Water and Environmental Research Center

Seminars

11 September 2009

The WERC: Who Are We and What Do We Do?

Bill Schnabel

Abstract

This presentation marks the kickoff of the 2009-2010 WERC Friday Seminar Series. The Friday Seminars are designed to provide students with the opportunity to present and discuss the results of their graduate research in a professional setting. Students are expected to provide at least one seminar per year, and may be asked to speak more frequently if time allows. Occasionally, faculty and/or staff may be asked to provide seminars as well. The Friday Seminars represent an excellent opportunity for WERC personnel to cap off their work week and learn more about what each other are doing.

This week's seminar can be more accurately described as an informational meeting rather than a standard research presentation. The director will present a short list of goals for the year, and will solicit input regarding how best to describe the WERC to ourselves and others. A significant portion of the meeting will be devoted to creating a "wish list" of functionality for the new WERC website.

Notes from the Seminar

power point slide illustrating the 'WERC Cycle of Knowledge'

Credit: Bill Schnabel

The WERC Cycle of Knowledge

Bill presented the first half of his remarks with a power point slide presentation.

A discussion took place afterwards involved the web site "wish list". Groups were asked to respond to the following questions:

answers from the group discussion on large flip chart sized post-it notes

Credit: Dan LaSota

Notes from the group discussion

  1. What should be provided to visitors of the WERC website?
  2. Of these things, what is currently NOT being provided?
  3. Please list the general name of a website (any website, commercial, entertainment, etc) that you find useful and regularly visit at least once a week.
  4. What is it about these frequently visited web sites that bring you back?

The discussion produced the eight tear off post-it note sheets from 4 groups and about 30 people. Here is the list grouped by theme. Please get in touch with Dan LaSota (474-5009, dan.lasota@alaska.edu) if you have other comments to add.