Quanta 2016 - Research and Innovation at Mohawk College

30 Projects completed

200

78

Students involved in applied research

Faculty and staff involved in applied research

Year in Review 2015-2016

Supporting applied research and innovation in Digital Health, Energy and Additive Manufacturing.

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111

Colleges and university partners

Community and industry partners

3,198,273

$

Total research income

Andrea Johnson Editor, Quanta Mohawk College

Welcome Quanta is our annual celebration of research and innovation at Mohawk College.

But this magazine could just as easily have been called our annual celebration of questions and answers.

At Mohawk College, our focus is on applied research and innovation.

That means that when we work with our partners to help their businesses grow or when we partner with our community to address key social innovation challenges, we are able to provide a solution that is realworld driven. It’s a turn-key solution that can be readily implemented and show positive results quickly.

Some questions are simple, others are more complex. Some focus on local problems, others on problems that affect everyone around the world.

In the past year we conducted applied research and provided innovative solutions in fields as diverse as 3D printing, digital health, drones, and chemistry.

And we’re really very good at it. So good at it, in fact, that once again we were ranked in the top 20 in Canada for research (and top eight in Ontario).

In this issue of Quanta, we’re going to share some of the questions and problems that we tackled this year- and show you the journey taken by our faculty, staff, and students to get to the right answer.

We’ll explore questions like, “How can I use 3D printing in new and innovative ways?”, “How can we ensure the best educational experience for everyone?”, “How can we ensure better power quality in Ontario?” and “How can we make print, television and radio more accessible for people with disabilities?”. We’ll show you how Mohawk’s unique expertise and talent have provided the answers.

Questions are important. They are the catalyst for innovation and a driver of curiosity. They allow us to see the future in a new way and to challenge the status quo. So let’s celebrate the many questions asked each day- and the answers that only Mohawk can provide.

Table of Contents A Smart Home Project: 1 MEDIC Helps MEDICAlert: 5 City School: 9 Broadening Broadcasting: 15 3D Printed History: 19 ARIE Fund Grows Innovation: 23 Championing Ontario Food: 31 A Message from the Chief: 35 Year in Review: 36

Q

How can we protect the power grid from overloading due to the use of new technology in our homes?

A

We can create a solution that operates in sync with both our needs and those of the utility companies.

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A Smart Home Project A better way to automate your home

By Tiffany Mayer When a team of researchers at Mohawk College’s Energy Research Centre was tasked with turning on a lightbulb with a personal device, a light certainly went on.

The group is part of Mohawk researcher Nafia Al-Mutawaly’s team of staff and students that are dedicated to finding solutions to improve power quality. Energy project manager Arinder Matharu, and research staff members Umer Waheed, Gregory Lee DeRe, Daniel Gingras and Lee Brown, successfully flipped the switch with a handheld device, and in the process shed

some light on how to improve home automation systems to more efficiently use energy.

They started by using open source software to improve metering — measuring how much power in our home is and isn’t being used — making the metering more detailed, and the idea quickly morphed into developing a system that puts less pressure on existing energy distribution infrastructure within a community.

They call it ADA, Active Dwelling Automation, and if all goes according to plan, it could

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become a tool for consumers to save energy and money in a way that no other home automation system has been able to do.

strain the neighbourhood power distribution system and affect power quality in the process.

It’s an eye-popping revelation in an age in which everything from our refrigerators to computers are built to be more energy efficient. But those same appliances designed to use less energy by powering up and down as needed, rather than run continuously, cause harmonics — voltages and currents in an “Your electric power system Energy-Efficient that can damage transformers and appliances lead to brownouts are a source or blackouts. of harmonics So while that energy and they could efficient chest potentially be freezer nets cheaper damaging power bills for the our overall person using it, it can ultimately cost system.” says our entire power Matharu. distribution system.

“With metering, we were able to do so much,” Waheed said. “Then the whole energy management system came into play.”

Project team members: Umer Waheed, Lee Brown, Daniel Gingras and Gregory Lee Dere (Not picturedArinder Matharu).

Home automation systems are nothing new. We’ve been able to turn lights on and off and adjust a thermostat from afar with our smart phones and tablets for years.

The biggest selling feature of such systems is the money they’re supposed to save us by tracking and lowering energy consumption.

But the Mohawk research team discovered existing systems have their limitations.

“A lot of technology that is out there doesn’t do metering in great detail,” Matharu said.

The technologies also work in isolation. Home automation systems, and the appliances they run, enable a homeowner to spare their wallet and shrink their personal carbon footprint a size or two, but they

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“Your Energy-Efficient appliances are a source of harmonics and they could potentially be damaging your overall system.” says Matharu.

ADA would minimize that by measuring power consumption and harmonics and ensuring they are sync with utility companies.

Utility companies, with the data that

ADA gives them, could then use the information to control for the power load in the neighbourhood.

“As the demand for electricity continues to grow, more infrastructure and maintenance will be required, which means prices can be expected to rise even if the consumer is running their house in an efficient manner,” Matharu explained.

