Depending upon the work requirements of University departments, the Christmas holiday schedule will be in effect from December 24, 2022, through January 2, 2023, inclusive.  Office and regular business hours will resume on Tuesday, January 3, 2023.

Payroll deadlines:

For the December 23 pay, the deadline for PTFs, pay changes, etc., is 12 noon on November 24. Electronic timesheets/overtime are due on December 12 at 10:00 a.m.

For the January 6 pay, the deadline for PTFs, pay changes, etc., is 12 noon on December 8. Electronic timesheets/overtime are due on January 3 at 10:00 a.m. 

For the January 20 pay, the deadline for PTFs, pay changes, etc., is 12 noon on December 23. Electronic timesheets/overtime are due on January 9.

Additional information regarding the Christmas holiday schedule can be found at MyUPEI.

Overview: The Adult Learner - Course Design and Facilitation Certificate offers a comprehensive introduction to the field of adult learning for individuals who want to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to design and deliver effective and engaging adult training programs. Participants will develop new insights and techniques that will strengthen their training content and approach, learn about designing curriculum to match diverse learning styles (including in-person and online facilitation), organize engaging experiential activities that ensure the achievement of learning objectives, and deliver peer-reviewed interactive training content and facilitation sessions.

Designed for: People who are interested in becoming or improving as facilitators, trainers, consultants, subject matter experts, adult educators, human resource personnel, contract workers, tutors, or similar positions

Type of Delivery: In-person

Duration: Six modules for a total of 48 hours; four modules last one day (six hours each), and two modules last two days (twelve hours each)

Facilitator: Laura Johnson

For more information, check out https://www.upei.ca/professional-development/certificates/certificate-in-design-and-facilitation. 

The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, which takes place every year on December 6, marks the anniversary of the murders of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1989. 

UPEI will observe the day by lowering the flags in front of Kelley Memorial Building to half-mast. Everyone is encouraged to wear their purple ribbons to raise awareness about violence against women and children here on PEI, across Canada, and around the world while imagining what true safety for all people, of all genders, can look like.

The PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women will host its annual Montreal Massacre Memorial Service and Candle Lighting for Victims of Violence—that honours the lives of women that have been lost to violence, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls—with an in-person event for the general public at Memorial Hall, Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown on Tuesday, December 6, from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm. Masks are recommended. They will also host a Zoom Livestream of the Memorial Service (by registration only). Register by calling 902-368-4510 or emailing info@peistatusofwomen.ca.

The UPEI Health, Safety, and Environment Department (HSE) is offering Emergency and First Aid/CPR training sessions:

Emergency First Aid/CPR 
December 9, 2022
8:30 am–4:00 pm
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This basic one-day course offers lifesaving first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills. 

The cost of registration will be covered by HSE for all UPEI faculty and staff, including students who require training for on-campus employment. Please note that lunch will not be provided.

As space is limited, please pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell by the end of the day on Wednesday, December 7, via hse@upei.ca or 902-566-0901.

The IRG and SERG programs support stand-alone projects through the funding of fully developed research proposals.

VALUE: up to $5000 for a one-year term

APPLICATION DEADLINE: December 15, 2022, by 4 pm

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: Tenured, tenure-track, term, and sessional UPEI Faculty in Arts, Business, Education, IKERAS, Nursing, Science, or Sustainable Design Engineering, and librarians, who are employed by UPEI at the time of application and for the duration of the award. Faculty members in Veterinary Medicine may participate as co-applicant but cannot be the principal investigator.  A professor emeritus or adjunct professor may apply as a co-applicant with a tenure/tenure-track UPEI faculty member.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Program guidelines and application instructions can be found here: https://www.upei.ca/research-services/resources-and-tools/internal-funding.

Apply using the UPEI Romeo Researcher Portal.

ITSS launched our new improved website a little while ago. 

We've included a link on how to submit a help request ticket, FAQs on printing, connecting to the wifi, and much more.

Why not bookmark the site so you have all the information at your fingertips?

If you use google chrome as a browser, go to the new ITSS site linked above and click on the star icon on the right of the address bar. You can rename the site if you like, and once you save it, it will easily be available to you under your search bar in the future.  

