barbara thomas: professional activities
Teaching
I have taught full-time in the Faculty of Management at Vancouver Island University since the Fall of 2002. My career prior to that includes eight years as a senior manager working in financial and strategic planning for a "Big 5" professional services firm and a major UK public company. Since moving to Canada in 1993, and completing my Masters degree in information studies, I have worked as a consultant on a variety of projects related to the management and development of internet-based approaches to effective business process, marketing, knowledge transfer, and customer-focused online service delivery.
My teaching responsibilities include online marketing, internet management, project management, web concepts, and (in the MBA program) managing the networked enterprise.
Professional activities and consulting
My consulting work has focused on knowledge mobilization and the leveraging of professional social networks for information sharing. I planned and managed the first iteration of the award winning BC local government portal CivicInfoBC and worked for two years on the AquaPort Project, a collaborative interdisciplinary project to develop and build an online knowledge mobilization portal for the Canadian aquaculture sector.
My work has included conducting Needs Assessments and feasibility studies, analysis of existing information resources, supervising the work of content collection and creation, and researching technical solutions (content management systems, search engines, social computing tools).
I have facilitated and presented at several workshops, focusing on the use of social computing tools by not-for-profits and NGOs.
Current projects
I am at present working on a project sponsored by the VIU Teaching and Learning Centre to investigate and evaluate the use of the 3-D virtual world Second LIfe® for teaching, learning, and collaboration. As well as collecting resources related to the educational use of virtual worlds, I have written an introductory guide to Second Life, and created this machinima, which illustrates some of its educational uses.
Using 3D virtual worlds for education from Barbara Thomas on Vimeo.
Vancouver Island University activities
I am an active member of the VIU community, and serve on several committees:
Vancouver Island University Senate (representative of the Faculty of Management)
Vancouver Island University Research Ethics Board (VIU REB)
Planning and Priorities Committee (a Standing Committee of the Senate)
Academic Computing Steering Committee
MBA Admissions Committee