Service

A list of some of my academic and professional service activities at MacEwan University and externally since I began working at MacEwan University in December 2016.

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MacEwan University Service

Academic Technologies Subcommittee: Member, 2026–; The Academic Technologies Subcommittee is a subsidiary body of the GFC Standing Committee on Teaching and Learning. The Subcommittee has a broad mandate to consider technologies that have the potential to impact teaching and learning. These include classroom technologies; specialized learning tools; learning analytics; adaptive learning; emerging technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence and immersive learning (e.g., augmented reality [AR], mixed reality [MR], and virtual reality [VR]); and the University’s learning management system (LMS). The Subcommittee serves as a consultative body and advises the Committee on Teaching and Learning regarding technologies for teaching and learning at MacEwan University. The Subcommittee meets monthly throughout the fall and winter terms.

Service Catalog Working Group: Member, 2026–; The Service Catalog Working Group is charged with developing a public-facing service catalog, which is a browsable and searchable database directory that lists the IT, administrative, and student services available to MacEwan University students, faculty, and staff. The initial phase of the project is to define the service categories, service offerings, and the core data field elements that make up each service offering. In the next phase of the project, the Working Group will then determine the technical platform and implementation process.

General Faculties Council: Member, 2025–; The General Faculties Council (GFC) is MacEwan University’s senior academic governance body. The GFC is responsible for academic standards, integrity, policies and programs, as well as scholarship, research, and creative activities at MacEwan University. The role of the Council and its operations are outlined in its Bylaws. The University President is chair of Council and acts as a conduit between GFC and the Board. In managing the University's academic affairs, the GFC has the powers, duties, and authorities granted to GFC in the Alberta Post-secondary Learning Act. The GFC meets every month throughout the year except for July and August.

Committee on Scholarly Activity: Member, 2025–; The GFC Standing Committee on Scholarly Activity is established by the General Faculties Council (GFC) under its general authority for academic matters under the Alberta Post-secondary Learning Act. The Committee provides academic research oversight from a cross-program and institutional perspective. It serves as GFC’s primary advisory group on scholarship, understood to include both research and creative activity, and related initiatives, issues, and activities. The Committee meets six times per year: October, November, January, March, April, and May.

Campus One Card Project Team: Member, 2024–2025; A major campus-wide IT project was the implementation of a new campus one card system, or digital ID system, Transact, for MacEwan University, replacing the existing ImageWare Systems EPI Suite GuardCard photo ID system. The Project Team began its work in November 2024, working to implement and configure Transact, which included work to get the Transact ID system to interoperate with MacEwan Library's new Alma-Primo library services platform. The Transact system was successfully launched on 1 September 2025.

LSP Core Project Team: Member, 2024–2025; A major IT project with campus-wide implications was MacEwan University’s migration from our old integrated library system (ILS) SirsiDynix Symphony to our new library services platform (LSP) Ex Libris Alma-Primo. The LSP Core Project Team members oversaw the data migration workflow (which included MARC bibliographic record data cleanup activities), the integration of any necessary allied systems, and the implementation and configuration of the new LSP. The Alma-Primo LSP was successfully launched on 11 December 2024. There was also much post-launch work to carry out in the winter term of 2025, such as performing additional configuration modifications, and migrating from our existing interlibrary loan (ILL) platform Relais to the Ex Libris ILL platform Rapido, and migrating from our existing resource list management system (RLMS) Talis Aspire to the Ex Libris RLMS platform Leganto.

AVP, IT and CIO Search Committee: Member, 2024 (March–April); The AVP, IT and CIO Search Committee was constituted to interview shortlisted candidates for the position of Associate Vice-President, Information Services and Chief Information Officer at MacEwan University, and to select the winning candidate from the pool of shortlisted candidates. The Committee conducted interviews with shortlisted candidates, and made its recommendation on the preferred candidate to the Vice-President, Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer.

Student Affairs Tenure and Promotion Committee: Member, 2023–2025; The Student Affairs Tenure and Promotion Committee is the body charged with evaluating and adjudicating on faculty members’ applications for tenure and promotion in Student Affairs at MacEwan University. Tenure applications are reviewed in November, and promotion applications are reviewed in February. I served as an external member on the Committee.

