The Wayne Deans Investment Analysis Centre (WDIAC) at the UBC Sauder School of Business has received several technology upgrades this year, thanks to generous funding. Located just outside the Canaccord Learning Commons in the David Lam Management Research Centre, the Wayne Deans Centre is supported by the Learning Commons staff who are excited for UBC Sauder students and faculty to make use of the improved lab space.
UBC Development and Alumni Engagement reached out initially, says Fei Song, Investment Labs Coordinator at the Canaccord Learning Commons: “And after discussion with IT, we came up with this upgrade. This change allows us to host hybrid sessions and potentially attract more students, as the space where we host the sessions has limited capacity.”
Inside the Wayne Deans Investment Analysis Centre.
The technology upgrades, which were made to adapt to the demands of the current learning environment, allow for UBC Sauder faculty to present onsite to a dozen students in the lab, while casting remotely to a larger student audience offsite. Song notes that the major changes to the lab involved replacing two large television screens and the adjoining control panel. A new speaker and microphone were added, along with support for USB-C and Ethernet wireless connections.
In her role at the Canaccord Learning Commons, Song manages the Wayne Deans Centre as well as the Digital Media Lab and the Leith Wheeler Investment Research Lab, leading a team of six student employees. “We regularly host office hours and workshops about the different types of databases [available through the labs] and how to use them,” says Song.
“This upgrade offers Fei and her team greater flexibility in delivering instruction on how to use these unique financial resources, and very much increases our capacity to support student learning experiences,” says Christina Sylka, Head of the David Lam Management Research Library and the Canaccord Learning Commons.
Bloomberg Terminal at the Wayne Deans Investment Analysis Centre.
While the Wayne Deans Centre is open only to UBC Sauder faculty and students, the Leith Wheeler Lab is open to all current faculty, staff and students at UBC. At both these labs, UBC Library provides access to some of the top financial databases used by industry professionals, including Standard and Poor’s Capital IQ, Morningstar Direct, Rotman Interactive Trader, and most notably, the Bloomberg Terminal, a financial news service that provides real-time news, data and analytics on the world’s financial markets. For students hoping to work for large financial firms after graduation, the hands-on experience with these industry-recognized tools is invaluable.
“And it’s not just for commerce students,” says Song, who offers plenty of examples for interdisciplinary use of the Bloomberg Terminals. UBC researchers from faculties like Geography, Land and Food Systems, Mining Engineering, and even Medicine have found use cases for the database by accessing financial market data on topics as diverse as wildfires, electric car manufacturing and even the global spread of COVID-19 positive cases and the subsequent impact on global markets.
Lab terminal spaces can be booked online by UBC Sauder students, while students across campus are welcome to use the terminals on a first-come first-serve basis, and new workshops are offered through the Canaccord Learning Commons to UBC Sauder students throughout the term. Learn more about the Wayne Deans Investment Analysis Centre and the Canaccord Learning Commons.