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WESTERN’S DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER•EST.1906
• VOLUME 103, ISSUE 52
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3, 2009
... avoiding surveillance since 1906
SPORTS
COACH PROFILE
Former golf pro running the show… p.8
A&E
THE ARKELLS
Give great hockey quotes… p.5
NEWS
RESEARCH FUNDING
Western ranked 2nd in Ontario … p.3
Londoners split over value of Street View
By Stuart A. Thompson
Gazette Staff
London is one the latest Canadiancities to be part of Google’simmense Street View project.London joined a growing num-ber of Canadian cities this week when it was added to the onlinemap, which lets users travelthrough city streets in a virtual 360-degree world.For users, it means an easy way to get a peek at most of the city without leaving their home. Forbusinesses, it could mean muchmore than that.“We’ve been anxiously awaiting it,” Peter White, chief executive offi-cer of the London Economic Devel-opment Corporation, said.Larger cities like Toronto andKitchener-Waterloo were added tothe Street View project in 2007, and were accessible in October 2009.The LEDC encouraged Google toadd more detailed maps of Londonto its database just as the company began the expansion into Canada.“People have viewed it as being an important element and morefrom a public relations point of view,” White said, adding London would look bad if equivalent citieslike Kitchener-Waterlooo wereadded and London was not.John Winston, the general man-ager of Tourism London, is lessoptimistic.“It’s all cool stuff at this stage,” Winston said. “But does it drivebusiness? That’s one of the things we need to ask.”He called the service more of a“novelty” than a promotional tool,arguing what matters from atourism perspective are tangibleresults like website traffic andtourists on the street.“Street-level photographs of businesses’ fronts don’t cut it,” Win-ston said.MainStreet London is a not-for-profit group working to promotethe city to business investors andsupporting them in London’s core,mostly on Dundas Street.Janette MacDonald, manager of MainStreet London, said the fea-ture could help investors get a bet-ter idea of what the downtown islike — depending on what they see.“There’s some things they couldsee that could hurt us,” MacDonaldsaid. “Downtown is hopping rightnow, but there’s still some areas thatstill need some work.” Another concern for some is pri-vacy. While Google blurs faces andlicence plates, the idea of pho-tographing an entire city has wor-ried some.
PLEASE SEE TOOL P3
Degree Audit bugs causing headaches for undergrads
By Meagan Kashty
Gazette Staff
Students left in the dark about graduationmay have to look beyond Western’s audit pro-gram to determine if they are eligible forgraduation.The Degree Audit, a service available onthe Western Student Services website, allowsstudents to verify their progress in their cur-rent degree program and confirm they havethe necessary credits to graduate.The service, however, is not without itsshortcomings. When checking courserequirements the service has a tendency tooverlook special permissions and credittransfers. Penny Westmacott, academic man-ager for the faculty of science, confirmed theservice will sometimes tell students they donot have certain requirements when they doin fact possess them.“It’s not perfect, and we all recognize thatit’s because of some of the things we haven’tbeen able to program yet,” she said.“It’s not the only source of information,but it’s a good starting point.”Layton Wu, fourth-year media, informa-tion and technoculture student, was not evenaware the program existed.“I always just check the requirements on[the faculty] website and make sure they addup with what I have,” Wu said. While Wu was aware some services wereavailable, he agreed there is a lack of promo-tion of these services to graduating students.The faculty of science has taken some ini-tiatives besides the Degree Audit offered by the University. The faculty offers checklists totheir students to ensure they have all the nec-essary graduation requirements, according to Westmacott.Despite bugs in the Degree Audit service, Westmacott said students still make use of it.“We encourage them to go through allthe services available, then come to us if they have any questions. It can turn what would have been a four hour conversation with an academic counsellor into a 30minute one.”The service was out of use last year as theUniversity changed its course numbering,and a survey conducted last December gavestudents the opportunity to voice their issues with the service.Jo Skillings, security and team leader at theregistrar’s office, noted the majority of feed-back from the survey was positive. According to Skillings, to improve the ser-vice, the University is in the preliminary stages of planning a supplement to the cur-rent audit system.“The next phase will be a workbook forstudents,” she said. “When we originally started planning it there [were] a lot of dis-agreements on how special permissionsand transfer credits would be handled […] We’ve had discussions and we’re hoping todraw some advice from members of theUniversity Students’ Council and other stu-dents.”The additional service will give studentsthe opportunity to open up a workbook in theareas the audit says are not yet met, and addany additional information.“Theoretically, after they’ve finished withthe workbook, the system will be able to dosome future speculation,” Skillings added.Skillings emphasized the project is tenta-tive at the moment, and is being planned asa result of student complaints and recom-mendations.
