Photo credit: Don Erhardt

Situated on the UBC Vancouver campus, the Asia Pacific Dispute Resolution (APDR) Project is comprised of a network of colleagues not just from UBC but also from partner institutions in North America and Asia. The APDR Project supports research, analysis and policy proposals on cross-cultural dispute resolution in the areas of trade and human rights, with particular attention to Canada, China, India, Indonesia and Japan.

Known as an MCRI (Major Collaborative Research Initiatives) project, it is “a flagship-funding program within the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)” whose principal investigator is Dr. Pitman Potter, a professor at UBC’s Allard School of Law. He has ‘published several books such as Assessing Treaty Performance in China: Trade and Human Rights (Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2014) and The Legal System of the People’s Republic of China (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013) and over 100 articles and essays’.

With the last part of this multi-year project falling into place, the dissemination of the multiple findings are now underway as each country and its research team of representatives prepare to release their publications. These much-anticipated publications are arranged around the following key ‘topics in which the research findings have been grouped for dissemination – development, good governance, health, labour and poverty/inequality – with these volumes which include papers from members of the different research teams’. They also added, “The number of publications from the project, as can be expected from a project in its last stage, is quite vast and varied in types. At the moment, we are updating the inventory of publications and they are being classified according to five main types: book, book chapter, journal article, policy report and miscellaneous (media and other types of publications)”.

So while the APDR Project was ‘granted funding before May of 2015, the new policy on Open Access released by SSHRC last year is not mandatory, the stakeholders are aware [that] this is something the agency is encouraging for all [of] its projects’.

Download the APDR Working Papers Series‘ items now (see directly below) and stay tuned for more new items coming soon!

APDR Working Papers Series’ items:

Learning Networks as a Tool for Good Governance: The Case of the Canada-China Forum on Industrial Relations and Employment Standards

Introduction: Labour and Human Rights

AIDS, Human Rights, and Public Security in China

Public Health and Drug Policing in Malaysia: Using Empirical Evidence for Advocacy

Four Suggestions on Establishing a Legal Environment for a Speedy Transformation of the Economic Development Model

An Analysis of the Social and Legal Problems in Transitional China

Inclusive Workplace Practice in Canada: Competing Inequalities in an Industrial-Mobile Society

Photo courtesy: Pixabay

It is a pleasure to announce the arrival of a new item recently added to cIRcle, UBC’s digital repository resulting from the collaborative efforts between a world-renowned scholar and several of UBC’s academic research units and community partners – School of Music, Hong Kong Studies Initiative, Centre for Chinese Research, Museum of Anthropology, and St. John’s College.

Nancy Yunhwa Rao is an Associate Director of Academic Studies who is both the Head of the Composition Program and the Head of the Music Theory Program of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. As “one of the leading scholars in Chinese American music studies”, she has amassed award-winning research which focuses on the “musical history of Chinese in the United States, Canada, and Cuba” which she “mined [from] immigration files” and so forth.

Examples of her published research are found in a variety of journal publications such as the “Cambridge Opera Journal, Journal of the Society for American Music, Journal of 19th Century Music Review, as well as several collections of essays”. Interestingly, she has published ‘a book on Chinatown Opera Theater in North America via the University Illinois Press’ which is completely filled with the “analysis of playbills, performing networks, opera arias, stage spectacles, and more”.

Watch Parts One and Two of her talk here

Explore the Chinese Special Collections‘ Library Research Guide

Image: cIRcle Graduate Non-Thesis Research Submission Workflow Overview

The GSS (Graduate Student Society) cIRcle Open Scholar Award was a lottery based award held twice a year for graduate students at UBC Vancouver which went live on July 9, 2012.

Graduate students were eligible to submit exemplary non-thesis manuscripts or projects related to graduate coursework to the GSS (Graduate Student Society) cIRcle Open Scholar Award, with approval from their course instructors.

A random selection was made from items submitted to cIRcle during the previous 6 month period – four awards will be made per annum, two in April and two in October.

The GSS cIRcle Open Scholar Award was a five-year (2012-2017) collaboration of the Graduate Student Society and cIRcle/UBC Library.

The first two awards were presented on October 18, 2012 and the last few awards were presented before the Award ended on May 1, 2017.

Congratulations to the 2016 & 2017 Award winners – Victor Ngo and Ali Hosseini* (April 2016); Jean-Paul Andre Joseph Benoit and Amy Myring (October 2016); and, Keilee Mok and Alejandra Echeverri** (April 2017)!

* Note: Co-authors are faculty members and were not eligible for the award.