Enter open source data to help control energy use. Not only can it be used to shut off your air conditioning during peak hours when you’re not home, it can be used to determine the best time to run appliances and tell you what your monthly power bill will be even before the utility company can.

Essentially, ADA is like a living, breathing, dynamic system.

The group started working on ADA in November 2015. They have until July to get an initial system up and running. So far, they’ve tested the individual features that they’ll use to integrate and to demonstrate what the system can do as a whole.

“As the demand for electricity continues to grow, more infrastructure and maintenance will be required, which means prices can be expected

Gingras and Brown are charged with creating an in-home, wall-mounted power quality meter that will wirelessly measure and transmit data about active power (the energy actively being used in a home), reactive power, and harmonics. Eventually, the group would love to create a system that uses machine learning, which uses sensor data gleaned from homeowner behaviours to improve the way it operates.

to rise,” says ADA also allows Matharu. anyone with coding skills to tweak the system for the better As for when ADA and ensure nothing might be in your house? malicious is happening. Individual data about a particular home’s “Well right now, it is a research energy consumption can be project,” Matharu said. “But I think kept entirely private, or it can be people will respond well to this. modified to make the information It may very well be in homes public and help improve system one day.” performance for everyone else.

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MEDIC helps MEDICAlert A new app means quicker care

By Blake Mancini

Q

When every second counts in a medical emergency, how do you makes things easier for first-responders that need instant access to health records?

A

You use a smart, simple app designed

by Mohawk MEDIC using the new international health standard known as FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources).

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Every day, we are changing and modifying how we live our lives thanks to new apps and electronic devices that help us with banking, checking the weather and most recently, keeping up to date on our health.

Michael Shreve, director of Health Information Systems at the MedicAlert Foundation of Canada, believes that mobile health is going to have a dramatic effect on how healthcare is delivered.

Mobile health, or mHealth as it is also known, is having a big effect on how we, as consumers, track our own health - and it’s affecting the industry immensely. From wearable devices such as Fitbits, and smartphone tools such as Apple’s “Health“ application, keeping track of your health while on the go has become easier than ever.

“Right now, mobile health applications are consumer-centric tools to help individuals track or monitor their health,” says Shreve.

“Wearable tracking devices are provided by some advanced healthcare settings to track outpatient or post-op health.

Over time devices and applications

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“MedicAlert believes that first responders can deliver better and quicker care if they know the health concerns of the individual. This application will allow MedicAlert to provide first responders with easier and simpler access to our member information.”

wlll merge and will be able to provide both the individual and/ or their caregiver instant access to their current state of health.”

The MedicAlert Foundation is a Canadian charity that maintains over one million Canadian health records for first responders.

Last year, Mohawk College’s mHealth & eHealth Development Paramedics can and Innovation Centre (MEDIC), under the now access the leadership of Mohawk information on researcher Duane their device Bender, worked with the MedicAlert Foundation of Canada to create an app, available for IOS and Android, which pushes boundaries in the field of mobile health. Intended for first responders in the field, the app allows them easy access to MedicAlert member information.

instead of having to listen to an operator and

Shreve says that the application will have a positive impact on the way first responders handle patients while in the field, with a few quick clicks paramedics will be able to see the Member’s full record.

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take notes.

Currently, the information is only available via the 24/7 MedicAlert telephone hotline, where trained professionals have access to over a million electronic health records. With the new app, paramedics can access this information on their mobile device instead of having to listen to an operator and take notes.

“There are other applications that collect and display medical records for both the patient and first responders,” states Shreve.

“However, our application is focused soley on the needs of first responders who are providing emergency care, and will be rolled out to paramedics as a view-only tool.”

Working with Shreve on the project was Tara Oskam, an Advanced Diploma Software Development student at Mohawk College and a co-op student at MEDIC. She considers the app’s visual design to be a very important feature.

“We used high contrast colours so the application was easy to read and large buttons because paramedics generally wear gloves.

Also, everything is accessible within two or three button clicks, because when you’re in an emergency you want to act quickly.”

“Great care was taken with the user experience design to ensure that paramedics would find the interface intuitive and easy to use,” says Shreve. “Patient information is organized for them by importance, and visual clues are given to let them know

whether or not a patient has allergies, medications, or special needs.”

According to Oskam, this app is a phenomenal example of how mHealth is beginning to affect the world of digital health and health care.

“Let’s say someone is incoherent and can’t tell paramedics what their allergies is, but is severely allergic to a certain pain medication. With this app, now the paramedic would know that and wouldn’t administer the medication on the way to the hospital,” explains Oskam.

It’s like a doctor in your pocket.

“That could save someone’s life.”

But what exactly does the future of mHealth hold?

“mHealth will enable a dramatic shift in how healthcare is delivered in the future,” says Shreve.

“Think doctor in your pocket.”

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How a new school in the city is making a difference

By Meredith MacLeod

Q

If education is a proven pathway out of poverty, then how do you make accessing post-secondary education easier for Hamiltonians?

