocean research across Dalhousie. In the short term, I have been working with colleagues on a large research proposal involving Dalhousie, UQAR, Laval, and Memorial called Transforming Climate Action: Addressing the Missing Ocean. We were recently approved as as candidate for funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. To understand why someone from SIM is in this role, it’s helpful to know that I’ve been an OFI researcher, leading one of the large research projects focused on how we manage the vast amounts of data from ocean observing. This is building on the ocean data work I started with MEOPAR, and then continued with my role advancing the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System. Data and information are critical to understanding the changing ocean, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with incredible ocean researchers who helped me become comfortable in this area.”

Congrats Dr. Smit!

Congrats to SIM Award Winners

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Several SIM people have won awards recently. Details below. Congrats to all! We are privileged to have such dedicated students, alumni, faculty, and staff here at SIM.

Vivian Howard: This month, Dr Howard was awarded the 2022 ARUCC Next Best Practice & Innovation Award as nominated by your colleague Adam Robertson. The award was bestowed in the team category, in recognition of her work as co-chair of the Credit/No-Credit Initiative (as part of her role as Associate Vice-President, Academic). From the ARUCC: Early in the pandemic, Dalhousie invoked and re-purposed elements of its existing grading scheme (i.e., GPA neutral grades of PASS and ILL) in response to the emergency shift to online teaching and associated disruptions for students. While this approach was sufficient as a quick, interim measure, it highlighted a critical gap in our grading policy: the dearth of any holistic, student-centred GPA-neutral grading option as a tool for supporting students whose grades have been impacted by serious extenuating circumstances. The grading option was overwhelmingly supported by the University Senate in October 2021. It has already proven a tremendous tool for academic leaders and advisors to use in place of a letter grade to support students in challenging circumstances when other solutions are not appropriate. In terms of impact, clear and systematic procedures have reduced student anxiety and instructor workload, and have supported student retention and degree completion.

Kim Humes: In May, Kim was awarded the Faculty of Management Impact Award for Supporting Colleagues. From the nomination: We feel Kim has consistently provided outstanding service to her faculty and staff colleagues, during a time of constant change. The past couple of COVID years have been difficult for everyone. Kim, as the key administrator for the School has faced many disruptions due to COVID, and managing life with a toddler, but in addition has been the key lynchpin during many changes in SIM. Over the past year in particular she had to keep things running smoothly as leadership in SIM transitioned between Vivian and myself, as we added new faculty members, as we significantly increased the number of students involved in research, and the number of public lectures we typically hold. All of these pieces fell to Kim to lead, while she also maintained her usual workload. Our recent Research Day highlights the many ways that Kim works tirelessly to ensure the success of others, her commitment to professionalism, and her excellence in service. Over the past number of years Kim has taken on a much larger roles with our Public Lectures and our Events. Kim has also taken on ownership of our social media channels and has been a critical part of the School’s hiring team.

Poppy Riddle (MI ’22): In May, Poppy was awarded the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Research in Librarianship Grant (student category). The Graduate Student Research Grant was created to support library school students’ active engagement in research activities pertaining to research and/or academic libraries with the intent to publish the results and to promote research in the field of academic librarianship by and/or about Canadians. It is intended to support projects involving structured, evidence-based research, which propose answers to real-world issues. CARL is very pleased to support Poppy Nicolette Riddle’s (Master of Information Management Student at Dalhousie University) usability study on visual idioms to reduce uncertainty, anxiety, and frustration during exploratory search by scholars.

Hannah Steeves (MLIS ’16): Hannah received the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) Nancy McCormack Emerging Leader Award. The Emerging Leader Award honours the memory and work of Nancy McCormack who was a long-time and contributing member of CALL/ACBD. Nancy was the Head Law Librarian at Queen’s University as well as a professor of legal research and of torts. She was a warm and empathetic person who embodied a love of teaching, knowledge and scholarship. She was very supportive of the newer members of CALL/ACBD and mentored many of them over the years. Nancy encouraged members to look beyond the ordinary and to excel in their roles as librarian, teacher and researcher. She was admired by her staff, her students, faculty at Queens University, and members of CALL/ACBD. The Nancy McCormack Emerging Leader Award will be given to a CALL/ACBD member in good standing who is normally in the first ten years of their law library career and who has demonstrated the qualities embodied by Nancy. They must have made significant contributions to the Association and have shown excellent potential for continuing service and leadership.

Courtney Vienneau (MLIS ’19)/Nicole Marcoux (MLIS ’20)/Nicole Slipp (MLIS ’20): In April, Courtney, Nicole M, and Nicole S were recipients of the 2022 Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries (CAAL-CBPA) Collaborative Research Grant awarded. They were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Business database subscriptions at CAUL-CBUA member libraries and their alignment with institutional values. They propose to investigate business-related database subscriptions in the Canadian context, factors influencing these subscriptions, and alignment with institutional values and other critical alignments. The CAAL-CBPA Collaborative Research Grant is intended to encourage collaborative research by librarians and staff working in academic libraries in the region through projects which involve structured, evidence-based research.

 

Research News: May 2022

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Dr. Philippe Mongeon was awarded a connection grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The project is a partnership with Dr. Jean-Sébastien Sauvé (Co-PI) from the University of Montreal, the Canadian Association for Research Libraries (CARL) and the Maritime Institute for Science, Technology, and Society (MISTS). It aims to foster greater collaboration between practitioners and academic researchers in Canada by creating an exhaustive database of these groups’ scholarship, by developing a visual interface to explore that literature and identify new research and collaboration opportunities, and hosting an online conference on collaboration between practitioners and academics in Library and Information Science.

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