Volume 2, Issue 1, 1996/1997
Table of Contents

With programming as sophisticated as the computer from Captain Kirk's bridge, the package grants Fanshawe students the thrill of editing text and audio related actualities, researching on-wire feeds, and compiling an entire newscast on one of 16 different networked computers.

Bob Collins, coordinator of the Broadcast Journalism program, knew he had to make the Fanshawe program unique in the country to avoid the impact of government cutbacks. With his drive and enthusiasm, Collins discovered a leading technology which would provide students with an advantage over other broadcast journalism students in a financially challenged industry.

Prompter allows student reporters to feed their taped interview or live report into the computer where the sound is digitally captured. Students can then edit the audio without worrying about slicing and dicing the tape. A wave form display allows them the opportunity to mark the audio track and eliminate extraneous sounds which might muddy the interview. Once students edit the audio to their taste, they can label and store the sound bite and e-mail it to an internal network so that other student reporters can access the story to use as research or to compile their newscast.

Besides being able to compile a 100 percent computerized radio or television news report or program, Prompter also receives text and audio wire feeds and has a remote access mail console that allows Fanshawe to send text and audio feeds back out to their broadcast partners.

Prompters text files can also be used for television. Each day, Prompter helps students reach an audience of 125,000 viewers.

The International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS) of Alberta Labour evaluates the education of individuals who obtained their education abroad and issue certificates of comparison to provincial educational standards in Canada. Operating since June 1994, the IQAS mandate is to provide a fair and credible educational assessment service which recognizes education achieved in countries outside Canada.

By providing educational assessments of international credentials, IQAS benefits: post-secondary institutions needing to assess qualifications of potential international students; professional associations who need to establish immigrant applicants' qualifications; individual immigrants who need to have their credentials recognized for employment; and employers who need to understand and compare qualifications of prospective employees.

Many Alberta colleges have utilized the service as has the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology.

Continued research on educational systems in other countries helps to ensure that IQAS assessments are fair and up-to-date. This research is an ongoing and essential activity which benefits all clients.

As a pilot project, information about IQAS and other provincial evaluation services will be included in immigration packages available to all prospective immigrants.

For further information, contact: IQAS, Main Floor, 10808 - 99 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T5K 0G5; tel.: (403) 427-2655; fax: (403) 422-9734; e-mail: iqas@ab.gov.ab.ca, or visit //www.gov.ab.ca/users/lab/html/iqastbl.html.

The Humber School for Writers has taken an unprecedented step for a post-secondary institution by establishing its own literary agency. According to Joe Kertes, the School's director, creation of the agency is "another way we can enrich the experience of our students and help unknown authors get published."

The agency, only open to students registered in the 1997 correspondence program, is expected to offer a standard author-agent agreement to students whose manuscripts have been recommended for publication by the program's faculty.

CKMO 103.1 at Camosun College has won the 1996 Standard Radio Award of Excellence for Community Broadcasting. The station was presented with a $4,000 award at the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) annual conference in Hamilton in June.

The first credit course to be offered through CKMO was English 160, Introduction to Literature. Since then, radio credit courses have expanded to include Contemporary Social Problems, Advanced Oral French and General College Physics. Currently being produced for 1997 sessions are Introduction to Psychology and Ecosystems and Natural Resources.

Since the introduction of an electrical engineering program in three cégeps (Gaspésie et des îles, Jonquière, Lionel-Groulx), intercollegial teams have developed teaching materials for the program's courses, at the request of the Direction générale de l'enseignement collégial du Québec (the body governing colleges in Quebec).

As part of this activity, Collège de Sherbrooke's Microtech technology transfer centre developed a guide and teaching materials for laboratory purposes such as a simulated conveyor, the PC Inters-3 (an electronic interface board that sends commands and receives signals) and a simulated home alarm system. One of the courses which uses the materials is "Creating a Command System." This course enables students to apply the rules of logic in creating command systems utilizing a variety of technologies, including the simulated conveyor.

Douglas College unveils new logo A new logo for Douglas College was approved over the summer after a lengthy Visual Identity Review process. Described as both bold and recognizable as well as versatile and timeless, the new logo has met with a very favourable reaction from high school and college students, prospective students and potential employers.

Says Brad Barber, a member of the Visual Identity Review Committee, "No one symbol can sum up everything Douglas College means to employees, students and the community, but this was seen as a design that we can take into the next century with confidence."

The new comprehensive campus of the Nova Scotia Community College in Sydney has been named Marconi Campus in recognition of the pioneering work in wireless technology conducted by Guglielmo Marconi in Glace Bay and surrounding areas in the early 1900s. Located at the Adult Vocational Training Campus - Cape Breton (AVTC) site on the Glace Bay Highway, the Marconi Campus combines the operations of the former Sydney Campus and the AVTC.

Guglielmo Marconi, a native of Bologna, Italy, received a patent covering "tuned" telegraphy in 1900 enabling messages to be send on a specific wavelength. He commenced his experiments with a Trans-Atlantic transmission. After initial experiments in Newfoundland, he arrived in Cape Breton to inspect locations for transmission sites. In December 1902, the Glace Bay site sent the first unbroken transmissions to a receiver in Cornwall, England.

Newfoundland and Labrador's five regional colleges merged this fall to form one provincial college governed by a provincial board and administered from a single headquarters.

The restructuring is being undertaken to address a $290 million shortfall in the province's finances. It is also a reflection of the decline in the number of high school students, and consequently, of students into post-secondary and training programs.

