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Message from the VPIT-CIO
It is an amazing time to be at the University of Michigan, with an abundance of opportunities to support and participate in important work at a local, national, and global scale.
New IoT devices for the holidays? Mind your privacy & security!
Are you getting or giving new Internet of Things (IoT) devices—things like smart home assistants, smart appliances, gaming systems, and wearable watches and trackers—this holiday season? If so, follow and share these basic privacy and security precautions: Change the default password for the device. Set a unique password for each device. Disable features you don’t use. Change default… Read More »
Be a part of U-M history: Share your CTools story
ITS Teaching & Learning is partnering with the Bentley Historical Library to preserve the history of CTools by archiving documents and stories about CTools from its creation to retirement. Faculty, staff, and students who worked with CTools are invited to share their CTools stories by filling out the short Qualtrics survey on our website: https://its.umich.edu/academics-research/teaching-learning/ctools-retirement/stories. Your perspective is vital… Read More »
Home for Dinner: HITS aims to reduce physician burnout
Last year, HITS instituted a program called Home for Dinner, to help physicians use MiChart more efficiently. Provider exhaustion is a significant issue across the medical community. While MiChart, the electronic health record (EHR) at Michigan Medicine, can enhance coordination and quality of care, it can also have unintended negative consequences. Michigan Medicine providers are spending significant time… Read More »
Plan to attend “What Does Big Tech Owe Us?” March 18
Wallace House—along with co-sponsors ITS and the Dissonance Event Series—will present Recode’s Kara Swisher interviewing Alex Stamos live on stage at U-M’s Hill Auditorium on March 18, 2020, at 6:30 p.m. Save the date on your calendar now. Kara Swisher is co-founder and executive editor of Recode and host of the weekly interview podcast “Recode Decode.” She is… Read More »
NYT editor Kathleen Kingsbury to speak at Privacy@Michigan
Celebrate Data Privacy Day on January 28 by attending the Privacy@Michigan symposium. Kathleen Kingsbury, editor of The New York Times Privacy Project, will give the keynote address. Additional privacy experts, to be announced in January, will participate in two panel discussions: It Takes a Village: Multi-Disciplinary Voices on Privacy and Ethics in a Hyper-Connected Age I Always Feel… Read More »
Svetla Sytch named assistant director of privacy and IT policy
Svetla Sytch joined ITS Information Assurance (IA) as assistant director of privacy and IT policy on November 25. In this role, she will work with partners across the university to craft strategies and lead operational efforts that weave privacy, policy, and data governance into the way the university engages in its teaching, learning, research and administrative activities. “Svetla… Read More »
Discover machines and makerspaces with the Mobius web portal
Mobius is a mobile-friendly, web-based portal that helps students, facility managers, faculty, and staff find the tools they need, and how to access the makerspaces that are available to them. Mobius is available to all members of U-M. Designed by MIT, Mobius helps members of the Make Impact Consortium navigate the vast array of resources used to make,… Read More »
Tech Tip: Office Timeline
For a number of years, I have been looking for a good timeline creator. Unfortunately, most of the options I found were either outdated or looked rather bland. I recently discovered Office Timeline and so far it is quite promising. Full of features like online collaboration and Excel support, Office Timeline looks great and is easy-to-use. They offer… Read More »
How an AI solution can design new tuberculosis drug regimens
With a shortage of new tuberculosis drugs in the pipeline, a software tool from U-M can predict how current drugs can be combined in new ways to create more effective treatments. Dubbed INDIGO (INferring Drug Interactions using chemoGenomics and Orthology) the application can also identify the genes that control these drug responses. “This could replace our traditional trial-and-error… Read More »
Expect privacy notice updates as the CCPA takes effect
On January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) goes into effect. As we near that date, be aware that you are likely to start seeing updates and changes to privacy notices and policies for both personal and university online services (such at U-M Google and Box). Any communications about updates to vendor privacy policies and notices… Read More »
ARC-TS’s Bob Killen receives CNCF award
On November 19, 2019, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) named several award winners, including ARC-TS research cloud programmer senior, Bob Killen. Killen was one of six to earn the “Chop Wood Carry Water” award, given to CNCF community members who help behind the scenes, dedicate their time to open source projects, host and build community meetups, and… Read More »
GradeCraft team realizes benefits by migrating to ITS Container Service
It takes many people to ensure software applications run correctly, and the Software Development team at the Center for Academic Innovation knows that all too well. The latest improvement for GradeCraft — an online learning management system for faculty and students — is its migration to the Information and Technology Services (ITS) Container Service. Since its inception, Gradecraft… Read More »
Taking transistor arrays into the third dimension
Silicon integrated circuits, which are used in computer processors, are approaching the maximum feasible density of transistors on a single chip—at least, in two-dimensional arrays. Now, a team of engineers at U-M have stacked a second layer of transistors directly atop a state-of-the-art silicon chip. They propose that their design could remove the need for a second chip… Read More »
MCWT names ITS’s Diane Jones “Woman of the Year in Technology”
The Michigan Council of Women in Technology Foundation named Diane Jones its “Woman of the Year in Technology.” Jones is executive director of administration for Information and Technology Services and the Office of the CIO. The award recognizes women in Michigan leading or driving change for other women in information technology careers or fields of study. Jones has… Read More »
MIDAS announces PODS Grant winners
The Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) recently announced the awardees of its first round of Propelling Original Data Science (PODS) Grants. Fifteen interdisciplinary teams will receive over $1 million in combined funding support for an array of exciting projects with data science as the common thread. The projects range from detecting patterns of illicit wildlife trade networks, to… Read More »
Profiles in IT: Andrew Staley—DEI warrior
Andrew Staley was recently interviewed about his work on the Platform Services team with Health Information Technology and Services (HITS). He also opened up about what it’s like working at Michigan Medicine while dealing with ADHD, ASD, OCD, and a wheelchair. What is your role at HITS? I’m a web server administrator on the HITS Platform Services team.… Read More »
How Let’s Encrypt doubled the percentage of secure websites
The percentage of websites protected with HTTPS secure encryption—indicated by the lock icon in the address bar of most browsers—has jumped from just over 40% in 2016 to 80% today. That’s largely due to the efforts of Let’s Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority co-founded in 2013 by J. Alex Halderman, a U-M professor of computer science and engineering.… Read More »
President Schlissel discusses online learning during India trip
U-M began creating online learning content over a decade ago. Since then, over six million students have enrolled for these courses, a tenth from India. Coursera, the US-based edtech platform that U-M partners with, has 4.8 million users in India. U-M’s online course “Programming for everyone” is the second-most popular in the country. During his recent visit to… Read More »
Brush up your Canvas skills before the end of the year
Attention teachers, TAs, and designers (and the IT staff who support them): You don’t have to do it alone! Canvas experts are here to help you. Wrap up fall courses Save time and reduce stress with your Winter courses prep Master assignments and the new Gradebook Choose one or all of the following workshops: Start the Year Off Right: Clean up… Read More »
SEISMIC institutions to use ECoach in STEM courses
The Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses project has agreed to incorporate ECoach, a learning tool developed at the University of Michigan, into new STEM courses at all participating institutions.