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Workshop: How to Foster Creativity and Better Learning Experiences from Group Work

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021
12—1 p.m. Atlantic
Online via Teams Meetings
Register


Rachel Moylan
School of Information Management
Faculty of Management		 Colin Conrad
Colin Conrad
School of Information Management
Faculty of Management

Group assignments can help students develop the soft skills valued by employers, such as creativity, collaboration, and communication skills. However, many students and instructors find group assignments to be frustrating and difficult to manage.

It doesn’t have to be this way! Join us for an interactive discussion about designing and facilitating meaningful (and maybe even enjoyable) group work that fosters creativity and learning.

After a brief presentation outlining research-based recommendations, we will work in groups to discuss a sample assignment. We will then invite attendees to share their own experiences with group assignments that were successful, failed, or were somewhere in between. Please bring examples of group assignments you’ve used or are considering using to help stimulate our discussion.

REGISTER

Registration closes Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 10:40 a.m. Atlantic.  A link to the Collaborate Ultra site will be sent at least 1-hour prior to the event.  If you did you not receive the link, or wish to register once it’s closed, please email clt@dal.ca.

Location: Online via Teams Meetings

Contact: clt@dal.ca

IM Public Lecture: On the Never-Ending Serial Crisis and the Need to Re-Think Scholarly Publishing (Dr. Philippe Mongeon)

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The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are free of charge and open to all, unless otherwise stated.

All 2020-2021 lectures will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the full schedule. Lecture will be recorded and posted on our YouTube channel.

Dr. Philippe Mongeon
Dalhousie University

Lecture Details
Thursday, March 18th, 2021
6:00pm
Microsoft Teams (click link at above date/time to join)

Abstract: Academic libraries around the world have been in an enduring “serial crisis” for now more than three decades. Despite the massive decrease in the costs of publishing brought by technological advances, the rise of the Open Access movement, and the “big deals” negotiated with scholarly publishers, the costs of access to scholarly literature never ceased to increase and the crisis remains unresolved. This talk will provide a quick overview of the evolution of scholarly publishing over the last 30 years and present the results of an ongoing study on the costs of access to scholarly literature in Canadian universities. The talk will also provide a critical perspective on the so-called transformative agreements (some prefer the term “big deal 2.0”) that recently emerged as a solution proposed by scholarly publishers.

Bio: Dr. Philippe Mongeon is an assistant professor at the School of Information Management at Dalhousie University. He is Director of the Quantitative Science Studies Lab, an associate member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), president of the Canadian Association for Information Science (CAIS), and member of the Environmental Information: Use and Influence (EIUI) research group. His research revolves around the use of bibliometrics and other quantitative methods to study the dynamics and practices of knowledge production, dissemination and use. He is an open access and open science advocate.

You’re Invited to the 2021 Dalhousie-Horrocks National Leadership Lecture

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Reflections of a First Nations librarian from the 1970s to the present (Dr. Gene Anne Joseph)

RSVP’s are required. Click here to register via Eventbrite.

Lecture Details
Thursday, February 25th, 2021
5:30pm AST
Microsoft Teams (link will be sent to registered attendees)

Abstract: Reflections of a First Nations librarian from the 1970s to the present. In this nearly fifty year period Dr. Gene Joseph (Hon.) has implemented a number of seminal approaches to library and archives services for First Nations communities. Her primary work has centred upon research and litigation support for Aboriginal Title and Rights. While advocating for establishment and improvement of library services to First Nations she has worked with many non-Indigenous librarians on a number of initiatives which have improved library services and increased the number of Indigenous librarians. As Gene says, “A number of improvements, changes and then again not much movement on some very important areas of our profession.” There is still a lot of work needed!

Bio: Dr. Gene Anne Joseph (Hon.) is of Wet’suwet’en and Nadleh Whut’en ancestry and was the first Indigenous librarian in British Columbia to receive her Masters of Library Science Degree (1982). As a professional librarian she has specialized in First Nations Aboriginal Title and Rights litigation; as well as in establishing First Nations libraries and archival collections.

Joseph’s seminal work on the court case Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1997) contributed to substantial improvements in the recognition of Aboriginal Rights and Title in British Columbia and Canada. Gene was the founding librarian of the X̱wi7x̱wa Library at the University of British Columbia, the only post secondary institution in Canada with an Indigenous library. In 1996 The University of British Columbia School of Library Archival and Information Studies recognized Gene’s work with a Distinguished Alumni award for “outstanding contributions to Library and Information Services in Canada.” In 2015 Gene retired from White Raven Law where she worked for many years as a senior research and litigation support advisor on Haida aboriginal title. In 2018 Gene was honoured by the Vancouver Island University with an Honorary Doctor of Law. Joseph’s leadership and innovation continues to provide a foundation for future generations of First Nations librarians, libraries, archives and cultural centres.

