Category: FIMS

Western Humanitarian Award

This award recognizes faculty, staff, and students at Western who are engaged in a range of efforts directed towards improving the quality of life for individuals and communities around the world. Preference will be given to the recognition of activities undertaken by the candidate that have current or potential international impact.

Amount: $5,000 (must be used in support of humanitarian efforts as chosen by the recipient)

Deadline: extended to July 20, 2021

More information and applications…

Contact: Interested parties are encouraged to consult with Julaine Hall (rwprizes@uwo.ca) at Western Research regarding this award and the nomination processes.

New Scholarship Program from Coalition Publica

Coalition Publica, a partnership between Erudit and the Public Knowledge Project, is launching a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students in Canada. The program will support research projects that study the scholarly communication and research dissemination system or that apply digital humanities methods to the corpora made available by Coalition Publica. 

Scholarships available: 

  • PhD ($20 000)  
  • Master’s Thesis ($10 000) 
  • Bachelors: to develop term papers into research articles ($500) 

Scholarships are awarded annually for one year of study (graduate) or for one research article (undergraduate).

Eligibility and selection criteria: All students registered at a Canadian university are eligible. Applications may be submitted in English or French. Applications will be evaluated on the basis of the relevance of their research objectives and their originality. Scholarships will be granted in accordance with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. Students from traditionally underrepresented groups are encouraged to submit a proposal.

For more details, see https://www.coalition-publi.ca/news-nouvelles/2021/4/7/scholarship-program

Western Research Update (Covid-19 Stay at Home)

MEMORANDUM
Date: April 15, 2021
From: Kevin Shoemaker, Acting Associate Vice-President (Research)
Subject: Continued Vigilance For Research During Stay-at-Home Order.

As we enter the second week of a province-wide stay-at-home order, I want to provide some reminders to ensure the safety of our research community.

Research continues at a reduced rate on campus. Your continued vigilance is appreciated and critically important to our efforts to protect peers, friends and families. Thank you.

We are all keen to return to some sense of normalcy. To successfully do so, we must not let down our guard at this pivotal juncture.

As a reminder, when working on campus, please:

  • Complete your return-to-work questionnaire on a daily basis.
  • Complete your own research space’s checklist and entry protocols for tracking purposes.
  • Wear three-ply masks provided by the university when inside or near others.
  • Wear safety goggles—and potentially face shields, as recommended by supervisors—when it is necessary to work within two metres of another person.
  • Eat and rest only in designated areas, while maintaining guidelines for physical distancing and mask use (masks are only to be removed to take a bite/sip).
  • No face-to-face participant research, exercise-based activities or field studies are permitted, unless approved by the Dean’s office and the office of the Vice-President (Research).
  • Ensure occupancy in Western’s research spaces remains at 30 per cent or below.

When in doubt, think safety first. Spot checks may be conducted by members of our community or by the Middlesex-London Health Unit.

Additional resources are available through ongoing university-wide notices and research-related updates from Western Research. Please also direct any additional questions to your Associate Dean (Research) and/or departmental delegate.

New Open Access Agreements with Major Publishers

Western Libraries has announced new agreements with three major publishers that offer new discounts and waivers for open access journal Article Processing Charges (APCs). These new agreements are with SAGE, PLOS, and Elsevier. 

  • SAGE: No APCs for Western-affiliated authors for most SAGE journals (all those that operate on the hybrid subscription/OA model; some exceptions apply) and 40% discount on APCs for journals published on the gold OA model (entirely funded by APCs).
  • PLOS: No APCs for Western-affiliated corresponding authors who publish in PLOS Biology or PLOS Medicine, and 25% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated contributing authors, as part of the PLOS Community Action Publishing program.
  • Elsevier: 20% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated authors.

These agreements were negotiated by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) on behalf of researchers at all CRKN member institutions.

To learn more, register to attend an upcoming Ins and Outs of Publishing Fees workshop. 

As part of their commitment to open access and support of the research mission of the University, Western Libraries has subscribed to several organizations that offer discounts for author processing charges for open access journals. For detailed information, please see the list of memberships.

Another way to make your research widely available is to share it in Scholarship@Western, Western’s institutional repository. There are no fees involved with this route to open access. 

If you have questions about the discounts and waivers, or if you are interested in having your work deposited in Scholarship@Western, please email rsclib@uwo.ca. 

Access to Statistics Canada Data – Workshop

Continuum of Data Access (Statistics Canada)

Wednesday April 14th, 2021, 1:00 pm

Elizabeth Hill (Data Librarian, Western Libraries)
Tina Luu Ly (Analyst, Western’s Research Data Centre)

Workshop Description: Western Libraries in conjunction with Western’s Statistics Canada Research Data Centre (RDC) is offering a workshop on access to Statistics Canada data at Western. The workshop will highlight public / open data products and access, as well as academic access to Public Use Microdata Files (PUMF). The workshop is a good introduction or review of access points to data that is useful for teaching and research. Access to masterfile data is also available to Western researchers through the Real Time Remote Access (RTRA) system and the RDC. The workshop will describe different types of access and the application process for using RTRA and RDC.

