Scholarships
FACTSnet IT Team
Ashley Franck - IT Coordinator, Soul Wellness Team
I Graduated From King’s University with a BSc. in Computing Science. This Summer I am helping out in a leadership role to develop resources for Soul Wellness. I am also working with the IT group.
Richard Yang - Technical Manager, IT Team
Richard is entering his second year in Computer Science with Honours at the University of British Columbia. During his previous work term with FACTSnet in the summer of 2019 as a Technical Lead, he deployed an effective OCR document scanning workflow that heightened productivity and reduced conflicts. This year, his role as a Technical Manager extends his responsibilities past the creation and usage of critical admin documents, timesheets, and allocations for company data. Richard strives to reinforce his leadership skills by ensuring that all employees and teams can efficiently and securely utilize technology and data in support of their projects. Currently, his major goal is to refactor legacy front-end code across numerous FACTSnet websites to ensure modularity, ease of maintenance, and future scalability.
Luke Joe - IT
I am currently majoring in Computer Science at UBC. This is my first year working with FACTSnet. I work on various projects related to Calgary and I help maintain websites using Blogger. Currently, I am working on updating the blogger website as a part of the IT team for both the Soul Wellness group as well as the Alberta/Japan network.
Xiang Xi - IT
Xiang Xi is currently a Computer Science student at The University of British Columbia. At FACTSnet, he works on various projects for the Calgary team, such as web reviews for the Alberta/Japan network and creating templates for FACTSnet Google Classroom assignments. He primarily works to develop and maintain FACTSnet websites through the use of Blogger.
Team Member Locations
Our Post Secondary Team includes members from a collection of collegiate institutions from across Canada. The following displays where our team members are from:
- Kari Calderwood - Soul Wellness and Soul Care
Ashley Franck - IT Coordinator, Soul Wellness Team
- Cayla - Indigenous Network and Heritage Collection Developer
- Omar - Business Team
- Luke Joe - IT Team
- Richard Yang - Technical Manager, IT Team
- Xiang Xi - IT Team
Indigenous Projects 2020
Indigenous Web Reviews
Vanguard SIMA Project
The SIMA Project is a qualitative research project that is funded by the government of Canada and FACTSnet. The purpose of the project is to tell the story of Indigenous ministry in Alberta (SIMA). However, in order to limit our scope and fit within the timeframe of the project, we are loosely focusing on the evangelical tradition, and including only the past 100 years or so. The project has two main objectives: The first is historical, to preserve what has been done before, and the other is networking, to connect together what exists now. Once collection is complete, the data will be synthesized and presented in the format of both an official report, and a website that is accessible to the general public. The website will host both the written story of Indigenous ministry in Alberta, as well as a collection of directories. The research method being used in narrative analysis, and the primary data collection method is semi-structured interviews, using snowball sampling.
Luke - 2020 Public Summary
Completed on September 1, 2020
I am currently entering my second year as a computer science major at UBC. This was my first year working with FACTSnet. This year, I worked as a member of the IT team to develop and update the blogger websites to display the content provided by other FACTS teams.
My summer job working for FACTSnet has been an excellent experience. Although I am officially a part of the IT team, I have worked on numerous projects with various different groups within FACTS. A substantial portion of my first 7 weeks was spent completing the COVID-19 school web review initiative. This included the creation of web reviews for schools across Alberta as well as the sending of emails to each school. In addition to the web reviews completed for the COVID-19 school initiative, I also created reviews on both schools and organizations for the Alberta/Japan network.
Although the former half of my summer was primarily spent on menial tasks, as I grew more familiar with the way in which FACTSnet operates, I took on a larger responsibility in updating and organizing the blogger websites. As a result, the latter half was dedicated almost entirely to creating new blogger websites for Global Soul Wellness and Global Soul Care as well as making improvements to pre-existing networks for Alberta/Japan, Mental Health, FACTSnet Canada, and the Spruce Grove Heritage Network. Alongside creating the websites, I was also responsible for updating each site with the content provided by their respective groups. Through the continuous development of the themes and formatting of the websites, I was able to attain a more comprehensive understanding of front-end programming, CSS, and HTML. Being my first job, this experience has also provided me with an array of skills that will undoubtedly be beneficial in upcoming job prospects. By working and having to frequently communicate with a diverse group of individuals, I gained valuable experience in working as a team and practicing clear communication.
In spite of all the benefits that this job has provided me with, there was also a minor issue with organization. In the beginning, instructions were frequently unclear resulting in me having to contact my supervisor regularly to receive clarification on my responsibilities as an employee. However, the update to the Guidelines and Standards combined with the assignment to go over it while answering a set of related questions increased the clarity significantly and eliminated all prior confusion.
All of my current tasks have been completed, but there are still improvements that can be made to the blogger websites. Content also has to be added as it is created and made ready for publishing. In particular, the Alberta/Japan network has the content for an additional anime related blog that is ready for publishing. For further details, the IT summer 2020 planning doc has a list of tasks that still need to be completed.
Cayla - 2020 Public Summary
As of today, we are 8 weeks and about halfway through Phase 2 of the SIMA Project (working title - the Story of Indigenous Ministry in Alberta Project). Phase 1 was essentially the planning phase, including familiarization with the project duties and context, setting out tasks for the rest of the summer, and creating project schedule and architecture. Phase 2 has been the actual research and information collection phase of the project. Tasks of this phase included primary and secondary research, networking over phone and email (snowball sampling), personal interviews, and online document collection. Five databases have been developed, including databases on experts, ministries, digital objects, links to webpages, and an annotated bibliography. This week I began writing the articles, which represent the culmination of the information collection process.
In the next few weeks, we will finish researching and writing the articles, and move on to Phase 3, which involves the actual creation of the web project. Tasks will shift to include website development, promotion, and report writing. Only the first 8 weeks of the 16, including Phase 1 and half of Phase 2, will be with FACTSnet, with the rest being done independently through Vanguard College.
