Faculty praise new research microsite

The feedback from Concordia’s faculty members about the beta version of the research@concordia microsite has been overwhelmingly positive. “I think the site is fantastic,” says Rae Staseson, chair of the Department of Communication Studies. “It has a gorgeous design, and it’s a wonderful research tool for those of us in the university, but also for those outside of the university; to get to know our personality.”

The microsite uses a keyword search tool and word clouds to direct users to Concordia faculty members who share their research interests. Professor Govind Gopakumar, associate chair of the Centre for Engineering in Society, says the word clouds create a space where ideas intersect, “initiating contact and possibly even the creation of research networks,” he says. “The potential for that is certainly there.”

University faculty members are often unaware of the research being carried out by their peers, explains Assistant Professor Anjali Awasthi from Concordia’s Institute for Information Systems Engineering. “With the new microsite it’s much easier to find out,” she says.

David Morris, chair of the Department of Philosophy, says the new microsite serves as a “highly dynamic, interactive visual map” of Concordia’s network of ideas and researchers. “It’s a great way to find out who is resonating with whom, and where our researchers are going,” he adds. “Its innovative interface is itself an example of what we at Concordia do well, namely open new ways into and through existing scholarship.”

What struck Stéphane Brutus, chair of the Department of Management in the John Molson School of Business, most about the microsite is the restraint it imposes on researchers when presenting themselves. “Researchers always strive for succinctness in communicating their results. By providing them with a platform to showcase their research in this format, linkages become apparent and the community emerges.”

The research@concordia site’s usefulness for attracting prospective graduate students was readily apparent to Matt Stiegemeyer, interim director of the Office of Student Recruitment. “It’s a great way for potential graduate students to explore our faculty's research interests,” he says. “Concordia is expediting the connection between current and future researchers.”

David Ward from lab six and a half, the experimental multimedia group behind the research@concordia site, says he and his team are very pleased with the comments they’ve been hearing. They hope more researchers will sign on to the site soon.

So far, more than 400, about half, of the university’s full-time faculty researchers are featured on the site. “It will make visiting the site a more meaningful experience for prospective graduate students who want to see who’s connected to a particular program,” Ward says, adding that links to Concordia’s more than 100 graduate programs are among the features to be included in the next phase of the project.

Ward and his team are also working with Instructional and Information Technology Services and Concordia’s Human Resources Department to build a means for including part-time researchers and active retired researchers. “There are many part-timers who are doing very interesting research, and collaborating across the university, so that’s certainly a key part of our next phase,” he says.

The research@concordia website began as a way to present Concordia’s research diversity to attendees of the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, an event that brought 9,000 delegates and visitors to the university. The first version of the site featured 150 Concordia researchers and was presented offline on large touch screens.

The Office of Research supported the lab six and a half team made up of Ward and Prem Sooriyakumar, and three undergraduate students (Gordon Bailey, Charles-Antoine Dupont and Brain Li Sui Fong) as they developed and expanded the research@concordia microsite.

Bailey and Dupont were responsible for developing the site’s software. Bailey, an engineering student who is still involved with the project, says building the site has been an incredible learning experience. “I knew some programming and software development before, but I know a whole lot more now!”

Dupont and Li have since graduated, and Sooriyakumar says the lab six and a half team is seeking more undergraduate and graduate students to help with the next phase of the site’s development. “From the beginning, our belief has been that all the resources are present within our student body to build something like this.”

Concordia’s Interim Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies, Graham Carr says the research@concordia microsite greatly enhances Concordia’s research profile. “It allows people to reimagine the research activity that’s happening at the university, and to explore the degree to which the boundaries between different research units are porous.”

Watch the introduction video:



Related links:
•    research@concordia 
•    “Bold new look for research at Concordia” — NOW, April 3, 2012
•    Office of Research
•    Department of Design and Computational Arts 
•    Office of Student Recruitment