A

Establish Mohawk’s City School, which brings college offerings to Hamilton’s inner-city neighbourhoods.

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Mohawk College pledged six years ago to play a leading role in tackling poverty in Hamilton.

“The college wasn’t taking a sideline approach. We decided to step into the breach,” said Jim Vanderveken, the dean of the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, who has led the charge.

The college’s innovative Community Access Strategy and the 10 initiatives that have come out of it have led to at least 800 at-risk students studying at a post-secondary institution in the last five years. And the outreach to

high school students, neighbourhood residents, and those needing upgraded skills has totalled more than 11,000.

“We aim to help the most vulnerable, those at the periphery and those marginalized due to layoffs and lack of income.” says Vanderveken.

The college formed a Community Access Strategy (CAS) cabinet of the city’s leaders to realize the vision of vastly improving the ability of nontraditional populations to earn a college education.

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While Mohawk was focused on establishing a leadership role in using education to mitigate the disadvantages of living in poverty, The Spectator’s Code Red series published in April 2010 accelerated the community conversations and coalesced action, says Vanderveken.

of an “unconference” held one fall Saturday in 2010 at Parkview Secondary School, a meeting of students, parents, residents and stakeholders Vanderveken calls a “watershed opportunity” to hear voices that still inform Mohawk’s approach today.

“That series really starkly defined the needs and created this shared energy and commitment to work together.”

“That day resonates with our staff still. We learned so much about the communities we were talking about.”

Vanderveken and others working on the Community Access Strategy believe education is the answer.

“Education is the great poverty to prosperity bridge. It allows people to imagine a different destination for themselves.”

Mohawk’s leaders made community access a central priority and the CAS cabinet quickly developed an action plan. Community partners committed to collaborations without concern for jurisdictions or boundaries and with a willingness to experiment.

An early result was College in Motion. The concept came out

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Residents of Hamilton’s northeast neighbourhoods told Mohawk leaders that they never travelled up the Mountain.

“We were having all these open houses at the Fennell campus, telling people just to come to us and the doors would swing open. Then we heard from people who said they didn’t even cross the rail tracks. We learned that many in very vulnerable communities don’t travel beyond a six-block radius from home.”

It was apparent that unless the college did something dramatic to create a bridge to the target neighbourhoods, any initiatives would be a non-starter, says Vanderveken, who arrived at

Mohawk in 1987 as a training specialist for those losing manufacturing jobs.

The bridge is College in Motion (CIM), a team of “navigators” who work with disengaged high school students to help them see beyond their current life challenges. CIM navigators work in 32 sites across the city, mostly in high schools but in a handful of community centres as well.

“Many of these young people didn’t think they could dream. CIM asks them what they want to do and helps them take the steps to get there.

It doesn’t matter if that’s another college or university, they need someone to help them navigate and be an advocate.”

That includes exploring course options, working through the application process and applying for scholarships or bursaries. For some students, that’s routing them to trades or apprenticeships. CIM has worked with about 2,500 students and more than 800 of them have enrolled at Mohawk.

CIM laid the foundation for other programs, including the Future

Ready Loyalty Card, which allows high school students to collect points for attending events and activities on campus and off. Those points can be converted to a bursary of up to $1,000. About 1,200 cardholders are collecting points.

“We wanted to create hope for students that this might be possible, to get a diploma and start a career.

We were mindful of the generational shift this could enable for some families who have never had anyone attend post-secondary education.”

The project was given a huge boost in 2012 with a donation of $1.5 million from the Ron Joyce Foundation aimed at bursaries for those in financial need. With $500,000 added from the Province, it’s enough for 20 full-tuition scholarships a year.

That was followed by an infusion of $100,000 from Doug and June Barber to support scholarships and programming for Mohawk’s City School, which brings college offerings to inner-city neighbourhoods.

More recently, the college was awarded $239,986 from the Social

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Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for City School.

The goal is to give those who are unemployed or underemployed the ability, confidence, and motivation to pursue post-secondary education.

The programs are tuition free.

The first City School location launched at the Eva Rothwell Centre at Robert Land in October 2015.

Mohawk has invested $60,000 in renovating a classroom at Eva Rothwell that replicates those on campus. A team of college faculty and staff, including Julie Farnard and Susan Bassett, rotate through the centre on a weekly basis.

Bassett describes the experience as “one of the most rewarding experiences” in all of her years of teaching.

“As the course went on, it was exciting to see the students succeed

in the program and grow more confident. By the end of the course, they were putting a post-secondary plan into action.”

Farnard, who taught College 101, believes that City School gave her students a newfound level of confidence to tackle the challenges of college life.

“The College 101 course I taught provided students with the opportunity to learn strategies and techniques on how to be successful while in a college credit class. As I got to know my students and understand their goals and current obstacles, I also witnessed how they strived to do well,” Farnard said.” I am not sure who learned more; the students or myself.”

The vision is to bring Mohawk’s community learning hubs to priority neighbourhoods identified by the City of Hamilton’s Neighbourhood Action Strategy.