** Note: Co authors had graduated prior to the award period and were, therefore, ineligible.

Over the course of its five-year term, the Award was presented to the randomly-selected UBC graduate students for their exemplary non-thesis research work in either traditional and/or interdisciplinary fields of study:

• Civil Engineering
• Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies (CENES)
• Community and Regional Planning (SCARP)
• Computer Science
• Educational Studies
• Forest Resources Management
• Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS)
• Medicine
• Nursing
• Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES)
• Physical Therapy
• Theatre and Film

“I am grateful for the efforts of those responsible for cIRcle

because I see it as a positive alternative that facilitates sharing of research and work.

cIRcle catalyzes the sharing and building of ideas, motivating students to

improve their work and to give back to the research community that provides so much for them.”

    – Robert DeAbreu, GSS cIRcle Open Scholar Award Winner, April 2013

While the Award officially ended on 1 May 2017, the Award collection was aptly renamed and became the new UBC Graduate Research collection in cIRcle, UBC’s digital repository which now incorporates exemplary non-thesis research work from UBC Okanagan graduate students too. Hooray!

The UBC Graduate Research collection welcomes exemplary graduate student non-thesis research such as the following:

• Essays or papers
• Graduating papers or projects (Capstone, etc.)
• Manuscripts
• Presentations (including research posters)
• Publisher-permitted versions of journal articles, conference papers, etc. based on course-related research
• Software code
• Technical reports
• Video and audio based projects

With too many benefits to list, below are just a sampling of such when making your UBC graduate student non-thesis research openly accessible via cIRcle:

• Create/enhance your academic and professional scholarly profile
• Track views and downloads from cities and countries around the world
• Openly disseminate your UBC research with scholars locally and globally
• Your work is regularly indexed by web search engines (Google, Google Scholar, etc.)
• Preserve your UBC scholarly legacy with a DOI (persistent link)

UBC graduate students are encouraged to upload their own work (subject to course instructor or supervisor approval) to the UBC Graduate Research collection anytime.

It’s hard to believe that Open UBC 2012 is over! This year marked the first time Open UBC was celebrated in conjunction with UBC’s Celebrate Learning Week. In its tradition, Open UBC did not disappoint. Here are some memorable quotes from Open UBC 2012 and a few highlights of International Open Access Week 2012:

Open UBC 2012 at UBC:  

- A “utopia” vision for open access (Dieter Stein – Open science theme)

- “I want my lectures to be set free – and really open!” (Jon Beasley Murray – Open education theme)

- ‘[P]rojected change in catch potential in 50 years – no whales, penguins, krill and other species will be gone’ (Daniel Pauly – Open science theme)

- “I am the perfect poster child for bugs mistakes things that don’t work out so open science!” (Rosie Redfield – Open science theme)

- ‘Band members can access and use materials for research with research permit & applications – allows control of what/how can be used’ (Jason Woolman – Open access and the arts theme)

- “The status quo isn’t the only way to disseminate research.” (Heather Piwowar – Open science theme)

Open UBC 2012 presentations and various webcasts are coming soon to cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository!

Open Access Week 2012 at large:

- “Open Access Explained!” video [ http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access-explained ]

- Peter Suber released a new book on Open Access [ http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/open-access ]

- A new digital publication, Open Access Now, was launched [ http://digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans/2012/10/22/open-access-now-launched/ ]

- Splendid #Repository Stuff” for #OpenAccess Week [ http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/splendid-stuff-for-open-access-week-letters-from-the-smithsonian ]

Did you know?

The 2011 issues of the annual Sea Around Us Project Newsletter are available in cIRcle at: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/41119. It has been accessed from all over the globe, for example, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Columbia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Israel, Jamaica, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United States of America.

Above image is courtesy of UBC Library

If you have visited the Walter C. Koerner Library recently, you probably saw the new Research Commons Desk (on Level 2); not to mention, the graduate student staff in action. How so?

The Research Commons offers a variety of services but two key services stand out, especially for graduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Note: These services are also open to all graduate students and are being provided by graduate students.

Yes, there is a definite buzz of excitement and here’s why:

Thesis/Citation Formatting Support

This service provides ‘workshops and one-on-one consultations to students who need assistance with Master’s and PhD theses formatting using advanced features of Microsoft Word’.

FIRE (Facilitated Interdisciplinary Research Exchange) talks 

This service ‘invites graduate students from across campus to come to Koerner Library for monthly theme-based discussions of their research and to connect around common research interests and perspectives’.

