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Author Archives: News Staff
IQ to host data conference
The Higher Education Data Warehouse (HEDW) selected Information Quest (IQ) to host their April 2019 Conference in Ann Arbor. “This is a huge honor and will allow us to showcase the University of Michigan and our work here in IQ,” said Shelly Turner, application developer lead for IQ who will also serve on the HEDW board from 2017… Read More »
Rise of the fembots
Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana are some of today’s most well-known virtual assistants. All are female, and all elicit an image of an assistant who is not just a woman, but a woman people can boss around, flirt with, and act inappropriately toward. Compound that with portrayals in the media and it all starts to feel… Read More »
U-M, Unizin pilot dashboard tool
U-M and Unizin, a consortium of leading research institutions, recently launched a beta pilot of a new learning dashboard tool. Snapshot lets faculty view student engagement trends, monitor outcomes, and identify students at risk of failure. Students can view their own dashboard and compare it with their peers. John Johnston (ITS Teaching & Learning) partnered with Meg Bakewell… Read More »
New VR Community of Practice
A new Michigan IT Community of Practice is taking shape around augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) systems. Areas of interest include the use of these systems for visualization, teaching, content development, and performance. Meetings will begin in January (specific date TBA). Join the MCommunity group, AR and VR CoP, and the new Google+ community for more… Read More »
New year, new IT news
The New Year will bring more than just snow and fitness resolutions. In the first part of 2017, you can expect improvements to how the Michigan Newsletter is published and distributed. Take our reader survey to weigh in. Your feedback will inform the direction of Michigan IT news to better serve the community. We’ve already made some changes:… Read More »
Shumaker moves to UM-Dearborn
Carrie Shumaker, formerly ITS assistant director for human capital management and student administration systems, accepted a position as the interim director of information technology, strategy, and operations at UM-Dearborn. Effective December 1, Shumaker will lead all Dearborn IT efforts, including applications, network, storage, architecture, and cybersecurity.
Learn about digital signs
Want to learn more about managing digital signs? The Digital Signage Support page offers step-by-step procedures and a 30-minute eLearning course, DSWE101 Design a Simple Sign. The course introduces ITS digital signage software and demonstrates how the different pieces of a sign come together.
Exploiting vehicle electronics
The networked electronics found in modern vehicles provide many useful and cool benefits, such as fuel savings, parking assist, and collision avoidance. Most of these features involve passing data among vehicle systems and human drivers. This connectivity also offers hackers new potential exploits. According to research presented last month by U-M researchers Kyong-Tak Cho and Kang Shin at… Read More »
Photonic chips skirt physics
In the tech world, one of the biggest questions of the 21st century is: How small can we make transistors? Today’s transistors, at about 70 silicon atoms wide, are getting very close to the limits of current technology. Arnab Hazari, doctoral student in electrical engineering, explains how “photonic chips” that use light, made up of photons, could solve… Read More »
Tweet no more
Twitter suspended the accounts of several high-profile leaders of the so-called alternative right last month, raising new questions about the largely online movement’s potential for influencing national debate. While the suspensions could damage the movement by limiting its ability to spread its ideology, others believe it could make the alt-right stronger by feeding into its narrative of liberal… Read More »
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Fighting fake news
Experts say Facebook’s recent move to ban phony news sites from its advertising network will do little to stop the spread of such articles on its platform. That’s because fake news sites rely heavily on Facebook to steer traffic to their stories to generate ad revenue through other ad services, like Google AdSense. Gautam Hans, a clinical fellow… Read More »
Smart homes vulnerable
An interview exploring the technology underlying home device security and the Internet of Things (IoT) was recently broadcasted by CBC Radio. Atul Prakash, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, spoke about why many IoT devices are vulnerable. “The technology is relatively new,” said Prakash. “Hardware is probably a little bit ahead of the software at this point,… Read More »
Diversity, equity and inclusion courses
UHR Learning & Professional Development has partnered with UMHS Office of Health Equity and Inclusion, Student Life, and UHR Office for Institutional Equity to offer training opportunities and other resources related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at no cost to departments. Learn more and sign up for courses at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. See the complete list of… Read More »
BlueJeans hands-on training
ITS Infrastructure offers training sessions at your unit’s preferred location to teach faculty and staff how to begin using BlueJeans conferencing service: Understand BlueJeans and how it works Schedule, join, and record BlueJeans meetings Learn about BlueJeans’ moderator controls Participants are encouraged to bring laptops, smartphones, or tablets. Visit the ITS BlueJeans page to learn more, create… Read More »
Privacy, Ethics and Enabling the Student Data Analytics Revolution
Sol Bermann, privacy officer and interim CISO for U-M, moderated a panel discussion on “Privacy, Ethics and Enabling the Student Data Analytics Revolution” at the Privacy. Security. Risk. 2016 conference held last September in San Jose, CA. The presentation materials for that session are now available for download as a PDF. P.S.R. 2016 brought together 1,300 privacy and cloud… Read More »
Packing a punch
John Heron, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and colleagues have engineered a material that could lead to a new generation of computing devices—packing in more computing power while consuming nearly 100 times less energy than today’s electronics require. Known as magnetoelectric multiferroic material, it combines electrical and magnetic properties at room temperature and relies on a… Read More »
UMICH represents!
Twenty Michigan IT staff presented at the 2016 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Wednesday, October 26. The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is the premier convening of IT professionals and technology providers in higher education. The conference programming is derived from member-driven content organized across overarching IT tracks and hosts one of… Read More »
Election audits
Since hackers targeted the election systems of more than 20 states, cyber security experts say Michigan should routinely audit a sample of its paper ballots to protect against election fraud. The Michigan Secretary of State’s office said the state’s voter registration lists have not been targeted or affected. “[Audits] should be done routinely in order to provide a… Read More »