LINCS Blog

Stand-ups for Software Development

  • LINCS Project
  • March 3, 2023

— Eason Liang, LINCS computer science co-op — When I began my first co-op placement, I had no idea how software development worked in a professional environment. Previously, my experience had only been in the classroom, where  my classmates and I developed software for assignments. When I moved into a professional context, I was exposed […]

— Mohammed Marzookh Farook & Ananya Rao, LINCS Junior Research Analysts — If you’ve ever listened in on a technical conversation between computer scientists, you might’ve heard them refer to something called an API. What exactly is an API? Let’s break it down. An application is any software that performs a distinct function. Microsoft Excel […]

— Basil Yusuf, LINCS computer science co-op — LINCS is using ResearchSpace as a platform for exploring relationships in interlinked cultural datasets. With ResearchSpace, researchers can browse, search, and visualize data in the LINCS datastore. In summer 2022, I was part of a team that was developing new features for LINCS’s version of ResearchSpace. Our […]

The Good Enough Metadata Specialist

  • LINCS Project
  • April 13, 2022

— Emily McKibbon, LINCS metadata co-op — My first job in the museums field was in 2008, right at the height of the Great Recession. The digitization team I joined had just lost roughly a quarter of their staff in a series of buyouts and layoffs, and the mood was grim. We were tasked with […]

— Nem Brunell, LINCS UX co-op — The situation is this: you’ve been asked to design a way for a researcher to easily move between two tools. You familiarize yourself with both tools, learn about the known issues, and read about what’s already been tried. You spend a few days deciding on the best way […]

LINCS timeline view in ResearchSpace

— Evan Rees, LINCS UX co-op — The road to UX for me has been long and winding, and I, much like the LINCS users in the Tube Map in Figma, have found myself at various stations along the way, assessing where I should go next. Initially studying Life Sciences at University of Toronto, I made […]

Digging into DH

  • LINCS Project
  • December 10, 2021

How working for a DH project has broadened my academic interests and comfort zone — Hannah Stewart, LINCS undergraduate research assistant — I joined the LINCS Project as an undergraduate research assistant, mainly to work on the Orlando Project. This position gave me my first real experience with Digital Humanities (DH). Before starting the job I could barely […]

The User-centric Approach to Problem Solving

  • LINCS Project
  • December 1, 2021
Iteration in the Design Thinking process: Understand, Explore, Materialize

— Sana Javeed, LINCS UX co-op — Before becoming a UX Design student at University of Toronto, I used to solve a problem just by identifying what the problem was and then coming up with a band-aid solution. However, over a period of time, I realized that by using such an approach—opting for the easiest […]

Photograph of a colourful screen filled with code.

— Dawson MacPhee, LINCS computer science co-op — When beginning my very first co-op job search, I had no idea what employers would expect from me. It was a daunting task looking through the job postings and deciding what I thought I’d be (somewhat) qualified for. After a few job interviews, I applied to join […]

Invisible Design

  • LINCS Project
  • November 13, 2021
Artistic representation of a website wireframe made with watercolour.

— Amardeep Singh, LINCS computer science co-op — “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer—that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design […]