“It’s crucial that we are building trust in these neighbourhoods. We needed to demonstrate that we are in this for the long term.” says Vanderveken.

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These neighbourhoods include Keith, Crown Point, McQuesten, Riverdale, Beasley and GALA. The goal is bring learning hubs into priority neighbourhoods by the end of 2018, with services decided in consultation with the residents who will use them.

“It’s crucial that we are building trust in these neighbourhoods. We needed to demonstrate that we are in this for the long term. We’ve been on this journey since 2010 and we are fully committed to this.”

Another avenue of access for students is the Province’s dual credit program, which allows students at risk of dropping out to earn credits to both finish their high-school diploma and to start along their college path.

There are 1,700 high school students taking credits at Mohawk through the program this year, says Vanderveken.

This is equal to the enrolment at the city’s larger high schools. The college has several dozen dual

credit offerings in technology, media studies, business, and general education. There are also credits for indigenous and second-language students.

“It’s an entirely different experience for them being on a college campus.

Many are engaged and excited by it. An at-risk student in high school can be transformed at college.”

Vanderveken is energized by Mohawk’s commitment and “compelling investment” in bringing educational opportunities to everyone.

“No one was talking about this in 2010 when we started but that is changing. We’re proud to be working with outstanding community partners like the City of Hamilton, both the public and Catholic district school boards, the Hamilton Community Foundation, Mission Services, the Robert Land Community Association and Culture for Kids in the Arts.”

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Broaden in g Broad c ast in g

Broadening Broadcasting Mohawk creates accessible journalism course

By Tiffany Mayer

Q

How can we make it easier for people with disabilities to consume news?

A

We can train future journalists to understand the accessibility needs of a diverse audience.

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Name a journalist with a disability.

Chances are, former LieutenantGovernor of Ontario and broadcaster David Onley, or Barbara Turnbull, longtime Toronto Star reporter, come to mind easily. After that, though, brow furrowing likely ensues.

It’s not that there aren’t other journalists with disabilities but there aren’t many in our nation’s newsrooms, and those journalists aren’t always visible or prominent.

A new journalism course at Mohawk, and a post-graduate certificate program that’s in the works, intends to change that.

Mohawk will tackle the issues and make it easier for people with disabilities to consume news, doing away with the jumbled text that sometimes shows up in closed-captioning or makes screen readers stumble.

The 14-week course, called Accessible Content Production for Journalists, is thought to be the first of its kind in Canada. It launches in September and is mandatory for all students in Mohawk’s threeyear journalism program. The year-long post-graduate certificate program is awaiting ministry approval, and will be geared to media and communications professionals who need to put into practice the standards outlined in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

Mohawk was awarded $80,000 from the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund to develop the course. The fund supports innovative projects to increase the accessibility of broadcasting content in Canada.

“In news, it’s all about audience and you want to do everything you can to maximize that audience,” says

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Kurt Muller, Mohawk’s associate dean of Media and Entertainment.

that often comes with consuming news.

That’s something every journalist, including Muller, who worked in print and broadcast before mentoring newshounds at Mohawk, knows well.

It’s particularly poignant in an age of shrinking readership, and infinite click-bait to tempt audiences of the 24-hour news cycle. But if you ask anyone who works in a newsroom, creating accessible content isn’t usually on a journalist’s radar.

“There are a variety of ways we need to do better, quite frankly,” Muller says. “This is an audience that has been and is being underserved. We have a lot of work to do to make sure Canadians with disabilities are heard.”

Muller and Jennifer Jahnke, the project lead who, along with a team of industry professionals, created the course and will teach it this fall, know that needs to change. After all, nearly 15 per cent of all Canadians report having a disability, according to Statistics Canada. Closer to home, 13 per cent of Mohawk students identify as having a disability.

Depending what it is, they may be missing out on important information, and that feeling of being included in their community

The second-year course approaches accessibility in two ways: First, it will teach journalists how to make their product accessible; second, it will make the profession of journalism more inclusive to people with disabilities by making the newsroom itself more physically accessible through the addition of specially-designed desks and chairs.

Additionally, assistive software will help with access to class material.

The intention is to improve the user experience for all consumers of news while creating more diverse newsrooms.

“It’s about changing the culture and the mindset,” says Jahnke, who

“It’s about changing the culture and the mindset. It’s just the right thing to do,” says Jahnke.

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is also Mohawk’s former AODA accessibility project manager. “It’s just the right thing to do.”

Students’ first assignment will be to interview someone with a disability.

From there, they’ll close-caption their videos, create accessible Word documents and PDFs of their transcripts, and design and lay out an accessible page in Adobe InDesign.

By the end of the term, students will have created digital audio and video, print, and web content that anyone can enjoy.

Their work will be critiqued by the people they interviewed at the start of the course to ensure it truly is accessible.