The excitement for this Saturday's Gold Rush draw continues to grow! With no winners in the last EIGHT draws, the total pot has grown to more than $13,200—the highest it's ever been—with half going to the winner of Saturday night's draw.

Gold Rush is a virtual fundraising initiative that raises funds for UPEI’s athletic programs. 

Play today and every week for a chance to win! Download the UPEI Panthers app from the App Store or on Google Play, or play from your computer. The weekly draw is held at 8 pm every Saturday.

As a reminder, the Fall 2022 term has been extended to Thursday, December 8.

As December 8 is a make-up day for several of the Mondays that have been missed, the course that students and instructors will attend will be reflective of the "Mondays" in their current schedule.

Best wishes with the upcoming exam season!

Kind regards,

The Registrar's Office 

UPEI is the first university in the country to launch "I'm Ready," a project working to eradicate HIV in Canada.

The study is sharing HIV self-testing kits and asking questions from the people who will use them so they can learn how to improve HIV testing and care in Canada.  Participation in "I'm Ready" is anonymous, and you control your own pathway through the program.  You will have access to a self-test and information/support.

If you are interested in this project, you need to download the I'm Ready, Test mobile app.

Once you have downloaded the I’m Ready, Test mobile app, you’ll be asked to  

1. consent to be part of the program, create a profile, and answer a pre-test survey; 

2. choose to have up to three self-test kits delivered to your home or another address, or opt to pick up a single kit at any one of our pickup locations (UPEI Health and Wellness Centre). If you already have a kit, continue to step #3. 

3. Once you have your self-test kit, open your I’m Ready, Test app again. You’ll then follow the steps in the app and use the test kit’s instructions to take the self-test; 

4. When you’re completed the test, you’ll record your result in the app anonymously and continue on in the app to access more information to keep you healthy by treating or preventing HIV. 

We’ll also send you follow-up surveys through the app to ask about where you’re at and whether you’ve accessed care and supports.  

You can pick up test kits from the registered nurse at the Health and Wellness Centre beginning December 12th.  

Mentor applications for the Study & Stay PEI program are closing soon!

If you are a working professional and passionate about sharing your knowledge, skills and experience with international students in Prince Edward Island, this volunteer opportunity is for you! You can now sign up here: https://forms.gle/t8kAwSJ1esQEGHZP7. 

If you enjoy spending time with international students while helping them better understand PEI workplace culture, we would be lucky to have you sign up as a mentor today! Please contact us at studyandstaypei@upei.ca if you have any questions. Thank you! 

The deadline for Animal Care Protocol Submissions (new, renewal, or amendment) is Friday, January 6, for the January meeting.

Please note that as of June 1, 2020, all animal user protocols must be submitted through UPEI Researcher Portal at https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/

For new protocols, select "applications," and for renewal or amendment protocols, select "events."

To view any UPEI ACC SOPs and Codes of Practice, they can be accessed through myUPEI at https://portal.upei.ca/facultystaff/administrativeservices/AVCAnimalCare/Pages/default.aspx. 

Those protocols received after the deadline will be reviewed the following month. The committee requires at least one month for processing applications.

December 13, 14, 15, and 16, 12:00 to 4:00 pm Atlantic

This is a beginner-level workshop series that is hands-on, covering the fundamentals of Unix command line and basic genomic skills for short-read sequence data. Participants will learn how to do quality assessment, read trimming and filtering, data management, and task automation on the high-performance computing infrastructure resources from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (formerly Compute Canada). Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems. The workshop will cover a variant calling pipeline, and participants will learn skills that will be broadly applicable to other genomics tasks.

For details and registration, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/acenet-and-mgf-introduction-to-genomics-data-organization-and-analysis-tickets-427305721917 

Entries are now being accepted for the Science Exposed 2023 photo competition. Eye-catching images coming from research projects in the natural sciences, engineering, humanities, or health sciences can now be submitted. The individuals or groups that have the most successfully combined creativity and science will be awarded one of many cash prizes. The contest is organized by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Acfas. The deadline to submit is January 30 at 11:59 pm (ET).
 
