Author Archives: News Staff
New research on the popular massive open online courses (MOOCs) finds that one way to keep students engaged in the free classes offered by hundreds of universities is to offer a certificate of completion for a fee. “The act of paying for the certificate and the motivation derived from wanting to earn the certificate lead to a 10-… Read More »
The annual Security at University of Michigan IT (SUMIT) symposium will be held on Tuesday, October 29, at Rackham Auditorium on the UM-Ann Arbor campus.
Sprints offer U-M faculty, instructors, graduate students, and graduate fellows the opportunity to partner with a unique team of assembled U-M Library experts to get over a “hurdle” in their work. Up to four selected projects will receive a $200 award.
The ITS Production Freeze webpage has been updated with changes to their Production Freeze guidelines and schedule. The website should be used as a tool in planning for any change to ITS systems.
Formerly incarcerated individuals—or returning citizens—struggle to find work and reintegrate due to a lack of digital literacy, according to a recently published article by U-M researchers. “For some returning citizens, there’s a ‘Rip Van Winkle effect’ when they are offered digital technology upon reentry,” said Kentaro Toyama, senior author of the study. Many returning citizens rely heavily on… Read More »
New research from the School of Information shows those who create the apps we use are not making decisions about which ads are attached to their apps, but they are picking which ad networks are used. And those often-arbitrary choices may be making us vulnerable to questionable ads and data privacy concerns. “Despite this reliance on ads, we… Read More »
When we think about the technological divide between urban and rural communities, our minds likely go to infrastructure—a lack of a physical grid, wiring, or towers to connect those in remote communities. While this is a large part of the issue, School of Information doctoral student Jean Hardy says a bigger concern is the lack of innovation in the way… Read More »
Sol Bermann, U-M’s chief information security officer, is quoted in a recent article in “Science” magazine about legislation moving through Congress that aims to prevent foreign entities from taking unfair advantage of the traditionally open U.S. research system. Both House and Senate bills focus heavily on enhancing cybersecurity, seen as an essential tool in protecting intellectual property and… Read More »
In a recent article for “Inside Higher Ed,” Perry Samson, professor of atmospheric science at U-M, suggests that digital transcribing tools might free students up to do more beneficial things with their time in class. “Just as speech-to-text technologies like Amazon Alexa or Google Home can answer your questions in the kitchen about the latest news and weather… Read More »
A group of researchers led by engineering professor Westley Weimer and grad student Yu Huang used real-time fMRI readings to look inside coders’ brains while they program. This “mind reading” project studied whether manipulating data structures in a program (like balancing a tree) uses the same parts of the brain as spatial reasoning (rotating a map or turning… Read More »
The City of Westland and UM-Dearborn’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) have joined forces to create an innovative way to target STEM’s gender gap. “Studies have shown that the middle to high school transition is when some young women start shifting away from things like engineering and computer science,” says Jeanne Girard, director of Extended Learning… Read More »
The Office of Academic Innovation is staffing up in anticipation of a new initiative and a new investment to be announced this fall. The department aims to hire 40 people over the next few years, bringing the total staff count to about 100, says James DeVaney, associate vice provost for academic innovation. DeVaney also said that the university… Read More »
For the past three years, the Office of Academic Innovation has hosted the Gameful Learning Summer Institute, an event focused on gameful pedagogies. This year, more than 50 people from various backgrounds attended the three-day event at the Ross School of Business. Evan Straub, learning experience designer at Academic Innovation, organized this year’s event. With gameful learning, she… Read More »
Heat transfer through a single molecule has been measured for the first time by an international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan. This could be a step toward molecular computing—building circuits up from molecules rather than carving them out of silicon as a way to max out Moore’s Law and make the most powerful conventional… Read More »
Sol Bermann, executive director of information assurance and chief information security officer (CISO) for U-M, was recently interviewed by “EDUCAUSE Review” about the growing need for privacy management, the policies and laws in place to protect our privacy, and how big data has changed the game. In a wide-ranging interview, Bermann discusses: The difference between a chief privacy… Read More »
The first programmable memristor computer—not just a memristor array operated through an external computer—has been developed at U-M. It could lead to the processing of artificial intelligence directly on small, energy-constrained devices such as smartphones and sensors. A smartphone AI processor would mean that voice commands would no longer have to be sent to the cloud for interpretation,… Read More »
Sol Bermann, J.D. was named executive director of Information Assurance and chief information security officer (CISO) for the University of Michigan in June 2019. He served as U-M’s interim chief information security officer during the 2014/15 and 2017/19 academic years. Since joining the university in 2011, Bermann has served as the university’s interim CISO, university privacy officer, and… Read More »
Connect with the Michigan Medicine labs and offices that serve you on August 15 Join the UMMS Office of Research for Researchpalooza during the annual Michigan Medicine Ice Cream Social, with 80+ exhibitors from labs and offices of the Medical School and across campus. Thursday, August 15, 201911 a.m. – 2 p.m.Circle Drive, in front of Med Sci… Read More »
Many patients, especially those who are anesthetized or emotionally challenged, cannot communicate precisely about their pain. So U-M researchers have developed a technology to help clinicians “see” and map patient pain in real-time, through special augmented reality glasses. The portable platform combines visualization with brain data using neuroimaging to navigate through a patient’s brain while they’re in the… Read More »
Effective September 1, 2019, Jenna Wiens, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, will become a Precision Health co-director. She succeeds Eric Michielssen, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, who is stepping down to take sabbatical leave. Wiens is transitioning to co-director from a successful role as a co-lead for Precision Health’s Data Analytics & IT Workgroup,… Read More »