The number of campus sites offering programs will be reduced from 24 to nine, while first-year university courses currently being offered with Memorial University will be eliminated in six of seven instances. About 250 positions in the college system will be lost, and $8 million will be saved as a result of the restructuring.

A major donation and the construction of a new, world-class organ has added up to the Mount Royal Conservatory now being able to offer classes at its new Calgary Organ Academy.

The new facility, dedicated exclusively to organ teaching, is offering several Conservatory programs thanks to the outcome of a Calgary Universal Foundation for the Organ (CUFOR) donation campaign which has provided funds to commission an organ from Orgues Létourneau of Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, one of Canada's premier organ builders. The Organ Academy will be patterned after the Conservatory's Academy of Music Program, considered the model music education program of its kind in Canada.

Program offerings include The Academy of Music (an enriched program for gifted young musicians), the Music Performance Diploma Program (a two-year, credit program) and a joint program with the University of Calgary (students complete a Music Performance diploma and also receive two years of university credit towards a Bachelor of Music degree).

An International Summer School will be offered during the summer of 1997, while numerous workshops and master classes will be held throughout the 1996-97 academic year for specific groups.

The new organ, measuring 5.79 meters wide and 6.1 meters high, was customed designed for both space and purpose. Contributing to its design was Simon Preston, former organist at Westminster Abbey, and Terence Fullerton, Organist for the Calgary Centre for Performing Arts. Fullerton will teach and conduct workshops at the Academy, while Preston will lead the Summer School.

Although Canadians of the '90s are generally seen as being more litigious and demanding of their rights, David Hannah, a counsellor at Red Deer College, found that very little scholarly attention had been paid to student-institution legal relationships. With no books published on the subject and periodical literature which only addressed it in a narrow and piecemeal fashion, Mr. Hannah decided the time was right to undertake a comprehensive study on this legal relationship for his doctoral dissertation.

Using a traditional historical-legal research methodology, Hannah undertook a comprehensive analysis of primary and secondary school legal sources on the topic. All reported and unreported judicial decisions involving disputes between post-secondary institutions and students from the common-law provinces of Canada from January 1, 1982 to December 31, 1994 were also located, briefed, analyzed and categorized into five major areas of law: constitutional law (the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), administrative law, statuatory law, contract law and tort law.

Supported in part by a grant from the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services' Special Projects Fund, Hannah's study found that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not generally apply to universities, but does apply to community colleges in at least some jurisdictions.

The student-institution legal relationship is defined to a great degree by the principles of administrative law. Post-secondary students are entitled to natural justice and the decisions of college and university tribunals which affect students' rights, privileges, or interests may be subject to review by the courts if the principles of natural justice are seriously breached. Few statutes are targeted specifically at post-secondary institutions, but the student-institution relationship is affected by various "generic" statutes, particularly provincial human rights statutes. Judicial decisions have affirmed that a contractual relationship exists between institutions and students, the terms of which are contained in various official institutional documents.

Very few tort-based cases were located in the study, but developments in tort law generally suggested that the potential tort liability of colleges and universities may be greater than the small number of tort cases would suggest.

While the amount of reported student-institution litigation more than doubled between 1968-1981 and 1982-1994, the total number of judicial decisions involving disputes between students and post-secondary institutions disputes was relatively small. Students initiated about 90 percent of the 1982-1994 cases, a much greater proportion than during the 1968-1981 period (65 percent). However, students were successful in only about 29 percent of such cases, a rate that was only slightly higher than their success rate in 1968-1981 (23 percent). Student success rates in cases involving academic issues was even smaller (11.5 percent). The university sector was proportionally over- represented in the case law.

The study concluded that Canadian courts continued to show considerable deference toward colleges and universities, particularly with respect to academic matters, but did intervene when institutions failed to comply with statutes or institutional contracts, policies or procedures, when the issues before the courts were interim, preliminary or jurisdictional in nature, when there were serious violations of natural justice, when a duty was breached, and when the institution was the plaintiff.

The study also provides suggestions as to possible future legal trends in this area and recommendations for practice and research.

For further information, contact David Hannah, c/o Student Resource Centre, Red Deer College, P.O. Box 5005, Red Deer, Alberta, T4N 5H5, tel: (403) 343-4064, fax: (403) 340-8940, email: Dhannah@admin.rdc.ab.ca.

The successful development of a computerized registration system for Central Visayas Polytechnic College has helped two students from Algonquin College to become young entrepreneurs.

Matthew Joab and Andrew Reid, recent graduates of Algonquin's Computer Programming course, spent two months in the city of Dumaguete setting up a computerized enrolment system for the College as well as assisting it to become an Internet service provider for the Filipino province.

The idea for their involvement came from Charles Inglis, Chairperson of Algonquin's information systems department, who knew that the Polytechnic was working with a manual registration system.

The trip and their success also provided the two Canadians with a real-time opportunity to undertake every aspect of entrepreneurship ­ from designing the system to marketing it.

Reid and Joab not only enjoyed their time in the Philippines, they found they worked so well together that they formed a company, ESI - Easy System Integration. The new entrepreneurs now hope to customize their product and sell it to other interested institutions.

The prime feature of the 42-acre estate is its eight-acre English garden which overlooks Georgia Strait. According to Rich Johnston, President of Malaspina, "The unique garden will be well-utilized as a living lab for our Horticulture and Forestry students." The garden boasts more than 500 rhodondendron species, as well as first-growth native trees.