Daily Bulletin

UW welcomes electronic theses

"It doesn't change the way they write theses," says Dwight Aplevich, who shepherded the new rule through the senate as one of his last duties as associate dean of graduate studies. (He finished his term in that post on June 30.) A thesis still has to be "black on white", Aplevich said, but now it can be electronic (in PostScript format) rather than on paper.

So the possibility of a multimedia thesis on a CD-ROM is still some way in the future -- although "in the long run, these things will be more possible," Aplevich said. "The question 'what is a thesis?' is an academic one, and hasn't been considered by senate."

The senate also amended the rules to note that when a completed thesis is deposited, the university has the right to make it available "including network-based electronic indexing and circulation". In other words, Aplevich said, the thesis might be made accessible over the Internet, not just on paper or in microfiche form. Like most North American universities, UW has PhD theses put onto microfiche by UMI, formerly University Microfilms, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Theses are also available in the National Library of Canada and in UW's own library.

The senate was told that electronic theses have been under discussion at UW for several years. A working group representing the library, the graduate studies office and other departments presented a report on the subject in 1997. "Some technical details remain," the submission to senate said; "nevertheless it appears feasible to allow electronic submission on a trial basis. . . .

"The perceived academic benefit of electronic dissemination of theses is that wide distribution is both an advantage to the author and an inducement for all concerned to ensure that the work is of high quality. Electronic submission is also an advantage for electronic storage, dissemination, and particularly searching."

Aplevich said web pages will be available sometime this fall to tell graduate students what the requirements for electronic theses are and exactly how to submit them if they wish.

On the fibre-optic highway

"Some legs of the backbone were operational as early as last October," says Roger Watt, director of the systems group in UW's department of information systems and technology (and thank goodness somebody who talks about "legs of the backbone" isn't in charge of the anatomy lab). He provides a brief explanation of what's new:

The "Wave Division Multiplexing" (WDM) is a newer, faster, much-cheaper transmission facility for the CA*net2 network, which has been in place since 1997, and which uses ATM for its transmission layer. Transmission-facility carriers (e.g., Bell) can build a WDM transmission layer for an IP network at two orders of magnitude less cost than building an ATM transmission layer. The WDM technology uses multiple different frequencies over the same fibre, at speeds of up to 10Gbps using Ethernet as the transmission protocol. IP is the network protocol, one layer above that. Hence, you'll see the terms "IP/WDM" or "optical IP" or "optical network" used.

Bell expects by next year to be able to carry 160 simultaneous 10Gbps IP/WDM transmission links (frequencies) on a single fibre. Each frequency provides a one-way mechanism, so you need a pair of frequencies, one operating in each direction, before you can do anything constructive. Canarie currently has eight frequencies on Bell's national IP/WDM backbone. Canarie calls that "CA*net3".

"However, each of the provincial networks also has a connection to CA*net2/3, and traffic between the universities in different provincial networks and the universities in the other countries to which CA*net2/3 connects travels via the CA*net2/3 network rather than the ITS network. CA*net2/3 links are not heavily loaded because the average Canadian university doesn't spend much of its network bandwidth interacting with other universities."

Waterloo, for example, has a 10Mbps "general Internet" connection to ONet, and a 5Mbps "CA*net2/3" connection to ONet. The "CA*net2/3" connections all terminate at the ONet's Point-of-Presence connection to CA*net2 in Toronto, and traffic between universities goes through those connections -- for example, the TUG Libraries traffic between UW and Guelph, which Watt calls "an excellent example of production-application collaboration".

He says UW has been using about 0.3Mbps of its 5Mbps "CA*net2/3" link lately. "I estimate that the TUG traffic with Guelph is one-third to one-half of that on any given day."

At this point, the Internet connections across Canada are much faster than the connections available on individual campuses. UW has been building its Next Generation Campus Network for some two years, Watt notes, "replacing the campus's shared-use 10Mbps coax Ethernet transmission facilities with dedicated-use 10/100Mbps switched Ethernet", still much slower than what CA*net3 will provide. "The new CFI funding over the next three years will go a long way to help continue that, in the academic sector (plus, of course, the special Bell Canada University Labs funding for the Davis Centre research groups)," he says.

Canarie, which represents some 120 agencies and companies in developing advanced applications for computer networking in Canada, is funded by Industry Canada. Watt points out that "Industry Canada's stated number-one objective is to increase Canada's share of global trade."

