A recent “Inside Higher Ed” article examines how colleges, including U-M, are committing considerable resources to keep up with students’ expectation that wireless internet should be free, fast, and everywhere. The U-M Ann Arbor campus embarked on an ambitious Wi-Fi upgrade five years ago that required meticulous planning. In some areas the wired network had to be extended, and new wireless… Read More »
Four U-M research teams will receive support for projects that apply data science tools to the study of music theory, performance, social media-based music making, and the connection between words and music. The funding is provided under the Data Science for Music Challenge Initiative through the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS). The projects include digital analysis of… Read More »
Getting help in programming courses outside of instructors’ office hours can be difficult, but a new tool called “chat.codes” may help change that. Steve Oney, assistant professor of information at the U-M School of Information (UMSI) and of electrical engineering and computer science at the College of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation grant of $174,981 for his… Read More »
When LSA English professor Anne Curzan became associate dean for humanities several years ago, she—like many professors who take on administrative roles—was overwhelmed by the uptick in email traffic she faced. It also became clear that the majority of people in the dean’s office were swimming in email as well, spending hours every evening dealing with messages that had… Read More »
Campus Mind Works, a student wellness group that promotes mental health education and provides support through the U-M Depression Center, recently held a seminar on the potentially harmful effects of a world increasingly dependent on technology. Held in partnership with the College of Engineering, the Newnan LSA Academic Advising Center, and clinical staff affiliated with the Department of… Read More »
Earlier this year U-M was invited to participate in the informal Esri Development Center (EDC) program. We join a small number of universities recognized as leaders in GIS teaching and research. While the EDC program was initially conceived with a focus on development in the traditional sense—coding and programming of geographic information system (GIS) solutions—U-M was identified as… Read More »
A growing number of Michigan Medicine patients are participating in an innovative new approach to patient care: Surgery eClinics, which facilitate follow-up visits via video conferencing. The concept of telemedicine and video medicine isn’t new. But its application in the field of surgery has been relatively limited. Similar to the house calls of old, the virtual clinic approach… Read More »
Douglas Van Houweling, UMSI professor of information, also known as the “Father of the Internet,” retired in April after a long, remarkable career at UMSI and U-M. During his time at U-M, Van Houweling has served as UMSI associate dean for research and innovation; U-M dean for academic outreach and vice provost for information and technology; and U-M… Read More »
Florian Schaub, an assistant professor at U-M and a privacy expert, notes in a recent article that the patchwork of U. S. laws and regulations that govern data collection and privacy leave loopholes for companies to exploit. For example, Federal laws strictly protect medical, financial, and education-related records. However, online services, apps, and data collection by emerging technologies… Read More »
Undocumented immigrants tend to be careful about public life: They limit contact with authorities, keep close-knit circles, and avoid loitering too long in parks, supermarkets, shows and other public gatherings. Some even avoid driving altogether. But when it comes to their smartphones, they struggle to apply this instinctive caution, according to a study by the U-M School of… Read More »
The Flint ITS annual report for FY17 was published in January 2018 and is now available online. Flint ITS is made up of 33 staff, as well as students, working across ten units who have come together to create major positive change on the University of Michigan Flint campus. Among their major achievements and stats for the year:… Read More »
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 »
U-M School of Information (UMSI) faculty and PhD students have been awarded two Best Papers and three Honorable Mention designations for this year’s Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference, a significant recognition in the field. The Association for Computing Machinery’s CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of human-computer interaction. This year, “CHI 2018: Engage with… 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 »
“Applied Data Science with Python,” an online course specialization developed by four professors at the School of Information, has won a major award from Coursera, a leading online learning platform. Christopher Brooks, Kevyn Collins-Thompson, Daniel Romero, and VG Vinod Vydiswaran won Coursera’s Outstanding Educator Award for Innovation for the highly successful specialization. Romero accepted the award at the Coursera Partners Conference at Arizona State University… Read More »