Internal Grants Adjudication Subcommittee: Member, 2023–; The MacEwan University Internal Grants Adjudication Subcommittee is a subsidiary body of the GFC Standing Committee on Scholarly Activity. The Subcommittee adjudicates internally funded university-wide grant applications to conduct or transfer knowledge of original scholarship; the Subcommittee provides recommendations for ongoing research funding to the administrator responsible for research to support faculty and student research. The Subcommittee has a series of meetings twice per year to adjudicate internal grant applications.

LSP Selection Committee: Member, 2023; The cross-campus LSP Selection Committee was tasked with selecting a new integrated library system (ILS) or library services platform (LSP) to replace MacEwan University Library's existing SirsiDynix Symphony ILS. During the period August–September 2023, the Committee members developed a detailed LSP RFP, and then evaluated and ranked the five submitted vendor proposals in response to the RFP. In late September 2023, the top two ranked vendors were invited to give presentations on their respective library services platforms to the Committee members. After much deliberation, the selected system was the Ex Libris Alma-Primo library services platform.

Campus One Card Evaluation Team: Member, 2022–2023; The Campus One Card Evaluation Team was tasked with evaluating and selecting a new campus one card system, or digital ID system, to replace MacEwan's existing ImageWare Systems EPI Suite GuardCard photo ID system. The Evaluation Team first began its work in November 2022 as the Digital ID Project Team, and then became the Campus One Card Evaluation Team in June 2023. The Evaluation Team finalized an RFP, and over the period October–November 2023, reviewed and evaluated proponent submissions, and shortlisted three vendors who delivered invited presentations on their systems. The Campus One Card Evaluation Team then selected the campus one card system that best met MacEwan University's requirements, with the winning vendor and system being Transact.

University Faculty Scholarship Awards Adjudication Subcommittee: Member, 2022–2026; The University Faculty Scholarship Awards Adjudication Subcommittee is a subsidiary body of the GFC Standing Committee on Scholarly Activity. The Subcommittee administers the selection and review of candidates for the Distinguished Research Award, the Emerging Scholar Award, and for the title of Chancellor's Research Chair; these awards and titles recognize research and creative excellence of faculty whose scholarship has made significant contributions to society or the scholarly community within local, regional, national, or international contexts. The Subcommittee meets as required by deadlines for applications and nominations, and at the call of the Chair.

True North Science Boot Camp 2022 (TNSBC 2022): Member of the Organizing Committee, 2021–2022; The 7th annual True North Science Boot Camp (TNSBC) was hosted virtually by the John L. Haar Library (MacEwan University Library) at MacEwan University from 10 May 2022 to 12 May 2022, organized around the theme of community-based scholarship. The True North Science Boot Camp is a professional development event for librarians who support research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Lab Users Group: Member, 2021–; The Lab Users Group (LUG) is an internal academic governance body that gathers the software requirements and manages technology standards for the next academic year for computers in the teaching laboratories, the Library, and the software installed on myApps for remote learning. LUG members communicate throughout the year via a dedicated Microsoft Teams channel.

DLE Project: Member, 2021–2022; One of the largest MacEwan University IT projects that has been conducted in the last while was the DLE Project, a project that migrated the University’s learning management system (LMS) or digital learning environment (DLE) from Blackboard to Moodle. The project was first called the Moodle Project, then the Digital Learning Project, and then finally the DLE Project. Beginning in January 2021, the DLE Project team met every week until the end of August 2022 working on configuring Moodle, such as deciding on the needed plugins and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) tools, the default theming and layout, video streaming requirements, and the PeopleSoft (MacEwan's ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] software suite) integration points. The Moodle platform's gifted name is paskwâwi-mostos mêskanâs (commonly abbreviated to mêskanâs), meaning "Plains Cree buffalo trails" in Plains Cree, and mêskanâs officially launched for the student body at the beginning of September 2022.