Following Dr. Joseph’s lecture, the Dalhousie-Horrocks National Leadership Fund will be presented to MI student, Siobhan Wiggans. This Fund was established in 2007 to honour Dr. Norman Horrocks, OC, PhD, FCLIP (1927-2010) for his outstanding leadership in the field of librarianship in North America, Australia, and Europe. Over several decades Dr. Horrocks, former Director of the School of Information Management and Dean of the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University, pursued a distinguished career of very active involvement in professional associations in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia, the United States, and Canada. His many contributions, for which he received local, national and international recognition, have advanced the field and the careers of countless individuals. The fund supports a scholarship and an associated lecture series through an endowment donated by the many former students, colleagues, friends and admirers of Norman Horrocks.

(IM Public Lecture) Killer Info: Big Data, the Fallacy of Homicide Stats, and Disrupting the Murder Industry (Dr. Michael Arntfield)

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The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are free of charge and open to all, unless otherwise stated.

All 2020-2021 lectures will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the full schedule. Lecture will be recorded and posted on our YouTube channel.

Co-sponsored by the Schulich School of Law (Dalhousie University)

Dr. Michael Arntfield
Western University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020
6:00pm
Microsoft Teams (click link at above date/time to join)*

*When you click the event link, a window will open asking you to download the Teams app if you don’t already have it. You can ignore this. Just move that box and click the option to open in browser. Note: Safari is not recommended due to issues with video and audio. Please use Firefox or Chrome, if possible.

Abstract: In the summer of 2018, the Chief Coroner in Ontario announced an overdue inquiry into so-called “concealed homicides”, or murders that had been improperly categorized, coded, and never properly investigated by police, and which have since ended up in the proverbial dustbins of history. While this was the first such admission of the fallacy of homicide data in Canada, an audit in the United States conducted by the Murder Accountability Project (murderdata.org) had already confirmed that as many as nearly 3000 murders in any given year have been mislead by police every year for at least the last twenty years, with some states having as many as 50% of all murders miscategorized as either suicides or accidents that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention later confirmed were actually criminal homicides.

Yet, these contradictory records have never been properly reconciled, corrected, and the cases properly investigated, and the offenders for the most part remain at large and unidentified. The rate jumps to nearly 80% on average when tabulating murders committed on Native American lands. These same data, like the case that prompted the inquiry in Ontario, are believed to contain large clusters of serial killers given the often sophisticated counter-measures seen in many cases, and which led to critical misinterpretations by primary investigators as a result of crime scene staging and/or elaborate concealment efforts.

With both Canada and the United States using the same homicide records management system, the truth is that solved rates (known as “clearance rates”) are at best an approximation of the actual number of homicides accurately identified and solved by police–a rate, it should be noted, that reached a historic low in 2016 without factoring in this margin of error of nearly 12% in terms of murders overlooked and never even screened-in for investigation. The annual murder rate per capital in each country therefore also in no way reflects actual occurrences of homicide. Bearing this reality in mind amid a timely discussion on police funding and accountability, this seminar will discuss how homicide investigation as a tertiary service sector industry is, like other industries, ripe for disruption, and will discuss the role of data scientists, advocates, and innovators in transitioning homicide investigation and scholarship toward a new standard of appropriate rigour.

Bio: Dr. Michael Arntfield is a professor, criminologist and homicide scholar at Western University where he founded the university’s Cold Case Society unsolved crimes think tank, a data-driven victims’ initiative that earned him Western’s last Humanitarian of the Year Award. He is also co-director of the Murder Accountability Project in Washington DC, the world’s largest homicide database that uses a proprietary algorithm to identify previously undetected patterns in serial homicide among nearly a million murders dating back forty years. The author of over a dozen books on criminal investigation and a former police detective, he also currently appears as the resident expert on the network series Time to Kill on Investigation Discovery and Mummy Mysteries on Discovery Travel.

michaelarntfield.com / murderdata.org / TED Talk

You’re Invited to the 2020 SIMAA Welcome Event

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Open to all SIM alumni, students and faculty:

The School of Information Management Associated Alumni’s upcoming Welcome Event will take place via Microsoft Teams on September 29 from 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm. Click this link to join the event.

A panel of alumni and returning students will be sharing with you what they wish they knew when they started out, how their careers have developed, and what they’ve learned along the way, among other topics!