The goal of Science Exposed is to help foster a science culture in Canada by capturing vibrant research images that showcase the work of our talented research community. These images will help the Canadian population better understand and see, through the same lens as our scientists and engineers, the work that is being done behind the scenes.

Click here for more information. 

UPEI is in the process of developing a Secure Island Data Repository (SIDR), a research data repository that will allow researchers to access PEI’s administrative health data for research purposes in a secure and controlled environment. 

Through SIDR’s partnership with Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN Canada), local researchers who are interested in accessing administrative health data from multiple regions would be able to do so via the HDRN Canada Data Access Support Hub (DASH). 

For researchers who would like to better understand how to navigate multi-regional data access processes, HDRN Canada will host a free webinar on Thursday, December 15, 2022, from 1:00 to 2:00 AST. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/hdrn-canadas-data-access-support-hub-dash-webinar-tickets-473576589327

As a reminder, the Fall 2022 term has been extended to Thursday, December 8.

As December 8 is a make-up day for several of the Mondays that have been missed, the course that students and instructors will attend will be reflective of the "Mondays" in their current schedule.

Best wishes with the upcoming exam season!

Kind regards,

The Registrar's Office 

DYK that assistance in developing a SoTL proposal for this grant program is available through the UPEI Teaching and Learning Centre? 

The Internal SoTL Research Grant (ISRG) program supports research pursuits in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through the funding of fully developed research proposals. Researchers are encouraged to provide high-quality student training opportunities and to propose collaborations with others from different, but complementary, disciplines.  

VALUE: up to $1,500 for a two-year term. ISRG proposals for lesser amounts will be considered favourably.  

APPLICATION DEADLINE: December 13, 2022, by 4 pm

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Program guidelines and application instructions can be found at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/resources-and-tools/internal-funding.

Are you thinking about a difficult conversation you need to have with a student about an assignment?  Here's a guide with suggestions on how to talk to a student who may have paid someone to do their work: Educator Resource: How to Lead a Discovery Interview About Contract Cheating

If you're a working professional and passionate about sharing your valuable knowledge, skills, and experience with international students in PEI, this volunteer opportunity is for you! The Study & Stay PEI program is still looking for another 10 mentors. If you're interested and available, you can now sign up here: https://forms.gle/t8kAwSJ1esQEGHZP7.

As a mentor, you will be helping our international students apply what they’ve learned, build more connections, and gain a deeper understanding of PEI’s workplace culture. Please contact us at studyandstaypei@upei.ca if you have any questions. Thank you.

Choyce Chappell will defend her Master in Environmental Sciences thesis, "Design of a Mobile Crisis Weather App for Residents of Prince Edward Island," on Friday, December 9, at 2 pm in the Atlantic Veterinary College 287N.

"Though extreme weather events are increasing in both severity and frequency, the current state of citizen-focused crisis informatics illustrates how little is known about the way the citizenry receives and uses information about such events; furthermore, individuals and communities are often underprepared. This thesis attempts to address the discovered gap in the literature and suggests a possible solution through the design of a mobile crisis weather app for residents of Prince Edward Island.  The user-centered design process of interaction design was chosen for effective interface design. Primary data was gathered through qualitative methodology utilizing semi-structured interviews with fourteen residents analyzed through thematic analysis. The user story, personas, and user scenarios, all tools of interface design, were used in the design of the interface and culminated in a medium-fidelity prototype specific to the geographical and sociocultural needs of the average Prince Edward Island resident."

Everyone is welcome.

During final exams, access to the track will be allowed only on the following dates and times. Please note that no one is permitted on the track during exams.

Sunday, December 11: noon –2:00 pm and 5:00 –7:00 pm
Monday, December 12 to Friday, December 16: 6:00–9:00 am, noon –2:00 pm, and 5:00–7:00 pm
Saturday, December 17, and Sunday, December 18: noon –2:00 pm and 5:00–7:00 pm
Monday, December 19 to Wednesday, December 21: 6:00–9:00 am, noon–2:00 pm, and 5:00–7:00 pm

Note: Dates are subject to change due to any weather conditions.