Want to learn more about the Research Commons at Koerner Library? Here are a few easy ways:

• Visit their new site online at: http://koerner.library.ubc.ca/services/research-commons/
• See the new Research Commons Help Desk in-person (Location: Koerner Library, Level 2)
• Book an appointment via email at: research.commons@ubc.ca
• Attend a weekly instructional workshop on RefWorks, Mendeley or Zotero (popular citation management tools) at: http://elred.library.ubc.ca/libs/series/86

Did You Know?

cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository, allows a more comprehensive collection of scholarly works to be submitted than may be possible in the traditional publishing world. There are 5500+ Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) and 32,000+Retrospective Theses and Dissertations (RTDs). Explore cIRcle at: https://circle.ubc.ca/.

Above text in partial italics and image is courtesy of the Koerner Library Research Commons website at: http://koerner.library.ubc.ca/services/research-commons/.

UBC-NSJ is now available in cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository

On 4 May 2012, the first issue of the University of British Columbia nursing student journal (UBC-NSJ) was made available in cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository! With contributions from the faculty and graduate students in the School of Nursing, this nursing student journal “serve[s] as a medium to explore and analyze our practice in order to address diverse challenges of our healthcare system”, as stated in part by the UBC-NSJ Editorial Committee.

The following excerpt taken from the “Letter from the Director” in the UBC-NSJ briefly talks about this journal’s origin and is provided by Colleen Varcoe, the Director of the University of British Columbia School of Nursing:

“I am honoured to have the opportunity to be included in the first ever issue of the University of British Columbia’s Nursing Student Journal – UBC-NSJ! First, I would like to congratulate our student leaders who have initiated and developed this important innovation. When I ask nurse leaders in our community what the UBC School of Nursing is “about”, they always reply that it is research and scholarship that define our school. When I ask what we could do better, they always want more engagement. The UBC-NSJ exemplifies both: our extant research and scholarship and our increasing engagement in practice. The NSJ originated from the Synthesis Project – a final project in which groups of students are paired with leading nurses in practice and a faculty member to engage in a project of importance to practice that requires scholarly focus.”

Right from the Director’s opening letter to a faculty interview with UBC Professor John Oliffe to a nursing student’s perspective from Jodi Meacher and more, you can learn how UBC nursing researchers are continually increasing UBC’s research value and scholarly impact in the nursing practice arena.

To see and/or download the full UBC-NSJ journal in cIRcle, click the link provided here: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/42286. You can also see and/or download the individual journal article titles under the “Browse – This Collection” section (then click on “Titles”) at: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/41792.

Did you know?

This week is National Nursing Week (May 6-12, 2012) in Canada, the USA and around the globe. In Canada, “it was first celebrated in 1985 to highlight nurses’ contributions to the well-being of the Canadian public (week that includes 12 May)”. In celebration, take a moment to browse and find 4500+ Nursing items such as faculty publications, student essays, projects, reports as well as theses and dissertations in cIRcle. (Tip: enter “Nursing” in the general search box then click “Go”.)

Celebrate Research Week 2012 is almost here!

As part of UBC Library’s events that are lined up for Celebrate Research Week 2012, don’t forget to attend cIRcle’s event next Thursday, March 8th at 2pm.

We will be presenting first-hand feedback from faculty, students and librarians who have used cIRcle, UBC’s Digital Repository. They have made their research and conference papers, exemplary student projects, webcasts, podcasts and more available online through cIRcle.

See you there!

Title: Your Research goes Global with cIRcle

Date: Thursday, March 8th

Time: 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.

Location: Dodson Room (302 – 3rd floor) at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

Did you know?

The top item in the Environmental Science Undergraduate Research Papers and Reports collection is entitled, “Waste solutions for Metro Vancouver”. To date, it has had over 300 views from Canada, USA, China, Russia, Japan, Ukraine, UK, United Arab Emirates, Argentina and Ethiopia. Take a look at it in cIRcle at: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/24466.

Above image is courtesy of UBC Library at The University of British Columbia.

It’s getting close to that time of year when The University of British Columbia hosts a week-long celebrate research week at UBC’s Vancouver campus and other locations in and around Vancouver.

Are you planning on attending and/or presenting your scholarly research or innovative research dissemination tool that week? Either way, you are likely anticipating those expert lectures on timely topics by members of the UBC community (faculty, students, and invited guest speakers).

To see the Celebrate Research Week 2012 events listing, visit: http://celebrateresearch.ubc.ca/.

Did you know?

A UBC Library Innovative Dissemination of Research Award was created in 2010 and includes a $2,000 cash prize and a framed certificate. This award honors UBC faculty, staff and students who are expanding the boundaries of research through the creative use of new tools and technologies that enhance the research findings being disseminated. This year’s recipient will be announced at the Celebrate Research Week gala in March 2012.

Above image is courtesy of the Celebrate Research Week website at The University of British Columbia.