Our panelists include:

* Marc Harper, Bibliothecaire de reference, Bibliotheque Champlain, Universite de Moncton

* Ali McLaughlin, MI Candidate 2020

* Tamanna Moharana, MI Candidate 2021

* Margaret Vail, Academic Librarian, Angus L. Macdonald Library, St. Francis Xavier University

* Suzanne van den Hoogen, University Librarian, Patrick Power Library, St. Mary’s University

* Kelli Woo Shoo, Manager Client Services, Nova Scotia Provincial Library

* Ellie Bernard-Wesson, moderator, alumni 2020

We encourage you to ask questions of our panelists at the end. This is an excellent opportunity to connect with other members of the SIM family — experienced alumni, new professionals, and students alike. Everyone is welcome and we hope to have you there!

While it is not necessary to RSVP, please do so if you can to Katherine Luber, SIMAA Vice Chair, by the evening of Monday, September 28. Her email is kluber@dal.ca. This is strictly to get an idea of numbers — no one will be turned away if you can’t confirm ahead of time.

– SIMAA Executive

IM Public Lecture: Vulnerabilities exposed and the opportunity to respond: Reflections on public libraries in the time of COVID-19 (Åsa Kachan)

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The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are free of charge and open to all, unless otherwise stated.

All 2020-2021 lectures will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the full schedule. Lecture will be recorded and posted on our YouTube channel.

Vulnerabilities exposed and the opportunity to respond: Reflections on public libraries in the time of COVID-19

Åsa Kachan
Halifax Public Libraries

Lecture Details
Tuesday, October 6th, 2020
5:30pm (AST)
Microsoft Teams (click link at above date/time to join)

Abstract: When COVID-19 necessitated the sudden closure of public libraries in March, libraries were faced with an unprecedented challenge. After years of bringing growing numbers of people together within our spaces to learn, share, laugh and even dance, gathering had suddenly become dangerous. From her own experience, and with stories from across the county, Åsa Kachan will share the remarkable ways public libraries have responded to our communities’ urgent need for accurate information, entertainment, technology and connection in a time of COVID.

Bio: Åsa Kachan is the CEO & Chief Librarian for Halifax Public Libraries where she oversees 420 staff working across the 14-branch library system. Halifax Public Libraries recently received international acclaim with the opening of Halifax’s new Central Library in 2014. Halifax Public Libraries is very highly regarded for its services, programs and welcoming spaces that reach diverse populations with equality and respect.

Prior to her role with Halifax Public Libraries, Åsa spent 16 years in senior administrative roles within universities, most recently serving as the Assistant Vice-President Enrolment Management & Registrar for Dalhousie University between 2004 and 2014. During Åsa’s time at Dalhousie, she undertook critical transformations to improve the student experience, including revamping undergraduate scholarships and bursaries, modernizing admission and recruitment practices, and improving front-line student service.

Åsa has volunteered her time with a number of community organizations, including Halifax Dance, the Halifax Grammar School, and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. She is currently serving as Chair of the Governance Committee of the United Way of Halifax and sits on the Advisory Board for the Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University. In 2018 Åsa was appointed to the Governing Council of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for a three-year term.

Evidence-Informed Decision Making: A Timely Graduate Course

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Sharing from the EIUI blog. Read the full post here:

The scheduling of the graduate course, “Information in Public Policy and Decision Making,” offered by the Dalhousie University School of Information Management could hardly be more timely or important. Troubling as the COVID-19 pandemic has been, as the virus infiltrated countries and caused havoc around the globe, it presented an exceptional case for students to consider in the midst of a course about the role(s) of information in decision making. While it did not take the pandemic to highlight the importance of evidence for informing decisions, the disease certainly shone a spotlight on the variation and complexity of decisions processes employed by both political leaders and citizens generally. As Sir Peter Gluckman, Chair of the International Network on Science Advice to Government, noted in a recent blog post: “What is striking is the diversity of decisions that have been made in different jurisdictions from early and total lockdown to the imposition of social restrictions….Different jurisdictions have very different ways by which evidence is brought to the policy and political tables” (Gluckman, 2020).