WORKING TO KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE
Corey Stanford/Gazette
HIS BARK IS WORSE THAN HIS BITE.
Men’s hockey head coach Clarke Singer put hisplayers through the paces at Thompson arena last night in preparation of tonight’s 7:30game against the Windsor Lancers. The Mustangs will look to extend their winning streakto 14 games.
Photo Illustration by Stuart Thompson
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The Cryptoquip is a substitution cipher in which one letter stands for another. If you think that Xequals O, it will equal O throughout the puzzle. Single letters, short words and words using an apos-trophe give you clues to locating vowels. Solution is by trial and error.© 2002 by Kings Features Syndicate, Inc.
By Ryan Hendrick
Gazette Staff
It is looking less and less likely aresolution to the London transitstrike will be reached before the winter exam schedule begins next week.“In the best-case scenario thebuses could be back the week before Christmas, but at minimumcapacity,” University Students’Council president Emily Rowe said.“We were told because of [bus]maintenance and safety issues, ittakes […] three to four weeks forthe fleet to return to full capacity,”she added. While it’s possible the strikecould end before Christmas,Rowe said she wasn’t confident it would happen.In light of this, the USC anduniversity administration are urg-ing students to plan ahead andtake advantage of the transporta-tion initiatives, which werereleased three weeks ago. An e-mail sent out Wednesday afternoon by Gitta Kulczycki, West-ern’s vice-president resources andoperations, acknowledged there isa high demand for drivers coming from the south end of the city.“Western is urgently seeking more volunteers,” the e-mail read.Those with a valid driverslicence may help by assisting withthe Share a Ride program, driving a Western community van or by participating in the Flag a Rideprogram.Rowe indicated once the examseason begins, the USC will bedoubling the frequency of its examshuttle service. While this will result in moreopportunities to get to and fromexams for students living withinthe shuttle routes, USC communi-cations officer Carolyn Hawthornpointed out there is no substitu-tion for prudent planning.“Obviously if someone has anexam at 9 a.m. we hope they willrealize there will be a high demandfor an 8 a.m. shuttle,” she said.Rowe indicated the USC andadministration are working on fur-ther developing their plan toaccommodate inclement weatherand early exams, although nothing tangible has emerged yet.“We’ll have a much clearer pic-ture tomorrow,” she said whenasked what to expect.
Brace for strike through exams
Interestedin journalism?
Gazette News has openings for writers and interns.Visit Rm. 263 and talk tomanaging editor Jaela Bernstien.
Facebook faces new changes
Facebook has decided to redesignits layout, yet again.The social networking site madesome significant alterations in thepast year. However, they are now experimenting with another new layout for the homepage.Developers of Facebook havecreated a forum allowing users toview and anticipate future changesto the platform. The detailedchanges can be accessed athttp://wiki.developers.facebook.com, which also has a detailed list of possible innovations. After the redesign, requests andinvites will go directly to an inbox, which will be relocated to the topleft corner of the page. Another new feature includes theapplications toolbar, which willmove from the bottom toolbar to thetop left of the page. Inbox messages will also be displayed on homepages.Shabnam Hamidi, a first-yearmedical sciences student at West-ern, mentioned she heard aboutthe possible changes.“That’s annoying. Useless notifi-cations are irritating and they keepchanging stuff as soon as you getused to it,” Hamidi said.The changes to Facebook’s layoutare expected to be in place betweenDecember 2009 and January 2010.
—Alexi Cito
Study examinesinsect offspring
A study conducted by scientists at Western has shown insects valuetheir own survival above reproduc-tion.The study, conducted by West-ern PhD candidate Katie Marshalland supervisor Brent Sinclair, waspublished on Tuesday by
Proceed-ings of the Royal Society B
— a bio-logical research journal. According to Marshall, conven-tional research on insect reproduc-tion found males in the wild tend tobe either really successful or really unsuccessful. When weather conditions areextreme, it was assumed morefemale offspring would be pro-duced to ensure the survival of thespecies. However, Marshall andSinclair’s research showed inadverse weather conditions, fewerfemales were produced.“When a parent is affected by environmental stress, that canaffect their offspring,” she said.Marshall was unsure as to whatcontributes to the lower numbersof female offspring, but suggestedthey could be more vulnerable ormore costly to produce than theirmale counterparts.