“It’s very holistic. Each assignment and task that students do builds on the previous one,” Jahnke said. “It’s a lot to squeeze into one course, which is why we’re developing the post-graduate program, but it gives a taste of what’s required by people with disabilities, and how to make content accessible.”

representatives from CNIB, the Down Syndrome Association of Hamilton, Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, and The Honourable David Onley, who was not only one of the first journalists with a disability to appear on TV in Canada, but also served as Ontario’s LieutenantGovernor. A team of Mohawk staff — David Best, Andrew Connery, Janice Fennell, Greg Gagnon, Rob Harvie, Katherine McCurdy — also assisted in the development of the curriculum.

In addition to being taught on campus, Accessible Content Production for Journalists will be available for students elsewhere to take online. Other colleges and universities will be able to access the curriculum through a Creative Commons licence.

“This has application beyond the world of journalism,” Muller said.

“These are skills that are going to become integral for anyone working in communications. These are really core skills for the future.”

Muller and Jahnke developed the curriculum with an advisory committee that included

“These are skills that are going to become integral for anyone working in communications.” says Muller.

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3D Printed History

Mohawk uses additive manufacturing to help conservation efforts

By Andrea Johnson

Q

How can the technology of the future be used to preserve artifacts of the past?

A

Engineers and conservationists can use 3D printing and scanning to create perfect copies that you can study, touch, and even drop!

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The intricate details of a clay artifact from 4,000 BC, normally displayed behind glass, can now safely be touched and handled thanks to Mohawk College’s help in preserving a piece of archeological history.

And certainly the Japanese vase is picture perfect down to almost every detail- except for one. Instead of being made of soft clay, it was made using sturdy plastic.

The manufacturing technique was a bit different as well; instead of being handmade by a potter, the vase was 3D printed using selective laser sintering.

So how does a one-of-a-kind piece of pottery end up having such a high tech twin?

In a project led by Mohawk professors Reid Flock and Robert Gerritsen, a Neolithic Jomon piece from Japan, owned by Burlington, Ontario-based retired architect James Koyanagi, was scanned using a high resolution CT (computerized tomography) scanner and then printed at Mohawk College’s Additive Manufacturing Resource Centre (AMRC).

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The original Jomon Vase.

For Tony Thoma, Mohawk’s dean of Engineering Technology, this was an opportunity to bring a diverse group together with the goal of preserving history.

“This is an opportunity to bring Health Care, the Arts and Technology together through the use of Additive Manufacturing,” says Thoma.

“The entire process, from scanning to the printing, has produced an impressive final product that we can use for further conservation efforts.”

While Mohawk College handled the production and printing of the replica, it was Trillium Health Partners

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- Mississauga Hospital and Siemens Healthcare that facilitated access to the 3D scanning technology, providing access to a Siemens SOMATOM Definition Flash CT during a staff training session.

Copied from fragile piece of pottery that couldn’t be touched without gloves, now the replica will allow researchers to examine the full details of the original piece, without risking damage. Additionally, from the model that was made from the scan, it is now possible to recreate the missing pieces of the vase both digitally and physically through further 3D printing.

The 3D printed plastic replica.

Managing director Jim Graziadei of Siemens Healthcare Canada, a long-time Mohawk partner, is “amazed” at the final product.

“It’s very exciting to see advanced healthcare and advanced manufacturing technology being combined for a new and unique application such as archaeological study.”

“We are honoured to have been a part of it.”

The collaboration produced an exact replica of the interior and exterior of the vase. It also produced a first for history,

according to Reid Flock, one of the two professors that brought it to life.

“To our knowledge, no one has CT scanned a Neolithic Jomon piece in its entirety and had it 3D sintered,” says Reid, who is enthusiastic about the potential of the technology. “As you can imagine, the applications with this are far reaching. Conservation and restoration efforts, study collections, and artistic possibilities within the ceramics field will greatly benefit from our research.”

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ARIE Fund Helps Innovation and Research Grow at Mohawk

By Andrea Johnson

Q

What do brownfield sites, virtual reality, and energy efficient solutions have in common?

A

They’re just a few of the innovative applied research and educational projects funded by Mohawk College.

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At Mohawk College, we believe that we will always do better when we work with others.

generating innovative solutions that can solve industry and community challenges.

That’s why this year’s Applied Research and Innovation in Education (ARIE) Fund projects involve 27 different industry, academic, and community partners.

With these projects, Mohawk will continue to redefine the concepts of campus and classroom, as the partnerships will play out everywhere from brownfield sites in Hamilton and Burlington to our multi-sensory Snoezelen Room, to a local software coding club and even, in virtual and augmented reality.

The 2016-2017 cohort of researchers prove that collaboration is the key to creating better learning opportunities for Mohawk students, creating stronger opportunities for environmental sustainability, and

Funded projects 2016-2017 Project: Waste heat recycling and LED lighting Project Lead: Zhenyu (Frank) Zhao, Electrical Engineering Academic Partner: McMaster University Project: Physiological impact of multisensory environments Project Lead: Kaela Miller

Project Lead: Shannon Kyles, Architecture Community Partner: Architectural Conservancy of Ontario Project: Explore the use of Microsoft HoloLens technology as an assistive device for online and classroom learning Project Lead: Richard Tasse and Henry Lammers, Electrical Apprenticeship

Community Partners: Community Living Agencies, Brain Injury Services Hamilton, Building Blocks Speech Pathology, Early Words: Blind Low Vision Program, Rigel Homes, and Christian Horizon.

