TRU Open Learning's Blog

There was an interesting article in the Globe and Mail yesterday about the changing role of IT professionals in the workplace. It includes the following quote from a paper written by the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills (CCICT):

“Numerous ICT professionals are unemployed because their skills do not match the needs of today’s labour market. ICT is decreasingly about traditional desk-bound programming and increasingly about 21st-century careers for professionals who display leadership and drive innovation.”

This won’t be news to everyone. Many post-secondary institutions, including TRU, have long recognized the importance of versatile employees and provide an array of diploma and certificate programs (the Diploma in Information Technology and Management is one) for professionals who are already working in their field and want to add skills to their repertoire.

What do you think – in the near future, will you be as likely to see IT pros in the boardroom as you are in the server room?

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), of which TRU is a member, is in support of the government’s plan to continue to invest in universities in order to support the initiatives of Budget 2010: Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth.

“Given Canada’s fiscal outlook, we are pleased that the government is continuing to invest in university research and innovation to create jobs today and to build the economy of tomorrow,” Michel Belley, Chair, AUCC Board of Directors, said in a recent press release.

Under Budget 2010, the government will continue to commit $32 million annually to three major granting councils which will allow universities to continue with research that will drive innovation and produce highly skilled workers. The budget will also provide $8 million for the Indirect Costs Program.
The Knowledge Infrastructure Program will enter into its second year and according to the AUCC, will continue to make a difference on Canadian campuses and paying dividends.

“The new investments in post-doctoral fellows will build on the stimulus provided by the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and the research funding announced today,” the AUCC said in the release. “The fellowship program, funded at $45 million over five years, will be internationally competitive and will help attract and keep talented recent PhD graduates in Canada.”

Digital learning is slated to see improvements in the elementary, secondary and post-secondary systems according to the draft of a new US federal plan. The US Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology released the report entitled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” which is a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan 2010, on March 5.

Paramount to this report is the suggestion of increasing the role of online learning in all levels of curricula from kindergarten to grade 12 and the college level as well.
The Obama administration’s push to improve elementary and secondary education, increase the number of college graduates by 20% by 2020 and overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act, incited this report.

The first national broadband plan, a report released by the Federal Communications Commission, suggested ways of expanding digital learning such as giving schools and hospitals affordable access to ultra-high-speed broadband.

A study authored by Geneva Henry and Lisa Spiro of Houston-based Rice University, indicates that libraries are heading in the direction of primarily digital infrastructures but at a slow rate. The paper, which looks at campus-based efforts to build new libraries oriented to a digital future, states that because faculty members are unwilling to conform to a digital only library collection and because the “e-reader” market is unprepared for the current state of e-books, it might take up to half a century for digital libraries to be a reality.

“Although some e-book standards such as ePub are beginning to emerge, there is still significant flux and divergence from those standards,” Henry and Spiro write. “Standards are important in enabling consumers to read content from multiple publishers on their devices, to move content around to multiple devices, and to preserve books for the long-term.” While e-books will likely become a norm in higher education within the next decade, the reality is they do not convey the same experience of a traditional book such as offering the ability to photocopy, write in margins, highlight sections and bookmark pages. However, advantages of searchability of electronic documents and databases do persist as a real advantage over traditional print books. Other advantages are related to the cost savings as print collections require preservation controls while e-books do not require space or maintenance.

The New Year started off with a bang for the Open Learning Division of Thompson Rivers University which serviced hundreds of student inquiries on its first day of operations for 2010 – a positive indication of student interest in Open Learning for the year ahead.

On January 4, 2010, the first day of 2010 that TRU-OL opened its phone lines to hundreds of inquiring minds, the Admissions and Enrolment Services department responded to 375 phone calls, 21 face-to-face student visits to the British Columbia Centre for Open Learning and approximately 70 emails. Combined, that means a total of 465 student inquiries were addressed in one single day.
The sheer volume of calls alone represented a record breaking day for TRU-OL as the Admissions and Enrolments department answered 23% more calls in a single day than it ever had before. These telephone inquiries represent an impressive 28.5 hours of phone counselling by the Admissions and Enrolment Services team.

TRU-OL’s realized virtual growth of interest in its website as well.

On Jan. 4, 2010, 5,074 individuals visited www.truopen.ca, which represents an 18.44% growth over the same day last year. These hits may have been a result of the 27.24% growth over the same day last year, of web users who were directed to TRU-OL’s website through Google searches. The number of users who visited the Open Learning website directly and intentionally grew by 3.71% over the same day last year.

Overall, the statistics are in and they say it’s going to be a good, good year for Open Learning.

Chris Axworthy, the former Attorney General of Saskatchewan and current Dean of the University of Manitoba’s Law School, will become the Founding Dean of Law at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) on May 1, 2010.

“We are extremely pleased that TRU’s Founding Dean of Law has the credentials and experience of Chris Axworthy,” Dr. Ulrich Scheck, Provost and Vice-President Academic, TRU, said. “We are not only excited about what he will contribute to TRU academically, but also about the expertise he will offer as we establish our Law School in partnership with the University of Calgary.”

A native to the United Kingdom, Axworthy set forth on his Law career upon graduating from what is now London Metropolitan University in 1970. Soon thereafter he immigrated to Canada where he completed his graduate studies in Law at Montreal’s McGill University. Axworthy’s first interlude with teaching was in 1972 when he served as Assistant Professor of Law at the University of New Brunswick, a position which he took to Dalhousie University in 1975. It was in 1984 that he became a full Professor of Law at the University of Saskatchewan, where he was also the founding Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives.

Four years later Axworthy found a new niche in government when he was elected to Parliament as the MP in Saskatoon. Axworthy was re-elected twice and in 1999, he was appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General for the Province of Saskatchewan. From there his career flourished and included great honours such as being appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2000 and becoming the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in 2001.

After a successful career within government, Axworthy returned to the post-secondary sector serving most recently as Professor and Dean of Law at the University of Manitoba. Today, in 2010, he will take on new and exciting challenges in his new post as Founding Dean of Law at TRU.

“It’s a rare opportunity to build a Law School from the ground-up,” Axworthy said at a press conference held February 22, 2010. “It is particularly attractive to do so in a vibrant community like Kamloops with such a forward looking and dynamic university as Thompson Rivers University with the support of the University of Calgary.”

TRU’s proposed School of Law was first announced on February 16, 2009, in a Speech from the Throne in which the Government of BC officially made the commitment to create the new school. Currently, the target date for the first semester intake is September 2011. Prospective TRU students can begin applying to the three-year, fully accredited this fall.