—Clark Armstrong
By Shreya Tekriwal
Gazette Staff
With approximately $226 millionreceived in research funding, West-ern looks to improve its nationalranking.“We rank second in provincialfunding levels [behind the Universi-ty of Toronto] and 10th nationally,”Michael Tithecott, senator-at-largefor the University Students’ Council,said. “There are many places where we are meeting our targeted funding levels, and places where we arebehind our targeted levels.” According to the 2009 AnnualReport prepared by Ted Hewitt,vice-president research and inter-national relations at Western, theUniversity raised a total of $226,305,759 in research funding for the 2008-2009 period. Hewittadded the funding went up from$176 million, which was received inthe 2004-2005 period.The report also stated 41 per centof the funding came from the feder-al government, 17 per cent from theprovincial government and 43 percent from other contributors.“We’re not the biggest institutionin Canada either so it’s hard to benumber one. But I think we can bethe best research-intensive univer-sity, certainly in Canada outside of the major metropolitan centres, which are much larger of course,”Hewitt said.Hewitt also mentioned themajority of the research funding isnot allocated, but earned by thefaculty and researchers at Western.“We do fund research internally,but it’s also competitive. [Theamount we allocate] is only about10 per cent of the total. We alsohave some allocations for profes-sional expenses, conferences andsuch,” he added. According to the report, the Uni-versity of Toronto, University of Alberta, University of BritishColumbia, Université de Montrealand McGill University were rated asthe top five research-intensiveschools.Hewitt added Western shouldcompare itself to the top five insti-tutions and try to get as close to thetop ranks as possible.“Western is still a top 10 researchschool in Canada, but has fallenone spot this year,” Tithecott men-tioned. “Although many funding targets are met, Western should notbe complacent with this ranking.There is always room for improve-ment and we should always striveto be a better research institute.”“I think we are doing better andthere’s still a lot to be done and weare certainly not moving in the otherdirection,” Hewitt said. “We need tohelp [researchers] secure theresources they need to do theresearch that they are looking to do.”Hewitt also mentioned Westernshould continue hiring researchers who are engaged and active andthose who are developing largeresearch programs in order to getahead.“We need to tell the world how good we are. I think people need tounderstand that. I don’t think we’venecessarily done the best job atthat. We need to do a better job,”Hewitt added.“Just imagine if there werevans labelled ‘Government of Canada’ driving up and downthe streets, creating a virtualdatabase. There would be ariot,” John Reed, an instructor who teaches a course on surveil-lance in the faculty of informa-tion and media studies, said.“Not so with a ‘cool’ company like Google.”Reed said while the technolo-gy is free to use, the company turns the photographs into profitthrough advertising and data-mining. White confirmed paid ser-vices, like overlaying demograph-ic data on top of maps, are a ben-efit of having Google Maps andStreet View.“If you pay for Google services,there’s phenomenal things youcan do,” he said. “This is going tobe a great tool for the businesscommunity.” White also added the City has internal information sys-tems that already offer some of these features. With its London launch,Google Street View now includesphotographs around the southside of Western’s campus near Alumni Hall. According to Laurie Gribbon,director of undergraduate rela-tions and admissions at Western,the University already uses a vir-tual tour system, but it is not assophisticated as Google’s.“Now that [Street View] is upand running, we’re definitely looking at incorporating it on the web,” Gribbon said.The biggest benefit is for inter-national and out-of-province stu-dents who want to see what thecampus looks like.“It gives them a feel, a sense of what the campus looks like andthat’s important,” she said.But questions about privacy linger.“How does Google Mapsupdate them and what time of year?” Gribbon added. “We would certainly have to be sensi-tive to that and find out.”Despite concerns, Reed saidthe service will prove useful tomost despite what it says aboutsociety.“It’s basically a sad statementthat we trust a sexy but statelessmultinational that is in businessto mine and commodify data andpublic space more than we trustthe state,” Reed said. “But again, Istill use it.”
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{
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puzzle solution frompage 7
Research funding raked in over $226M
Tool “commodifies public space”
CONTINUED FROM P1
National Funding Rank, 2004-2008’04’05’06’07’08
Toronto11111 Alberta54522UBC45343Montreal32234McGill23455McMaster86666Laval69877Ottawa1089108Calgary77789
Western91010910
Source:2009 Annual Report prepared by Ted Hewitt
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