BCNETwork News

April 2007

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BCNET 2007 Conference Celebrates Innovation and Achievements Made Possible through Global Advanced Networks

by Vanessa Scott

From classrooms and laboratories to the frontier of the Internet, innovation in technology is continually reshaping the ways in which we connect, learn and share resources. For its seventh consecutive year, BCNET will celebrate these achievements at its annual conference, recognized as Western Canada’s premier technology event for research and higher education. This year’s event, “Making Connections: Sharing Knowledge for Greater Innovation,” stands to surpass the high watermark of success set in 2006. Many leading-edge networking technologies and innovative applications will take centre stage, promising to stimulate critical thinking about the productivity and future of advanced research networks.

For more information, please visit the official BCNET 2007 conference website

Presentation Highlights: Learn and Share Ideas about the Latest Technological and Networking Innovations

Boasting its most diverse program yet, presentations will run the gamut from a "Virtual DJ" performance complete with lasers and robotics, to a variety of workshops and presentations in areas such as learning and collaboration technologies, new media, networking, researcher tools, technology for health and high performance computing

PlanetLab: A Testbed for the Internet of the Future

This year’s Networking track has a particularly stellar line-up. Experts from Princeton, the universities of Washington and Maryland, Intel and HP will deliver a two-part introduction to PlanetLab, an experimental global computer network that is expected to be the test-bed for a future generation of the Internet. Other highlights include a presentation by Alex Nicolaou, Technical Staff member with the Engineering department of Google Canada, who will uncover the inner workings of this content delivery giant.

Health Tracks

For the first time this year, the BCNET conference will include a Health track, led by a panel discussion on Phase II of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Medical School Expansion Program. Hear from representatives on all sides of the project about this tightly monitored network that enables medical students to train and receive lectures in remote communities throughout BC.

Teaching and Learning Technologies

Educators will also benefit from this year’s program, with over five presentations dedicated to discussions and workshops on new technologies that are improving teaching and learning. From presentations showcasing 3-D virtual worlds and the ways in which students are collaborating within digital environments, to panels and workshops that uncover the complexity of distributed and online learning, attendees will be able to discover a variety of futuristic learning tools.

Building on a Successful History

“Glimpse of the future . . . . Great for planning” and “I’ll definitely come back next year” were among the comments BCNET received in 2006 for Converging Minds, its most successful conference to date.

Based on surveys, 44% of the 400 attendees remarked that the conference was excellent and 56% said it was good. Attendees were most impressed with the conference’s content, the opportunities it provided to communicate with BC’s networking community, and the quality and informativeness of speakers.

With registration for the 2007 conference filling up faster than last year, and based on excellent committee and participant feedback, we anticipate another sold-out event this year.

Speaker Spotlight: Carl Wieman and David Wiley

BCNET is excited to host the distinguished keynote speakers Carl Wieman and David Wiley. Wieman, a Nobel Prize laureate and United States Professor of the Year, also received the 2007 Oersted Medal, the highest honour given by the American Association of Physics Teachers. At the conference, Wieman will address how technology might allow us to profoundly change and improve teaching in science and beyond.

David Wiley, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL) at Utah State University, is best known for having coined the term "open content" and creating the first open source-style license for non-software. COSL operates under the principle that "free and open access to educational opportunity is a basic human right," a subject which Wiley will discuss during his presentation, titled Openness, Localization and the Future of Learning Objects.