Author Archives: Dana Fair, ITS Marketing & Communications
A Zoom beta feature is now available, providing automatic live transcription for meetings and webinars. “Now more than ever, creating opportunities for the entire academic community to participate in discussions, presentations and lectures about today’s issues is vitally important,” said Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer. “We want to improve the ability for… Read More »
The university recently entered into an agreement with Adobe that provides all faculty, staff and students on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses and at Michigan Medicine with access to Adobe Creative Cloud apps. The agreement advances an ITS initiative that is based on a desire to build partnerships that would benefit the entire university community. Previously,… Read More »
79,093 in Ann Arbor. 39,163 in Michigan Medicine. 10,184 in Dearborn. 8,315 in Flint. That’s how many U-M students, staff, faculty, and sponsored affiliates – more than 133,700 in all – are now using Duo two-factor authentication to help protect the privacy of the institution’s digital information and assets as well as each individual’s personal information. The most… Read More »
U-M faculty, instructors, and academic administrators received an ITS Information Assurance email on October 31 informing them the first wave of emails had begun to students who were not using Duo and encouraging those students to turn it on early. Faculty and instructors were asked for their patience and understanding as students became familiar with the tool and… Read More »
Information and Technology Services is offering free training sessions to university community members for its Container Service – a high availability, secure environment for hosting containerized applications and services. Session attendees will be given workspace within the Container Service’s non-production cluster to do research-stage work, and will learn: how to use a Python application to run in the… Read More »
Beginning this fall, all students on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses are being encouraged to turn on Duo two-factor authentication by January 29. Faculty, staff, student employees, and sponsored affiliates across U-M voluntarily turned on two-factor authentication by this past January with the support of ITS and the overall Michigan IT community. Over 50% of the… Read More »
The new ITS Container Service – a foundational technology for modernizing ITS teaching and learning, web hosting, and other services – has officially arrived. This offering provides the university with a high availability, secure environment for hosting containerized applications and services. Containerization is a virtualization method offering several benefits over bare metal and virtual machines. As environments are… Read More »
A short while ago I had an opportunity to work abroad for a brief period. After securing approval from my supervisor and making the necessary arrangements, I discovered that working remotely not only allowed me to keep up on various projects, but to make headway while enjoying time out of the country. The experience of working while traveling… Read More »
Michigan IT staff on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses and in Michigan Medicine were responsible for the successful Duo expansion. This journey as a community made U-M 106,000 people safer. Read how.
As U-M gets ready for Winter Break, remember that cyber attackers never take time off. The university takes measures to protect the institution’s data and systems no matter the time of the year.
Mark Montague has been named manager of Web Platforms and Information Systems for ITS Infrastructure Application Operations. Prior to this role, Montague ran his two-person IT consulting and contracting company from 1992–1995, and has a long history with the university that begins in 1992. Some may remember him from his previous work at ITS (1995-1998 and 2006-2010) or… Read More »
Information and Technology Services has launched a new tool called MaizeLink, which uses search and filter technology to make it easier to organize and find web-based campus services, websites, and information in one location. MaizeLink lets users build their own page linking to all the university tools they need as a member of the U-M community. For the… Read More »
Over 60 university community members attended the Web Platforms Service Town Hall on March 7 at Palmer Commons. The presentation reflected feedback received during meetings and interactions held over the past year and a half. Town hall participants shared further ideas verbally and using the Poll Everywhere app. The service project team is reviewing the latest feedback and… Read More »
ITS is extending its funding of U-M SignNow through FY19. What this means for users is that ITS will cover per document transaction fees and support costs through June 2019. Department shortcode charges for using U-M SignNow will not begin until FY20. ITS Infrastructure made the decision to extend funding based on two factors: a later than anticipated… Read More »
A town hall and interactive session will be held to discuss the new Web Platforms service being developed by ITS for the university community. This event will take place on Wednesday, March 7 at 2:00 p.m. in the Great Lakes Central Room, Palmer Commons. Members of the university web developer community and those who have an interest in… Read More »
Information and Technology Services is redesigning and launching new web hosting platforms that are tailored to the unique and varying needs of the U-M community. “The main aspects of the hosting platforms will be reliable and robust cloud-first architecture, scalable and flexible environment, simple provisioning, and security improvements,” says Deborah Gowan, director of ITS application operations. “Individuals can… Read More »
ITS is piloting new software for campus called MaizeLink. Powered by OneCampus, the software uses search and filter technology to make it easier to organize preferred web-based campus services in one mobile-friendly location. For the last two years, ITS engaged campus user groups via interviews, surveys, and prototype reviews to search for software to do what this one… Read More »
The university recently signed an enterprise services agreement with Barracuda Networks for a new e-signature service called U-M SignNow. The agreement covers the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses, and Michigan Medicine. “The first service pilot has begun already,” says Bob Sabourin, U-M SignNow project lead. “Enrolled participants include the Alumni Association, Athletics, College of Engineering, Conference and… Read More »
U-M has not been affected by the widespread global ransomware attacks on computer networks over the weekend. Even with the U-M campuses — including Michigan Medicine — unaffected at this time, the attack remains a serious, ongoing threat. The attack that started May 12 has spread to more than 150 countries and 200,000 computers. For those affected, the attack… Read More »
Michigan IT teams are collaborating increasingly on service planning and service roadmaps by using the Michigan Enterprise Strategic Assessments (MESAs). IT staff are using MESAs to think comprehensively about their services, products, technologies, and capabilities and to consider how they are being used today, what their future might be, and what new items are on the horizon. MESAs… Read More »