During the term, the students worked in assigned teams to present seminars based on recent literature on the course themes. These seminars resulted in informative blog posts, which outlined key findings from this literature, as follows:

“Information Production and Selection in Development of Effective Policies,” by Ally Patton, Kyle Doucette, and Shannon Faires

“Pathways and Models: Recent Literature on Communication of Research Information,” by Cali Kehoe and Mikyla Bartlett

“Enablers and Barriers in the Communication of Research Information for Policy Development,” by Matthew Cawood and Catherine Thompson

“The Role of Public Consultations and Public Advisory Processes in Decision Making,” by Mary Macgowan and Mohan Raj Manohar

“Disinformation, Misinformation, and Decision Making,” by Cora-Lynn Munroe-Lynds and Jean-Luc Lemieux

“Challenges in Measuring the Use and Influence of Research-Based Information,” by James Ledger and Lauren Skabar

“Improving Use of Research-Based Information in Policy Contexts,” by Sara Lawlor and Tamanna Moharana

SIM Research Day (April 3rd) *cancelled*

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Please join us for SIM Research Day to hear about the exciting research projects our graduate students and colleagues are working on.

 Participants Welcome: Do you have research to present? Please contact sim@dal.ca. Open to any MI, MIM, IDPhD students + information management professionals.

 Spectators Welcome: This is a free event open to all. No RSVP’s required.

Learn more about SIM research initiatives here.

IM Public Lecture: i-Crimes and Misdemeanours: [Presti]Digit[iz]ation, Analogue Photographs, and their Digital Surrogates (Joan M. Schwartz)

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The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. Click here for the full schedule.

We encourage you to attend in person, but if that is not possible you can access a recording on our YouTube channel following the lecture. Live streaming is not currently available. 

i-Crimes and Misdemeanours: [Presti]Digit[iz]ation, Analogue Photographs, and their Digital Surrogates (Joan M. Schwartz)

Joan M. Schwartz
Queen’s University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020
5:30pm
Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
6100 University Ave

Abstract: Institutions, under pressure from administrators, from funding sources, and from the user-public, make photographs available online as searchable single items. In the process, meaningful information about the physical and intellectual contexts of creation, circulation, and viewing is sacrificed at the altar of speed, quantity, convenience, and the almighty dollar. In this lecture, I am concerned with troubling changes, subtle and otherwise, brought about by “[presti]digit[iz]ation” —  scanning for ease of access, whereby materiality, context, and meaning are lost. Drawing on professional experience as a photo-archivist and scholarly interests as a photographic historian, I critique examples of digitization and description initiatives, with a view to highlighting those instances for which institutions can justly be accused of “iCrimes and Misdemeanours” and encouraging best practices grounded in a deeper understanding of the nature and power of photographs as a form of visual communication, and in a broader appreciation of the critical differences between search and research, content and meaning underpinning access to and use of online images.

Bio: A former specialist in photography acquisition and research at the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa (1977-2003), Joan M. Schwartz is Professor, Art History and Art Conservation (cross-appointed to Geography) at Queen’s University, Kingston. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the Society of American Archivists, she is co-editor of Picturing Place (with James R. Ryan) and of Archives, Records, and Power (with the late Terry Cook), and has published widely on photography and the geographical imagination, and on archives as spaces of power.  Her current SSHRCC-funded research, entitled “Picturing ‘Canada’: Photographic Images and Geographical Imaginings in British North America, 1839-1889”, focuses on the role of photography in the making of early modern Canada.  She will be delivering the McKay Lecture in the Department of History on March 5th, 2020 based on her research into the life and legacy of pioneer British Columbia photographer, Frederick Dally.

IM Public Lecture: Value and California’s Public Libraries (Cheryl Stenström)

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The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. Click here for the full schedule.

We encourage you to attend in person, but if that is not possible you can access a recording on our YouTube channel following the lecture. Live streaming is not currently available. 

Value and California’s Public Libraries (Cheryl Stenström)

Cheryl Stenström
Dalhousie University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, February 25th, 2020
5:30pm
Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
6100 University Ave

Abstract: Dr. Stenström will be speaking about the unique value framework offered by public libraries. Working in conjunction with the California State Library, her most recent project brings together existing research and recent work in California and the UK that relate empirical findings to a proposed value framework. She’ll conclude by looking how public libraries in Nova Scotia have been engaged in this work over the past several years.

Bio: Cheryl Stenström began her career in public libraries in 1993, and has since worked as a reference librarian in a large urban library, a talking book producer, a public library consultant and public library CEO. After graduating from Queensland University of Technology’s PhD program in 2012, she began teaching full time at San Jose State University’s iSchool. She also continues to work as a Library Consultant, primarily in the area of organizational management, working with organizations such as the University of British Columbia, the Saskatoon Public Library, the Downey Unified School District, and the Surry Public Library. Dr. Stenström’s research interests are focused on social influence and decision making in the political arena, particularly as it affects funding for libraries. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s iSchool and lives in Mahone Bay, NS.