This workshop will be of interest to students , instructors and researchers. 

If you have any questions, please contact Elizabeth Hill, ethill@uwo.ca, Data Librarian, Western Libraries

COVID-19: Changes to Face-to-Face Research Activities at Western

April 6/21 – Memo from Lesley Rigg, Vice-President (Research)

There has been a rapid escalation of COVID-19 cases in our community, including on our campus.

To address increasing risks, we are implementing additional restrictions to permitted research activities. We need to be proactive and we need to continue to be rigorous.

Effective April 7, 2021 at 6 p.m., we will pause all face-to-face research with human participants on campus and in field studies for four weeks. We will re-evaluate these restrictions every two weeks by looking for a pattern of reduction in our community caseload.

These changes do not apply to research directly related to COVID-19. Other studies, including those approved over the past few months, may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to assess potential risks and benefits using the two-level approval system currently in place.

At the same time, research personnel are still able to access research spaces under current safety guidelines and to pursue research that does not involve face-to-face interactions with human participants.

As a reminder, members of our community are required to wear three-ply masks and to wear safety glasses if working within two metres of each other. Supervisors may also recommend face shields for additional protection. Occupancy in Western’s research spaces remains at 30 per cent capacity.

Where possible, we encourage you to work from home.

Please direct any questions to your Associate Dean (Research) and/or department delegate. Kevin Shoemaker is also available to assist with any questions on behalf of Western Research.

Western Research COVID-19 Updates

Research Using Social Media Data – Western Libraries Workshop

Social Media Data for Research: Twitter and Others

Tuesday March 16, 2021
1:00 pm
via Zoom

Want to learn how to get started with social media research? Join Western Libraries staff for a FREE Zoom workshop on popular platforms for research, methods for accessing the data, and different approaches and tools for analysis. Sign up at:  http://www.events.westernu.ca/events/libraries/2021-03/social-media-data.html 

Looking for Scholarships or Funding?

Are you looking for funding from sources other than traditional agencies such as SSHRC or the other Tri-Council Agencies (CIHR, NSERC)?

Please consider using Pivot. It’s free! (Paid for by Western Research).

What is Pivot?

Pivot is a comprehensive database of international grant funding opportunities available to all Western faculty, staff, and students. You can access Pivot from any computer on campus.

However, to use Pivot off campus, you must create a personal Pivot account. 

Why use Pivot?

  • Pivot can assist you in finding funding opportunities – government, private, foundation, and international funding
  • Once you do a search for funding (and save it) you can have Pivot send you weekly updates via email on potential funding sources with upcoming deadlines based on the search
  • Once you find a funding source that might be of interest in the future, you can ‘track’ it and have alerts sent to your email so that you know of upcoming deadlines.

To learn more about how to use Pivot:

Researcher Profiles: Pivot provides information from publicly sourced sites, and Western does not review or manage researchers identified as Western faculty on the PIVOT profiles. We do suggest you Create or Update Your Profile on Pivot. Doing this will assist Pivot in providing you with a curated list of funding opportunities based on your departmental affiliation, research interests, publication and granting history.

New Program at the Africa Institute

Western’s Africa Institute has launched The Canada-Africa Young Scholars Coalition (CAYSC) whose membership will include undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and other trainees of African heritage or identity from across Canada, as well as allies.

Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars are invited to become members of the CAYSC. More information available at The Wire.

NVivo Workshop from Western Libraries

Introduction to Qualitative Analysis with NVivo

Tuesday, Feb 23, 2021
1:00 – 2:30 pm
Via Zoom

Interested in digital qualitative research? Join Western Libraries for a webinar on getting started with NVivo. Learn about the capabilities of this popular analysis package, how to set up a project and import different kinds of data, and start coding. NVivo is a tool for organizing, managing and analyzing qualitative data. This introductory session will provide an overview of NVivo’s capabilities and demonstrate how to use it to get started on a qualitative research project.

Session outcomes:

  • Learn about the features and functionality of NVivo
  • Set data files up for autocoding and import
  • Create an NVivo project and import different types of data
  • Organize and classify files and cases
  • Code data and create notes and memos
  • Run queries and create charts
  • Plan a content analysis

Register for this online workshop here.

Access to NVivo software is not essential but may be helpful if you want to follow along. A trial version of the software may be downloaded here. Sample data files will be sent out with the link to access the workshop.