Connectivity looks very different in emerging markets, and especially in Africa, where historically the cost of internet and mobile devices have prohibited the majority of the population from accessing the internet. That’s now changing, thanks to advances in technology, the falling price of smartphones, and the work being done on the ground by leaders like 2011 Michigan Ross… Read More »
The Line Tracking Project, a partnership between three UMSI students and the Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Office, used several years of student research on voter wait times to develop a new public website that allows voters to check wait times at their local polling place and access additional tools to facilitate the voting process. The project recently won… Read More »
In response to student requests for support and training, ITS collaborated with LSA Student Government’s Subcommittee for Technology, Advising, and Academic Resources and the Registrar’s Office to create ten videos to assist students with online administrative transactions. The new videos are posted on the UMITSCommunications YouTube channel. The videos average about two minutes in length and cover topics… Read More »
Society’s ever-increasing use of artificial intelligence and other emerging computing technologies has led many in the field to talk about the need for ethics, standards, and policies to help guide their use. Among the concerns over the increasing use of AI and data-based algorithms are gender and racial stereotyping, and an overall lack of accountability and digital justice.… Read More »
The U-M Library has more than 300 separate digital collections that contain over one million items. A significant portion are available without restriction to anyone to discover and engage with. While there has long been a way that users can search across these text and image collections, or within a particular collection, until recently this was not available through the… Read More »
The Information Assurance: Michigan Medicine (IA) team was awarded a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Innovation Mini-Grant from the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion. With the goal of spreading awareness of the field of cybersecurity and available job opportunities, the IA team developed a two-hour interactive introduction to the field of information assurance. Participants learned about the role… Read More »
As modes for teaching and learning continue to evolve—in part due to the influence of technology—the demand for skilled learning experience designers has grown. A new collaboration at U-M seeks to address that need. The Center for Academic Innovation and School of Education have partnered to offer graduate students a Learning Experience Design Certificate Program (LXD). Combining School… Read More »
Innovation in healthcare often requires a technology component and significant cultural change. As a result, it’s not always possible on a tight timeline. However, new initiatives focused on solving real and immediate problems in the healthcare space will gain priority and the necessary resources to get the job done. Andrew Rosenberg, MD, CIO of Michigan Medicine, has first-hand… Read More »
Svetla Sytch, the recently named assistant director of privacy and IT policy for U-M, brings a unique perspective on privacy and its role in higher education. “When I was growing up in communist Bulgaria, privacy was not a thing. Come to think of it, we did not even have a word for it,” she wrote recently in an… Read More »
In January, the School of Education launched a new online certificate for working teachers and administrators across the globe. The Advanced Education Technology Certificate Program (AETP) is a fully web-based program developed specifically for P–12 educators who are working in a school. It is designed to support individual teachers and administrators, or entire districts, interested in professional development… Read More »
Online ratings can help with making decisions on everything from hotels to hair stylists. But online ratings of physicians? A new poll by the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation suggests they don’t yet hold as much sway with the Americans who use the most health care: people over age 50. In all, 43 percent of people between… Read More »
Many voters across the country will cast ballots this year on machines called ballot-marking devices (BMDs), which combine the convenience of touchscreen technology with an auditable paper trail. However, the system relies on voters to identify errors. That could be a problem according to a U-M report published in early January. According to the study, only 6.6% of… Read More »
Online learning plays a critical role for today’s students by offering greater flexibility to accommodate work schedules and, in many cases, creating more affordable pathways to credentials. However, concerns over quality and potential bad actors have inspired repeated attempts to regulate distance education in a manner that appropriately balances innovation with quality assurance and consumer protections. In a… Read More »
Gamut, a new suite of online learning tools from Academic Innovation are available for immediate use by any U-M faculty or instructional staff. Each tool is a standalone web application that uses a technology called the Learning Tools Interoperability protocol, which allows them to easily integrate into any course on Canvas, Coursera, edX, or FutureLearn. So far, the… Read More »
Rada Mihalcea, professor of computer science and engineering, has been named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This title is the organization’s most prestigious member grade, recognizing the top 1% of ACM members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology. Mihalcea is recognized for her outstanding research on natural language and multi-modal interaction… Read More »
The Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) is committed to creating a culture of collaboration for innovation and progress. Since its renaming and the adoption of a new charter last June, the committee has been busy! STAC has met with unit IT leadership and identified six top unit priorities: procurement services research computing and services storage options SPG 601.27… Read More »
As Winter Break approaches, many of us are busy with holiday plans and are eager to finish up our work so we can relax with family and friends. But before you set up your away message and head out the door: Help U-M conserve energy and money over the break: Close and lock all windows to save energy and prevent… Read More »
While adaptive sports provide opportunities for children with mobility disabilities to participate in athletic events, these games are not designed for competitive play between kids with disabilities and those without. iGYM, an augmented reality game system created by a team of U-M researchers, is looking to change that. The current implementation of the system resembles soccer — or… Read More »
Packy, a furry, fun mascot is the symbol of the BackPac app created by U-M students to encourage others, particularly their peers, to spend some time volunteering in the community—especially during the holidays when the needs are great. “The number of volunteers has significantly gone down in the last decade,” said Gaurav Dhir, co-founder of BackPac and a… Read More »
Last year, HITS instituted a program called Home for Dinner, to help physicians use MiChart more efficiently. Provider exhaustion is a significant issue across the medical community. While MiChart, the electronic health record (EHR) at Michigan Medicine, can enhance coordination and quality of care, it can also have unintended negative consequences. Michigan Medicine providers are spending significant time… Read More »