Series 8 - Research

This series documents Gotlieb's early research, mainly in the use of computers to develop timetables. Gotlieb's interest in this area of computer application evolved from a very practical need to revamp the Arts and Science Timetable in early 1960s, a task he was assigned as a young professor. Through the 1960s, he gave many papers on the subject and his expertise was recognized internationally. However, overtime, his interests led elsewhere and his time table research was passed on to another generation of computer scientists. He is recognized internationally for laying the groundwork in this area of computer applications. There are eight files on this research containing correspondence, reports, notes and related papers.

There is also one file relating to early research on computers and music. This master’s thesis research by student Jim Gabura had as its goal to successfully develop software that could recognize music by specific composers. The file contains original research, papers, correspondence, research reports and other related material. There is also the original cassette of taped music used in the research titled as "Appendix 6 -- Recordings" (For access see /002S). This research was being done in the early 1960s.

In the early 1980s, Gotlieb participated in the Bell Canada VISTA project, a videotex system that allowed users to access computer stored information on a modified television screen. This was more or less an early attempt at a communication system like the Internet. Included is correspondence, the original agreement, notes and publications documenting the experiment. There are also slides showing what the screens of information looked like. (For access see /001P(38)-(39).

There is one other graduate project documented in this series. This is the research by student Darrell Parsons (Ph.D. 1990) looking into the use of computers as it relates to productivity in banking. This thesis research was eventually published in the Journal of Productivity Analysis as “Productivity and Computers in Canadian Banking”, by Darrell Parsons, Calvin C. Gotlieb and Michael Denny, 1993. A copy of the paper, along with correspondence, research outlines and proposals can be found in the last file of this series.