Industry Partners: Microsoft HoloLens and Unity 3D

Project: Brownfields testing and remediation

Project Lead: Tracey Kadish, Broadcasting Television

Project Lead: Chris McCrory, Chemical Engineering Industry and Community Partners: Hamilton Port Authority, Royal Botanical Gardens, and CICAN. Project: Isolation and identification of psychrophilic (or psychrotolerant) microbes from Canadian soil and lake samples Project Lead: Athanasios (Ethan) Paschos, Chemical Engineering Industry Partner: Tri-Phase Group Project: Comparative testing of restored and new windows for energy efficiency

This is the second year that the ARIE Fund will support faculty and staff research and innovation activities at Mohawk College.

In total, Mohawk has invested $150,000 of funding in support of faculty innovation for 2016-2017.

Project: Using virtual reality to create visual content in Media and Entertainment Programs

Industry Partners: Secret Location and William F. White International Inc. Project: Develop a mathematical model to study the evolution of multi-drug resistant bacteria Project Lead: Nasim Muhammad, Mathematics Academic Partner: McMaster University Project: Improving the teaching of early computer programming Project Lead: Kevin Browne, Software Engineering Academic and Community Partners: Hamilton Code Club, IEC Hamilton, and McMaster University.

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Project: Foursight assessment with MSLA

Project Lead: Christine Boyko-Head, Interdisciplinary Studies and Elyse Pipitone, Student Services Academic and Industry Partners: Creative Education Foundation, Creative Problem Solving Institute at SUNY Buffalo, the International Centre for Studies in Creativity at SUNY, and Foursight LLC. Project: Redesign of a Chemical Engineering laboratory course

Project Lead: Greg Matzke, Chemical Engineering Industry Partners: Xerox Canada and Apotex Pharmachem Project: Student success initiatives retention plan

Project Lead: Catharine Ozols, Centre for Teaching and Learning Academic Partner: Student Services, Mohawk College Project: Incorporating 3D printing into a collaborative-based curriculum in Visual Arts Project Lead: Christopher Reid Flock & Duncan Aird, Continuing Education Project: Student reflection on practice (Multi-disciplinary approach) Project Lead: Chris McCrory, Chemical Engineering

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Project: Intercultural experiential simulation course

Project Lead: Michelle Turan, Child and Youth Services Academic and Industry Partners: Humla Fund (Nepal), Global Autism Project (New York City), SOREM (India), and Cross Cultural Solutions (Guatemala) Project: Create video vignettes to portray common behavioural interventions​ Project Lead:

Laura Adlington​, Autism and Behavioural Science Program Project:

An interprofessional education event for Health Sciences

Project Lead: Mary Allan, Collaborative Nursing and Brooke Malstrom, OTA/PTA Industry Partners: Hamilton Health Sciences Project: An educational model to support the career needs of young professionals Project Lead: Evan Divalentio, Continuing Education Industry Partner: Hamilton HIVE Project: Enhancing student learning and experience through interprofessional faculty and students collaboration on blended learning Project Lead: Nancy Matthew-Maich, Collaborative Nursing Academic: McMaster University

A look back at the 2015-2016 ARIE Fund Recipients

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Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Lab Simulation Q: How do you give chemistry students an insider look at the pharmaceutical manufacturing process?

A: Y ou replicate the industry experience in the classroom using a simulation process.

Chris McCrory

Chris McCrory of Mohawk’s Chemical Engineering Technology program has an ARIE project that is sure to get a reaction from students and industry alike.

Chemistry jokes aside,the results of McCrory’s project will help Mohawk students strengthen their industry knowledge and improve the way they learn.

He’s used his ARIE Funding to develop a lab in partnership with Apotex Pharmaceuticals. The new lab he creates mimics the real world pharmaceutical manufacturing lab process while helping students understand the creation and troubleshooting of a new product.

The new simulated process will be incorporated into his classes in the fall.

Lisa Cuncic-Pegg

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Going beyond the textbook Q: How to you ensure postgraduate students have a realworld understanding before they step into an office?

A: D evelop simulations and scenarios that take learning beyond the textbook.

Real-world thinking requires realworld teaching- and McKeil School of Business professor Lisa CuncicPegg is on the job to make it happen.

Cuncic-Pegg was been awarded funding from the ARIE Fund to investigate how to integrate casesimulation and case-scenario teaching in Ontario Graduate Certificate programs.

She created and implemented a case-scenario in partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences that allows business students to look at issues around HR and quality development.

Thanks to her ARIE Funding, Cuncic-Pegg has built the foundation and developed a model that will support further implementation of this teaching strategy.

Independence through technology Q: How do you facilitate academic independence for students who face significant learning challenges?

A: Y ou put technology into the hands of the users and measure the outcomes.