MacEwan Help Centre User Group: Member, 2021; The MacEwan Help Centre User Group was formed in June 2021 to redesign the newly launched MacEwan Help Centre (MHC) using a licensed Atlassian add-on product called Refined, which allowed for the customization of the theming and navigational layout of the MHC to enhance the user experience. The MHC User Group members met frequently every week throughout the summer, and the newly redesigned MacEwan Help Centre went live on 26 August 2021.

MacEwan Help Centre Project: Member, 2020–2021; The MacEwan Help Centre (MHC) Project, formerly known as the 360 Degree Help Desk Project, was a major MacEwan University IT digital initiative to develop an online support and knowledge base portal for the University. The MHC features three principal components: Atlassian Jira Service Desk (a public and internal service catalog application), Atlassian Confluence (a public and internal knowledge base), and HappyFox Chat (a synchronous text chat application). The MacEwan Help Centre Project members met weekly from June 2020 to April 2021, and the MacEwan Help Centre was formally launched on 18 February 2021.

LMS Evaluation Working Group: Member, 2020; The LMS Evaluation Working Group was formed to explore alternatives to MacEwan University's existing learning management system (LMS), Blackboard. The Working Group developed a matrix of feature requirements and design criteria, and a list of possible candidate LMS platforms. After much research and deliberation, the LMS Evaluation Working Group selected the open-source Moodle learning management system as MacEwan's next LMS in the last quarter of 2020.

Priority Operational and Project Issues: Member, 2018–2023; The Priority Operational and Project Issues (POPI) group was comprised of managers of various MacEwan University IT units, and IT infrastructure and application updates and reporting on issues were provided by the members of this group during meetings. "Library Updates" were a standing agenda item for POPI meetings. This group met monthly year-round.

ITM Subcommittee for IT Standards Review: Member, 2018–2023; The ITM Subcommittee for IT Standards Review was responsible for reviewing and drafting the set of IT standards that define information technology standards at MacEwan University. This subcommittee usually met twice a month year-round, although there were periods of inactivity.

Information and Technology Management Committee: Member, 2017–2023; The Information and Technology Management (ITM) Committee oversaw the development and execution of the ITM strategic plan, addressed the alignment of the IT plan with academic and service requirements, informed service levels for technology access and support, and provided oversight on major projects. This committee met monthly throughout the fall and winter terms.

External Service

Borealis Metadata Guide Working Group, Borealis Expert Group: Member, 2026–; The Borealis Metadata Guide Working Group was formed in October 2026 by the Borealis Expert Group to create an up-to-date, bilingual metadata guide for the Borealis repository, Canada’s national online Dataverse platform for securely storing, sharing, publishing, and discovering Canadian research data. Within the Working Group, separate editorial committees will oversee the production of the English and French versions of the guide. The Borealis Metadata Guide Working Group will extend the Expert Group’s earlier metadata guide, which was last updated in 2021. The planned release date of the updated guide is for early May 2027.

NEOS LSP Bib Data Export and Cleanup Working Group, NEOS Library Consortium: Member, 2024; NEOS (Networking Edmonton's Online Systems) was a consortium of academic and special libraries that cooperated to share library resources, technology, collections, and people. Due to the planned migration away from the consortium's shared integrated library system and the ending of the University of Alberta's service provider role, the NEOS LSP Bib Data Export and Cleanup Working Group was established in February 2024 to support NEOS members and develop solutions during the transition of member libraries to multiple library service platform (LSP) systems. This working group reported to the NEOS Technical Services Committee and, as needed, to the NEOS Service Model Task Force. The Working Group met frequently to review MARC bibliographic record local fields and shared bibliographic data issues, it prioritized these issues for data extraction and migration preparation, and then recommended shared solutions and approaches to address these MARC bibliographic data issues. The Working Group completed its charge in August 2024.

NEOS Digitizing for Accessibility Working Group, NEOS Library Consortium: Member, 2021–2024; NEOS, established in 1994 and dissolved in 2026, was the consortium of academic and special libraries in the greater Edmonton area that shared a catalog and an integrated library system. The NEOS Digitizing for Accessibility Working Group worked to make some NEOS member institutions Qualifying Authorities with the Internet Archive, which then allowed these Qualifying Authorities to provide access to certain Internet Archive resources to individuals with print disabilities, such as blind, low vision, and dyslexic users. In addition, the NEOS Digitizing for Accessibility Working Group members could scan copyright-approved print items and contribute these scanned electronic resources with reformatting and remediation to the Internet Archive’s collections.

