Author Archives: News Staff
J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at U-M, helped create a video on the vulnerability of U.S. electronic voting systems called, “I Hacked an Election. So Can the Russians.” The video is part of a series by the New York Times on voting in America, which will run until Election Day in November. Calling the… Read More »
After a nationwide search, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts recently announced that Cathleen Curley will be the college’s new chief information officer as of April 24, 2018. Curley is currently the executive director of strategy & planning at Information and Technology Services. She is known for her passion, strategic thinking, creating a collaborative work environment, and… Read More »
U-M’s Precision Health initiative is accepting applications for Investigators Awards of up to $300,000 each over two years to support research projects that advance the field of precision health. Precision Health expects to fund up to 12 Investigators Awards in 2018 as well as additional new projects in 2019. The awards are open to U-M full-time faculty members… Read More »
Last year, Michigan IT News reported that ITS and HITS were doing away with uniqnames and re-implementing Computing Center IDs (CCIDs): All access to computing resources will be via CCIDs, the 4-character mainframe login ID. More details on the transition from uniqname to CCID will be announced in a future issue of this newsletter. The future is now! Work… Read More »
The first-ever Gupta Family Hackathon for Health Communication brought together more than 120 participants over the weekend of March 23-25 to help address real-world problems related to health communication. The result: 30 new solutions, from apps and websites to devices and electronic medical record innovations. Four of those ideas emerged as winners, but all hold the potential to keep moving forward toward… Read More »
Concern about Facebook’s power in society – and in politics – has skyrocketed in the wake of revelations that users’ data was used in targeted political ads in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Other tech giants have also sparked concern: Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have all faced objections from users, the public, and even government agencies. But in a recent article, Amanda Lotz,… Read More »
According to a new report from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, parents may struggle balancing the need for independence with appropriate supervision as children hit the “tween” stage between early elementary grades and the teenage years. And modern technology has changed the ground rules. Nearly all parents of tweens ages 9-12 agree that… Read More »
We’re turning the Computer Showcase into an arcade! Join us at the Michigan Union for a very special, after-hours event: Press Play | Game Night Friday, March 23, 2018 No cost and no advance registration required. Just drop by and play! Super Smash Bros Melee 6–10 p.m. Our friends at Arbor eSports are hosting a BYOC Smash tournament with pro and amateur… Read More »
The Office of Academic Innovation has several events scheduled so far for spring and summer. Also, there’s still time to enroll for the Teach-Out starting on March 26: Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality: Opportunities and Issues. AIM Analytics: Using Big Data to Understand Factors that Affect Student Success in STEM Join us on Monday, March 19 from… Read More »
In an guest post for Inside Higher Ed, James DeVaney, associate vice provost for academic innovation, writes that the real innovation of the MOOC (massive online open courses) era is not the unbundling of academic degrees that first captured massive attention, but rather the re-bundling that results from serious academic R&D—the creation of new communities and credentials for all levels.… Read More »
Online learners may soon have three new U-M master’s degree options through a partnership with Coursera. In a joint announcement with the online platform, the School of Information said its Master of Applied Data Science under development will build upon the school’s leadership in offering programing courses online, including several on Coursera. The Master of Public Health offering from the School… Read More »
School of Information experts are sounding the alarm on a potential information apocalypse, a state when fake news and altered videos on social media and elsewhere effectively end social reality as we know it. To address this growing concern and bring some of the brightest minds together to brainstorm creative solutions, U-M has formed the School of Information… Read More »
Over the last few years, artificial intelligence has helped push the envelope in terms of technological advancements in the financial industry. For example, consumers can use facial recognition to log in to financial apps and use voice commands to check their balances. In an article on Forbes.com, Jason Mars, a computer science professor at U-M and the CEO of Clinc,… Read More »
U-M’s new, interdisciplinary Data Science Master’s Program is taking applications for its first group of students. The program is aimed at teaching participants how to extract useful knowledge from massive datasets using computational and statistical techniques. The program is a collaboration between the College of Engineering (EECS), the College of Literature Science and the Arts (Statistics), the School of Public… Read More »
Pennsylvania’s congressional map was among the most gerrymandered in history. Experts like LSA political science professor Jowei Chen used data analyis and computer modeling to help change that situation. Chen’s computer programs create alternative maps based on a series of geographic constraints: maps that are compact in shape, preserve county and municipal boundaries, and have equal populations. They’re drawn,… Read More »
Jia Deng, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, is one of four U-M researchers who have been named 2018 Sloan Research Fellows. Deng directs the College of Engineering’s Vision & Learning Lab. His research focus is on computer vision and machine learning, in particular, achieving human-level visual understanding by integrating perception, cognition, and learning. The researchers are part… Read More »
Last July, the Gameful Learning Summer Institute (GLSI) brought faculty, teachers, instructional designers, administrators, staff, and students together from around the world to learn about gameful ideas and how to design a course from a gameful perspective. Based on positive feedback from attendees and adoption of gameful ideas, the Office of Academic Innovation’s Gameful Learning Lab will host… Read More »
As more robots are showing up in all kinds of jobs, organizations must figure out how to successfully integrate human and robot co-workers. But how? According to a recent study co-authored by School of Information associate professor Lionel Robert, it’s by making robots more like people. The study, “Human-Robot Similarity and Willingness to Work with a Robotic Co-worker,” found that… Read More »
Aviv Ovadya, chief technologist at the School of Information’s Center for Social Media Responsibility, cautions that technology and social media that can be used to enhance and distort what is real is evolving faster than our ability to understand and control or mitigate it. “I’m from the free and open source culture,” he says. “The goal isn’t to… Read More »
Jenna Wiens, a computer scientist and assistant professor of engineering at U-M, helped create an algorithm to predict a patient’s risk of developing a C-diff infection (CDI), one of the deadliest killers in American hospitals. The algorithm uses a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning to extract warning signs of disease from patients’ vital signs and other health records—constellations of symptoms, circumstances,… Read More »