Page 2: The Sheridan Sun, Thursday, December 3, 2009
Careless cooking causes residence fire
E-commerce pros speak to students
Sheridan News
Sheridan News
Robin Phillips
Michael Burton
The fire that began in a third-floor residence room two weeks ago at Sheridan’s Trafalgar residence was caused by unattended cooking. “We didn’t think there was any malicious intent here,” said Michael Harrison, public education and special projects officer with the Oakville Fire Department. “It was basically an accident, that could have been prevented. “This is the number one cause of fires in residences, unattended cooking, which is [also] the number one cause of fires in Ontario and Oakville.” Oakville Fire Department is discussing developing a system that would grade schools on how they handle fire safety and fire safety education. “We’re throwing it around as a result of this fire and others like it,” said Harrison. “We’d like to start maybe in Oakville to do a report card on what the college is doing to inform students about choosing safe accommodations. What the student association is doing and what the students themselves are doing, and parents.” Mike DiFlorio, manager of operation at the Trafalgar residence, says in his five years this is the worst incident he has seen. “And it’s not even really a bad situation. It was unfortunate.
Two e-commerce veterans took to the stage this past Thursday in the business wing to share their experiences on what it takes to start a business. The event; organized by the E-commerce Student Association, featured door prizes, food, and presentations from Dave Hill of Timed Right and Sheridan grad Ryan Short of Kaizen E-Business. “There has to be a better way for nurses and other people in health care to communicate,” said Hill, founder of Timed Right, a social networking website for people in the health care system. “They need a better way to control it.” “My real skill is getting people to work together,” he said. Hill explained that people who work in health care become disconnected from colleagues because of its nature. Inspired by Facebook, Hill’s own social networking tool helps physicians connect with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, schools, businesses, colleagues and other government institutions. These online connections help people in the health care system save money, as well as create connections that are invaluable to their business. It took Hill just over two years to develop Timed Right from his original idea, and eventually launched the beta version of Timed Right in earlier this year. The evening also included a speech from Ryan Short, who graduated from Sheridan College’s business program in 2005. Today he is the founder of Kaizen E-Business, a project management firm located in Toronto. Short explained how he began his business and told the story of how he hired his first employee; a web designer who he met at a barbecue. “Hiring your first person is the scariest thought ever, and you meet the right people at the strangest places,” he said. “At the age of 24 I was probably $60,000 in debt, and now I was going to owe more money because I was hiring an employee.” Since meeting his first client at an Ottawa spa, his company has managed projects with Subaru, the Olympics, the MuchMusic VJ search, created iPhone and Facebook applications and designed websites for Hockey Canada. “Did I know how to program? Not really,” Short said. “But I knew how to manage people, and I liked managing and motivating peopletalking and selling ideas.” Despite the recession Kaizen was able to keep afloat in the business world by keeping networked using tools like Twitter and Facebook. “It’s easy to get funding; you just have to go to the right sources,” he said. “The speakers certainly know to take care of their entrepreneurial spirit,” said Colin Bhimsen, a secondyear business student. “We can evolve from this and with more events in the future.”
Robin Phillips Firefighter Ivan Hansen and Maria Hurtavo, a first-year animation student and resident of the unit where the fire began, look over the burnt toaster oven. No injuries, no damage except to the toaster oven.” Residents are given a mandatory fire safety presentation when they move into the residence. The latest incident will prove useful in future presentations. “We’re going to promote the situation,” said DiFlorio, “as a learning [experience] to all the new students and the re-
turning students. Report what happened, how it happened and how it could have been worse.” Appliances like toaster ovens are allowed in residents’ suites. The only exemption is hot plates. DiFlorio says that there are no changes foreseen to this policy. “Nothing’s really been looked at. I think it was just hu-
man error more than malfunctioning equipment or anything like that.” “There wasn’t damage done as the situation happened but we don’t want it to happen again,” said Harrison. “We’d really like to get an educational message out to, [not only] the students, [but] teachers, school management, to the community and students living off campus.”
Satisfaction survey helpful in meeting student needs
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Lindsey Papp Sheridan News
Sheridan College administers two types of surveys to students in order to evaluate student satisfaction and measure college performance. “[The first survey] is a provincial key performance indicator survey (KPI), which is a regulated survey in which all the 24 colleges of Ontario participate,” said Pam Sandhi, institutional research analyst and KPI coordinator for Sheridan College. “[The second survey] is a course indicator survey.” The KPI survey is administered in the first two weeks of February to all students who are in their second semester and above. “The ministry uses this to promote colleges and to improve their programs and services,” said Sandhi. Mary Preece, vice president of academic at Sheridan College, said that the surveys are very important. “Students need to be able to give feedback to us as an institution about how we’re doing in the classroom.” The rate of return on the KPI survey is roughly 70 per cent, which is comparable to the rest of the colleges in Ontario. The ministry of College, Universities and Training use the results of the KPI surveys to determine budget allocations for each college. “Traditionally, Sheridan is getting above 90 per cent employment rate and close to 100 per cent em-
“Students need to be able to give feedback to us.”
Lindsey Papp Pam Sandhi, institutional research analyst and KPI coordinator for Sheridan College. ployer satisfaction rates. We’ve always been comparable with other GTA colleges,” said Sandhi. The results from the KPI survey are also used to rate the support services such as registrations, financial aid and disability support. The ministry has made it a requirement for all colleges to publish the results. The KPI results can be found of the Sheridan College website. The other survey performed by the college is the course indicator survey, and it happens every semester and is more course and faculty related. “[The course indicator survey] is the student’s feedback regarding that
course, the curriculum, the teacher, the teacher’s teaching skills and things like that,” said Sandhi. The results of the course evaluation surveys have influenced decision-making at Sheridan College. “Once they’re filled out the faculty and the associate deans have access to the feedback,” said Preece. “Annually, each program sits down and looks at all of their course evaluations along with a variety of other information and creates action plans for the improvement of their programs as a result of the feedback they get.” The surveys are designed to measure how satisfied students are with
their program as well as the services available on campus and the overall learning environment. “[The course evaluation surveys] are as reliable as students choose to make them. If the student takes course evaluation seriously and gives honest thought to the responses, then they’re reliable,” said Preece. “Having some confidential way that students can speak in a safe way about the experience in the classroom, questionnaires are the best way to do that.” An external company called CCI has been responsible for tallying the results of the KPI survey since 1999, and has also been commissioned to tabulate the results for the student feedback survey. “Students are Sheridan’s clients; if you do not meet the needs of your clients then you are failing as an institution. The only way to find out what the clients want, what the students want, is asking them. These surveys are tools to ask them, what exactly they want and are we meeting their needs,” said Sandhi.