BCNETwork News

October 2006

TRU Kamloops, Celebrate New Possibilities with BCNET High-speed Global Connection

by Vanessa Scott

Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and BCNET commemorated the lighting-up of BCNET’s Optical Regional Advanced Network for TRU and the City of Kamloops during the opening of the university’s fall semester on September 5, 2006. The event attracted community leaders and media, who came to share in the celebration and learn how the new super-charged research network will create ground-breaking possibilities for scholarly activity, research, technology and business development in the city.

Enhancing TRU’s Capacity to Engage Students and Collaborate with the World

TRU President and Vice-Chancellor Roger Barnsley is confident the state-of-the-art connection will improve teaching, training and research at the university. In addition to enabling partnerships and collaborations using applications from networks across Canada and the world, says Barnsley, these opportunities will facilitate the highest quality of student engagement possible.

“Connecting to BCNET will mean superb network connectivity for staff and students, allowing the university to engage students both in the classroom and distant locations, and to increase access to course, library and research materials and projects.”

Barnsley added that, as an outcome of its new connectivity, TRU recently joined a community of institutions that will team up over the network to share educational resources. One such project will involve the use of remote nodes to manipulate equipment in labs around the continent and will allow science students to gain virtual experience using specialized tools that are unavailable in their communities.

TRU is BC’s newest university, officially launched by the Government of British Columbia in April 2005. It was created by granting full university status to the former University College of the Cariboo (UCC), founded in 1970 as Cariboo College. As part of the establishment of TRU, all courses and programs of the former BC Open University (BCOU) were added to its roster, placing TRU among the most flexible and comprehensive institutions in Canada.

Enabling International Research Projects and Top Level Studies

Nancy Van Wagoner, who also newly joined the university this fall as Associate Vice-President of Research, is pleased TRU can now more fully take its place within the global research community. “Our faculty members are using high-speed networks to work with international and interdisciplinary research teams,” said Van Wagoner. Current TRU research involves such diverse topics as climate change, health care, education, medical informatics, cultural diversity and the arts. Van Wagoner is confident that with the expanded scope provided by the network, TRU has enhanced itsability to conduct research that will improve the quality of life in BC, Canada and even internationally.

Such advances in networking technology will make equally significant impacts on local researchers’ abilities to complete top-level studies and projects. The BCNET connection will provide members of the community, such as population health researchers, with more effective access to the databases on which their work relies. Other researchers, like the city’s collaborators in drinking water quality, will now also benefit from having real-time access to monitoring data linked to ongoing experiments elsewhere on the network.

Introducing Previously Impossible Directions in Business and Research

With Kamloops now able to connect to its counterparts in research and education around the world, the potential benefits to the city are as unlimited as BCNET’s network capacity. In addition to the increased productivity made possible by instantaneous communication, the network has also attracted members of the business sector who recognize that research and business which was not previously possible can now happen in Kamloops.

According to Bill McQuarrie, Executive Director at the Interior Science & Innovation Council, the connection has opened a number of doors that will help expedite the city’s increasing commercialization.

These opportunities come largely as a result of the enhanced research solutions provided by the network, such as the major trans-national firm looking to establish a possible bio-product research centre in the Kamloops area. “We were only able to convince them to seriously consider our region,” explained McQuarrie, “after making them aware of our research capacity and access available through TRU and BCNET.”

Similarly, a European company operating in Manitoba is considering Kamloops as the new location for a project that would investigate the use of green waste, or leftovers from agricultural harvests, to produce wood pellets. “We are one of three locations being considered for the project,” said McQuarrie. “Our BCNET connectivity was key to getting us on that final list of contenders.”

These examples demonstrate the accuracy of the prediction made by Terry Lake, the mayor of Kamloops, that the Internet will herald a new trade route for commerce. “Our city has built an on-ramp to the information highway, providing businesses and citizens with low-cost, high-speed communications via a publicly owned and operated utility.” Lake expressed pride that the city has become the latest critical junction in the province’s high-tech sector.

Jeff Putnam, CEO of Venture Kamloops, the marketing and economic development arm of the City of Kamloops, spoke at the network’s inauguration about its ability to support the growth of TRU and the diversification of the local economy. “Kamloops is known as a major transportation hub, with both national railways and five highways intersecting through the city,” said Putnam. “Now we can celebrate the additional information highway provided by BCNET.”

Benefiting Kamloops and the Global Research and Education Community

Speaking to this potential for such far-reaching impacts, BCNET President and CEO Michael Hrybyk reinforced that a principle benefit of advanced networks is its capacity to transcend borders and connect cities like Kamloops to both internal communities and those around the world. “Data are only good if shared with someone,” said Hrybyk. “The value of networks is our ability to instantly share data among every interested party, at all levels of education, research and geographic distance.”

Such an outlook reflects Van Wagoner’s views that, beyond the structural advantages of the network, progress in local information and communication technology will serve as a launch pad for inspired transformations in Kamloops. “We are connected to the world,” concluded Van Wagoner. “And, of equal importance, the world is now connected to us.”