From word prediction software to our handy spell-checker, most of us use assistive technology in some ways in our daily lives. But where it can have the biggest impact is in the lives of students facing significant learning challenges.

That’s what Jennifer Jahnke from Mohawk’s Liberal Studies program found during her ARIE project that investigated if Assistive Technology Training can improve the learning and academic outcomes for students in Mohawk’s Community Integration through Cooperative Education (CICE) program. She discovered that providing an assistive technologyenriched environment made a difference in student’s ability to create content at a higher level than without the technology. In response, Jahnke has already modified her courses to included the use of the technology from the start of the semester.

Travel with impact Q: How do you find out if international service trips have an impact on our lives once we return home?

A: Y ou follow a team of student volunteers throughout the entire process.

International service trips are popular for a reason: they give us the opportunity to help others, share our knowledge and experience a new way of living and doing.

But do they change our perspective on life? Turns out that they do.

Michelle Turan from Mohawk’s Human Services program and Kelley Hoyt, from the Child and Youth Worker program, used ARIE funding to examine and measure the intercultural skills developed by students and faculty following service trips to Guatemala and India.

Preliminary results are showing that the students were scoring higher in the areas of acceptance and adaption as measured by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The project was completed in partnership with the following external organizations: Global Autism Project (New York City), SOREM (Society for the Mentally ChallengedIndia), Cross Cultural Solutions and Fanshawe College Autism and Behaviour Science program.

Jennifer Jahnke

Kelly Hoyt and Michelle Turan

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Kurt Muller

High flying applied research

Nuturing future nurses

Q: How do you develop new careers focused on drone technology?

Q: What is the best and most efficient way to train future nurses?

A: Y ou assemble a college team to look at technology in fields as diverse as aviation, journalism, and television.

A: U se technology to help them relive their training simulation through technology-mediated debriefing.

“I’m majoring in drones” may not be exactly what your parents expect you to go to college for but the cuttingedge field does offer a number of new career opportunities. And a team of professors have spent the last year making sure that Mohawk students are ready to work with drones.

A live nursing simulation can be exciting and intense. Just as important as the simulation is the debrief that follows, a process that outlines what the students did right or could improve on.

Associate dean Kurt Muller of Media and Entertainment, Journalism coordinator Sue Prestedge, Creative Photography coordinator Scott Kenney, Televsiion Broadcasting professor Tracey Kadish, and Aviation Technology professor Mark Laurie used their ARIE funding to purchase drones for an ambitious crossdisciplinary academic project.

Christy Taberner

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The ARIE Fund project focused on increasing students’ knowledge and ability around the use and maintenance sUAV (small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), also known as drones. The team designed a continuing education course, in partnership with Waterloo-based drone manufacturer Pointer Avionics.

And plans are underway for a new academic program to help Mohawk students learn how to put the drones to use in their careers.

With the support received from the ARIE Fund, Health Sciences professor Christy Taberner is building a technology-mediated debriefing module that will make it easier for both students and faculty to relive the learning exercise.

From gathering data from userdriven focus groups to incorporating the principles of design thinking, Taberner is dedicated to building an efficient tool that puts student learning first.

Creative College Q: How does design-thinking enrich the college’s program review process?

An entrepreneur in every classroom Q: How do you give every student an entrepreurenal mindset?

A: I t creates a space for creativity, positive thinking, and engagement.

A: Y ou create an online tool that seemlessly fits into any Mohawk course.

Hit a stumbling block in a meeting?

Melanie Sodtka, a McKeil School of Business professor, is well known for her involvement with SURGE, Mohawk’s entrepreneurship connection, and her commitment to her students in the Small Business and Entrepreneurship program. But to bring the principles of entrepreneurship to a wider audience, she’s used her ARIE funding to develop the course blueprint for an online module that can be incorporated into any course in the college.

Try using Design Thinking and Creative Problem Solving to open new avenues of communication.

Supported by the ARIE Fund, Christine Boyko-Head’s research found that incorporating design thinking and creative problem solving in the program quality review process increased stakeholder participation in the development and implementation of innovative opportunities.

She has called it “Designing4Engagement”, and is committed to incorporating the principles across the college.

Christine Boyko-Head

It’s been a collaborative process from the beginning, with Sodtka bringing together an interdisciplinary team of Mohawk professors and community partners like Innovation Factory, to discuss and determine the most relevant objectives and activities for the two hour module.

Next up for Sodtka? Once the module plan is complete, she’ll be spreading the word about the new module to Mohawk a program near you.

Melanie Sodtka

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Championing Ontario Food at Ontario Colleges

By Katherine Flynn

Q

How can we increase the supply of local food at Ontario Colleges and support healthier and more sustainable food options?

A

Develop a scalable model and best practices for local food procurement using Mohawk College as a pilot site.

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Is it better for the environment to eat an apple grown 100 kms away or one grown 1000 kms away?

The answer is obvious, but not always put into practice on an institutional level.

Ontario’s 24 colleges are surrounded by 12.7 million acres of productive agricultural lands yet, in most cases, the food served at Ontario colleges is imported or the amount of local content is not traceable. This means that food often travels thousands of

kilometres before it’s served to students and staff.

