President's Distinguished Service Awards

2004 Team Award Winners

Expert Database Group

In this photo from left to right are - Jane Mertz, Office of Research Services, Corey Scholefield, Computing Services, Sabine Schuerholz-Lehr, Office of International Affairs, Rogier Gruys, Department of UVic Communications Services, Patricia Maedel, Office of the Vice-President, Academic and Provost, David Wolowicz, Department of UVic Communications Services, Janine Olariu, Office of Research Services, Alyssa Grace, Development Office, Garry Sagert, Software Development, Nieves Forcada, Office of Research Services, Allan Berezny, Development Office, Beth Rea, Office of Research Services.

Missing from the photo are Morven Wilson, Computing and Systems Services, and Katy Nelson, McPherson Library.

The Team Innovation Award recipients are the members UVic Expertise Database Team – Allan Berezny, Nieves Forcada, Alyssa Grace, Rogier Gruys, Patricia Maedel, Jane Mertz, Katy Nelson, Janine Olariu, Morven Wilson, David Wolowicz, Beth Rea, Garry Sagert, Corey Scholefield and Sabine Schuerholz-Lehr.

These individuals joined together to make a team with a collective vision of what was needed for a critical part of UVic’s communication strategy, a campus wide expertise database involving the entire regular faculty.

Representing a variety of units on campus, this team embraced the initiative and developed a low cost plan that effectively used existing resources – a true grass roots endeavour.

On approval for the project, this team has come together to develop a public, searchable catalogue of more than 700 full-time faculty members at UVic. Each entry includes contact information, a description of the person’s research interests, community interactions and international involvements. The development of this project involved the design of the data base, creation of the software, development of a web interface, and of course, engaging the faculty to enter the information.

This comprehensive online expertise database has became an important new university tool for enabling university wide collaborations, identifying experts for committees, helping graduate students looking for supervisors and for the community at large interested in contacts, collaborations or media comment.

Thanks to the collective efforts of this team, the database assists greatly in the commitment of UVic to increase awareness of the extent of its research expertise. This tool has moved UVic closer to the commitment of promoting and expanding the transfer of research knowledge to the community.