The implication: high-speed communication for individuals and universities, of the kind urged in David Johnston's "Smart Communities" report, is of less direct interest than producing new technologies that can be marketed. The business partners in Ca*net3, says Watt, are interested in the potential of university researchers to take part in the development of new network and applications technologies. A key example is the Bell Canada University Labs being set up at UW and the University of Toronto.

The national emphasis now moves to what Canarie is calling "a new, three year, $8 million dollar shared-cost R&D program to support the development of advanced networking applications, services and technologies. . . . The ANAST program will assist businesses, universities, research institutions and schools in developing innovative applications for CA*net 3. It will also use networks like CA*net 3 to evaluate and test new modalities of instruction, e-business and health delivery over a high performance network."

The results of the quiz

I can also report that some of the questions were a lot easier than others. Everybody who entered, for instance, got the right answer to "What is the only university named for a former prime minister of Canada?", but there was only one correct answer to What is the only entirely francophone university in an officially English province?" and only one correct answer to "Which university has a campus in Essex, England?"

Inevitably, there were a couple of questions that turned out to have two possible answers. What university has just introduced a Bachelor of Arts program in Police Studies? I had in mind Regina, but it turns out that Memorial already has such a program. And both Concordia and Carleton can be said to have been "founded in part by the YMCA".

Then there was question C: "What university college has for its president a former UW computer science professor?" I had in mind Algoma University College, headed by Doug Lawson, formerly of Waterloo. However, several people let me know that I was out of date: Lawson left office recently, to be succeeded by Celia Ross.

The brand-new university with no students? It's the Technical University of British Columbia. No, friends, there is no such place as the University of Nunavut (although Nunavut Arctic College does exist).

Notes on another hot day

Inside, where it's air-conditioned, co-op students are talking about jobs. Those who were placed in the computerized job match yesterday should be meeting with coordinators today to do the paperwork; those who weren't placed should be scanning the bulletin boards and the Access system, where "continuous phase posting #2" goes up at 12 noon.

And for those who are trying to figure out what kind of job to aspire to, the career development seminar series resumes tomorrow with a session on "Career Research Package" at 1:30 in Needles Hall room 1020. The career resource centre can provide more information.

This morning, meanwhile, staff of the co-op and career services department are over in the Dana Porter Library for a 9 a.m. "information meeting" about UW libraries.

The "celebrity lecture series" in the Davis Centre presents a big name today: Henry Baltes of the Physical Electronics Lab at ETH Zurich, here to speak on "CMOS Integrated Micro- and Nanosystems and the Electronic Nose". His talk is sponsored by the Institute for Computer Research and the graduate student associations in computer science and electrical and computer engineering -- 2:30 p.m., Davis Centre room 1302.

Advance note: author James King will be reading from his new novel Faking at UW's bookstore tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2 p.m. Admission is free. (There was a longish interview with King in last Friday's Imprint.)

Here's a note from mathematics student Samuel Lisi, who's involved in the BUDS program: "BUDS is a volunteer organization made up of students, staff and alumni who run a volunteer drop in centre for local high school students. We are currently trying to get volunteers to help out during the upcoming school year. Beginning again in the fall, we will be operating a drop in centre in a central location in Waterloo. We are looking for a time commitment of two to four hours per week for tutors, with this dropping if there is a lot of interest. We also have a need for one time volunteer jobs, so if you cannot make the commitment, but are interested, we still want to hear from you. We currently have need for tutors, organizational team members, drop in centre coordinator, and web page designer and/or maintainer. No experience or credentials are required: we are looking for people who care (we can provide the training). Our information meeting is Wednesday, 14 July, at 4:30 p.m. in DC 1304. Our voice mail is at 886-5160 and our e-mail address is buds@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca."

On Friday I listed a number of new department heads and other administrators who took office July 1. There are (at least) two more to be noted. On that date, Lynne Magnusson became acting chair of the department of English, for a year, and Stephen Smith became acting chair of the department of recreation and leisure studies, also for one year.

Finally, the news some people have been eagerly waiting for. Charlene Schumm, scheduling coordinator in the registrar's office, announces that the spring term examination schedule is now available on the web.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
| Yesterday's Bulletin
Copyright © 1999 University of Waterloo