NEOS Discovery Committee, NEOS Library Consortium: Member, 2020–2023; NEOS was a consortium of academic, government, and health libraries in the greater Edmonton area who collaborated to share a catalog and integrated library system, and worked together on learning initiatives, document delivery, and a range of core library activities; MacEwan University Library was a member of the NEOS Library Consortium. The NEOS Discovery Committee facilitated communication, planning, and technical support between all NEOS libraries with respect to discovery systems, discovery services, and discovery layer infrastructure. The Committee helped member libraries evaluate, transition, and manage library discovery tools and catalog data, such as the move in 2022 from NEOS Blacklight to EBSCO Discovery Service and WorldCat Discovery.

Training Interest Group, Canadian Web Archiving Coalition: Member, 2018–2024; Under the auspices of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Digital Preservation Working Group (DPWG), the Canadian Web Archiving Coalition (CWAC) was an initiative to develop an inclusive web archiving community of practice within Canadian archives, libraries, and other cultural memory institutions. The Training Interest Group was formed to address the educational, skill-building, and knowledge-sharing gaps faced by web archiving practitioners. The Training Interest Group’s objectives included capacity building, curriculum and resource sharing, and fostering community.

Digital Humanities Summer Institute: Instructor, 2014–2018; The Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) is an annual digital scholarship training institute that is organized for its community by the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur les humanités numériques (CRIHN) and takes place at the Université de Montréal campus. DHSI was previously run by the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab at the University of Victoria from 2004 to 2024, and before that it was hosted by Vancouver Island University from 2001 to 2003. Every summer, DHSI brings together faculty, staff, and students from the arts, humanities, library, and archives communities as well as independent scholars and participants from areas beyond. DHSI provides a community-based environment for discussing and learning about new technologies and how they influence teaching, research, creation, and preservation in different disciplines. Participants share ideas and methods as well as develop expertise in advanced technologies during this time of intensive coursework, seminars, and lectures.

Edmonton Map Society: Member, and Audiovisual Coordinator, 2014–2018; The Edmonton Map Society, formed in 1987 and discontinued in 2018, was an organization that arranged quarterly (trimonthly) lectures for its members on cartographic and geospatial topics, with a focus on historical maps, and local geographical and ecological mapping projects.

Guest lectures at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta: Lecturer, 1999–; In an ongoing external service contribution that I have been engaged with annually since 2013 (and first began in 1999), I have delivered a guest lecture and facilitated an accompanying hands-on workshop in the class LIS 597: Advanced Scholarship and Research in LIS, at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta. My involvement with guest lecturing at SLIS in LIS 597, and LIS 505: Research Methods for Library and Information Studies, dates to 1999.

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Earlier Service

Canadian Society for Digital Humanities: Member, 2013–2016; The Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / Société canadienne des humanités numériques is a Canada-wide association of representatives from Canadian colleges and universities that began in 1986, founded as the Consortium for Computers in the Humanities / Consortium pour ordinateurs en sciences humaines. Their objective is to draw together humanists who are engaged in digital and computer-assisted research, teaching, and creation.

Doctoral Program Committee, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario: Member, 2007–2009; The Doctoral Program Committee oversees program-specific curriculum, policy, and representation for doctoral students in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

Society of Graduate Students, University of Western Ontario: Councillor, 2007–2008; The Society of Graduate Students (SOGS) is a democratic student government that entrusts elected Executive Officers and Council members with running the Society’s day-to-day and long-term affairs. SOGS Council represents all faculties and departments at the University of Western Ontario.

Greater Edmonton Library Association: Programme Councillor, 2003–2004; The Greater Edmonton Library Association (GELA) facilitates meaningful interaction between librarians, library technicians, library staff, students, and other interested parties. GELA also promotes continuing education opportunities, and assists members in their professional development endeavors.

Michael Brundin

Service