Author Archives: D. Stephanie Dascola, ITS Communications
Winners of 2022 MichiganCIO of the Year ORBIE Awards announced
Ravi Pendse, Cathy Curley, and Carrie Shumaker received prestigious ORBIE awards for their IT leadership. Daniel Waltz and Josh Wilda were finalists in the healthcare category. MichiganCIO recognized chief information officers in six key categories – Super Global, Global, Large Enterprise, Enterprise, Corporate, & Healthcare. The awards were at The Henry on October 21.
Long-time ticketing service, MRequest, has retired
MRequest (FootPrints) has retired. The service was launched over 18 years ago as a low-cost ticketing and customer-service solution. While it saw substantial use on campus, the service had been working with decreased functionality, obsolete code-base, lack of vendor support, and costly U-M customizations. As of late 2020, MRequest (FootPrints) was still in use by more than 20… Read More »
Profiles in IT: Usha Dronamraju—Positive perspectives
Profiles in IT: Nancy Herlocher—Project manager and marathoner
Profiles in IT: Amy Yamasaki—The art of IT
Profiles in IT: James Alexander—Gameful theorist
UPS battery maintenance process streamlined
Information and Technology Services (ITS) has streamlined the maintenance process for UPS batteries which will increase operational efficiency and improve network reliability. Effective January 1, ITS will no longer charge a separate fee for UPS battery replacements and units no longer need to obtain separate shortcodes to pay for UPS battery replacements. The UPS battery fee of approximately… Read More »
Understanding the strongest electromagnetic fields in the universe
Alec Thomas is part of the team from the U-M College of Engineering Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science that is building the most powerful laser in the U.S. Dubbed “ZEUS,” the laser will be 3-petawatts of power. That’s a ‘3’ with 15 zeros. All the power generated in the entire world is 10-terawatts, or 1000 times less than the ZEUS laser.
The many options of NameCoach help build inclusivity
Yottabyte (Blue) to retire April 2022
The Yottabyte Research Cloud, powered by Verge.io, provides U-M researchers with high-performance, secure, and flexible computing environments enabling the analysis of data sets, and hosting of databases for research purposes. Yottabyte (Blue) will retire on April 4, 2022. Yottabyte (Maize) for sensitive data will continue to be offered as a service. To determine if a virtual server is… Read More »
Technology helps preserve Michigan’s musical history and culture
From Kentucky bluegrass “noodlin’ and doodlin’” to Louisiana Zydeco to German hurdy-gurdy to East European Klezmer to Indian Manipuri dancing to Native American pow wows, and much more, the Michigan Musical Heritage Project has been documenting Michigan’s folk history and culture since 2014. The project is led by ethnomusicologist Lester P. Monts, Arthur F. Thurnau professor emeritus of… Read More »
MRequest (FootPrints) retirement project nearing completion
Leveraging technology to improve education outcomes
Researchers from U-M campuses and all across the country are using education data provided by the State of Michigan to study a wide variety of topics ranging from the effects of COVID-19 on public school enrollment to the role of neighborhood instability on student educational outcomes to exploring the ways that financial assets can change youth’s lives. An… Read More »
Speaker series highlights programming tools, resources
All members of the U-M community are invited to join the CoderSpaces hosts during the month of November as they share their expertise! The presenting hosts are a team of ITS Advanced Research Computing (ARC) and Consulting for Statistics, Computing & Analytics Research (CSCAR) consultants, faculty and post-docs, as well as research support staff originating from different research… Read More »
Google Cloud Platform: Versatility in compute options, new pricing for researchers
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) now offers greater flexibility and even better pricing for researchers. The suite of products and services includes application hosting, cloud computing, database services, and more, that is available for current faculty and staff. To date, the GCP team has given nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of credits to accelerate research and work around barriers created by supply chain shortages.
NameCoach pronunciation tool API now available to developers
NameCoach is a web-based tool that allows users to record, listen to, and learn names. It promotes inclusivity across all campuses (Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Flint, and Michigan Medicine) for all current students, faculty, and staff. NameCoach enables units to promote organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion, foster employee retention, and forge better customer relationships. Now, the NameCoach Participants APIs are… Read More »
Coming soon: Changes to the Duo Mobile application interface
Profiles in IT: Oliver Haimson—Researcher & advocate
Oliver Haimson is an assistant professor at the School of Information. In his career, he focuses on ensuring that medical information is accurate, accessible, easy to locate, and relevant to a diverse set of LGBTQ+ identities and experiences. In his free time, he enjoys exploring parks and nature preserves on his bike.
MRequest (FootPrints) retirement project update
MRequest (FootPrints), a web-based service for the tracking and management of customer support, is on track to retire in three months. As of Sept. 3, 85 percent of all workstations have been retired or deactivated, and the majority of the remaining units will complete migrations in November. There are a few key dates remaining in the retirement schedule:… Read More »