Each year, food services operations at Ontario colleges serve over 224,000 students and staff, and generate $65 million in annual food service sales. For many busy students and staff, campus food services are a key source of food and a major contributor to daily diets.

“This presents a huge opportunity,” says Alan Griffiths, Manager of the Mohawk College Sustainability

Office. “Finding ways to increase the amount of Ontario-grown food served at colleges across the province would benefit our regional economy, support healthy students, and enhance the sustainability of college food services operations.”

Many Ontario colleges are embracing sustainability as an educational and operational priority, but few institutions have been able to address the environmental impact of their food services operations, even though food production is one of the greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the global food system is responsible for up to one-third of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The distance that our food travels matters. For each kilometre, there are associated greenhouse gas emissions. If the majority of the food sold on campus is imported, that means our foodservices operations contribute thousands of tonnes of CO2 annually. A focus on locallygrown and processed foods in

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college cafeterias would drastically reduce this impact,” Griffiths notes.

So Mohawk College is creating a solution. In partnership with the Greenbelt Fund and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Mohawk has been awarded $100,000 to lead a two year research-based pilot project aimed at increasing the amount of local food served by Ontario college foodservices.

The project team will be comprised of college staff and students. The project will be guided by an advisory committee that will have members from local food industries, the Hamilton community, and Mohawk students. The team will begin with the research phase in order to identify and better understand current barriers to local food procurement at Ontario Colleges.

To address the identified barriers, Mohawk will work closely with its on-campus foodservice providers to launch a local food procurement pilot project. In 2017, Mohawk’s pilot project results will inform the

implementation of pilot projects at two additional colleges in Ontario.

The pilot projects will test the solutions and best practices in local food procurement established at Mohawk.

“Our goal is to build a local food procurement model for all 24 Ontario colleges. This model will be scalable and transferable so every college in Ontario can re-focus on procuring, serving, advertising, and celebrating Ontario food,” explains Griffiths.

With the development and implementation of Mohawk’s Environmental Management

Plan, the College is already widely recognized as a leader in the design and implementation of campus sustainability solutions.

The College has also been recognized as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for the last three years.

“This project represents another important opportunity to collaborate with our students, peer institutions, local food providers and community partners to develop custom solutions that will make all colleges in Ontario more sustainable,” says Griffiths.

“Our goal is to build a local food procurement model for all 24 Ontario Colleges,” says Griffiths.

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Ted Scott Chief Innovation Officer Mohawk College

A message from the Chief Curiosity is an innate quality that is an essential driver of innovation.

So if we are looking for inspiration for innovation and discovery, we may want to take our cue from children. Children are naturally predisposed to ask questions and this desire to learn is what feeds their creativity.

To be innovative- in our workplace and in our community- we must never stop asking questions. Many of the amazing innovations that we accept as modern conveniences today are products of curiosity-based research.

All it took to make new discoveries happen was asking the right question.

When the founders of modern aviation were grappling with the challenges of powered flight, most of the innovators were focused on how to sustain powered flight. Many of their early attempts ended in crashes and failures that had fatal consequences.

The Wright brothers, however, were ultimately successful in their quest because they started with a different question: How do you sustain and control a glider? Through detailed observations of birds in flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they acquired insights as to how they might create a man-made glider with the capability of turning and generating lift. It was only once they safely mastered the principles of their gliders that they were able to address the question of powered flight. It was their approach to the problem that made all of the difference.

So here is to the curious and creative, here is to learning! Let’s embrace the discipline of asking great questions and creating the prototypes and plans that can form the foundation for innovation.

2015-2016

Mohawk College is ranked in the Canadian top 20 for applied research.

Mohawk’s AMRC partners with CRIQ to support Québec- Ontario collaboration in additive manufacturing.

Mohawk MEDIC partners with eHealth Ontario to create innovation-lab.ca

Mohawk MEDIC is nominated for Innovator of the Year by PwC Canada’s Vision to Reality Awards.

SSHRC awards Mohawk a $239,986 grant to study City School by Mohawk.

Mohawk Energy Research Group continues to support innovation through collaborations with industry partners like Siemens and Schneider Electric.

Become future ready with the help of Mohawk College Mohawk is proud to collaborate with our partners to create real-world solutions that bring innovative ideas to the marketplace.

MEDIC: mHEALTH AND eHEALTH DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION CENTRE MEDIC provides tooling, training, teaming and testing services for organizations and companies in the healthcare IT sector.

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING RESOURCE CENTRE

ENERGY RESEARCH CENTRE

Providing students hands-on, real-world experience with 3D printing.

Researchers, professional engineers, technologists, technicians and students help industry evaluate, develop and refine the technologies required for the modernization of electrical power systems.

Mohawk is partnering with industry leaders to be in the forefront of this new technology.

To learn more about partnership opportunities contact Andrea Johnson at andrea.johnson4@mohawkcollege.ca or 905.575.1212 ext. 4082