COLI Ventures

In the summer of 2015, Canisius College transitioned from Checkbox 5 to /wiki/spaces/FacTS/pages/35129677 as our advanced online survey toolset.  A major challenge was that many faculty and staff had built lengthy surveys in Checkbox that would need to be run in Qualtrics.  Owen Collier-Ridge, a computer science student, programmed an application that converted Checkbox question text to Qualtrics format, automating an enormous task that enabled Canisius faculty in various fields and offices across campus to quickly transition from one toolset to the other.  Owen's creation saved college personnel from a lot of time-consuming and tedious work, and thus saved Canisius Colleges valuable time and money.

In Spring 2017, the Digital Humanities Group, convened under the direction of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Beth Gill, contracted Tyler Rahner to produce a video highlighting the research of Erin Warford, Ph.D. In the video Dr. Warford, Adjunct Professor of Classics, discusses how her research furthers classical Greek studies with geographic information system (GIS) technologies. Using GIS, she explores temples, roads, the relationship between religion and statecraft, and the pilgrims’ experiences in ancient Attica. Rahner, a Digital Media Arts major, filmed, editing, and produced the entire video, which is a major part of a multi-media effort to promote the digital humanities at Canisius College. The College of Arts and Sciences paid all costs associated with the video. The Media Center Director, Dan Drew was Rahner's advisor during the project. COLI proposed the original project as part of the COLI Ventures Program, and planning and overall coordination was done by COLI staff.