Author Archives: News Staff
In a recent story published by Fortune, U-M School of Information’s Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical assistant professor, was quoted on the topic of data literacy in society. She discussed the role of librarians and data scientists to educate society to better understand data.
The spectrum of digital child-rearing resources for millennial parents is huge. Beyond social media and forums and Google, there are smartphone apps that log the duration of every breast-feeding session, record an infant’s nap times to the minute, and send push notifications reminding parents of upcoming developmental milestones. Those tools can be useful. But when it comes to… Read More »
Although many features of Sites computer labs are responsive to the needs of disabled students, there are some types of accommodations that can best be provided from a customized location. This location is the James Edward Knox Adaptive Technology Computing Site, commonly known as the Knox Center, which completed its move to the second floor of the Shapiro… Read More »
In an interview with “Kiplinger” magazine, Florian Schaub, assistant professor in the U-M School of Information, discusses how to protect your data given recent concerns about FaceApp, a Russia-based photo manipulation app whose privacy policy made broad claims about how they might reuse images. According to Schaub, unbundling specific aspects of opt-in privacy policies would provide users more… Read More »
September 12, 2019: Cyborg Arts The Penny Stamps Speaker Series, along with co-sponsor Dissonance, presents Cyborg Arts, with Neil Harbisson and Moon Ribas. The artists ask us to consider: “What separates human beings from the technology we create and use?” The Catalan-based artists and self-identified cyborgs are influencers in the global cyborg art movement who use the internet as a sense to… Read More »
Ron Eglash, professor of information and of art and design, was recently featured in a wide-ranging interview on NPR affiliate WBEZ’s program Worldview. Eglash discusses his passion for bringing the sophisticated math and computing ideas at the center of cultural traditions to classroom settings to inspire underrepresented students to pursue studies in STEM fields. According to Eglash, indigenous… Read More »
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 »