Category Archives: Top Stories

Have an idea for a story? Let us know! (You must be logged in with your UMICH Level-1 password to access the form.) Subscribe to the Features RSS feed.

Call for Proposals for the 2021 Michigan IT Symposium

The 2021 Michigan IT Symposium will be held virtually December 14–16. The planning committee is accepting proposals for breakout and poster sessions through October 1.  The success of the 2020 symposium demonstrated a virtual event works. The response to last year’s event was overwhelming. Attendance numbers were higher than they have ever been and participants responded positively to… Read More »

NameCoach pronunciation tool now available in Canvas

NameCoach is a tool that allows students and faculty to create an audio recording to help peers better pronounce their names within officially-provisioned Canvas courses. Provided by Information and Technology Services (ITS), NameCoach is now available on all campuses (Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Flint, and Michigan Medicine) to support inclusive teaching and learning.  The tool has two parts: NameCoach… Read More »

Adolescent Health Initiative uses IT to train health care providers

The Adolescent Health Initiative (AHI), a program of Community Health Services at Michigan Medicine, works to transform the health care landscape to optimize adolescent and young adult health and well-being. AHI provides customer-focused, youth-driven, and innovative approaches to improving adolescent care through coaching and technical assistance including engaging webinars, virtual clinic tours, implementing an assessment tool, and more.… Read More »

U-M receives Esri’s 2021 award for Geographic Information System

By | August 11, 2021

At this past July’s annual Esri User Conference, the University of Michigan was recognized with the prestigious President’s Award for being a model for the higher education community in how to become a true geospatial university. Receiving the award on behalf of the university, in front of a virtual audience of over 60,000, Peter Knoop, a senior programmer/analyst… Read More »

Simplified placement exams save time by going digital

An innovation born out of necessity during the pandemic has led Information and Technology Services, the LSA Language Resource Center and the Registrar’s Office to address an ongoing challenge with language placement exams: time. The teams partnered to move four placement exams — German, Chinese, Italian and Latin — to an online format in Canvas. This sped up… Read More »

New research computing package supports data-intensive research

Information and Technology Services has launched a new package of supercomputing resources for researchers and PhD students on all U-M campuses: the U-M Research Computing Package, provided by ITS. The U-M Research Computing Package reduces the current rates for high performance computing and research storage services provided by ITS by an estimated 35-40 percent. The reduction in rates… Read More »

2021 Hacks with Friends — a completely different experience

The pandemic kept many events from happening over the past year, but the 2021 Hacks with Friends (HWF) was not one of them. The first-ever virtual Hacks with Friends kicked off on May 7 with the first of three Friday sessions thanks to the organization and resourcefulness of the planning committee, led by co-chairs Joe Lubomirski (Dearborn ITS)… Read More »

The Box to Dropbox migrations begin in June

The U-M Box to U-M Dropbox migrations are beginning in June and will continue throughout the spring and summer on a rolling basis. Faculty and staff will be notified by the Unit Ambassador associated with their school, college, or unit as to when they can begin using the self-service migration tool, which has been designed to make the… Read More »

All together now – Microsoft 365 coming to Michigan Medicine!

The Michigan Medicine community will soon begin exploring the benefits of Microsoft 365 (M365) – a product suite that brings together many of Microsoft’s most popular tools – in a new, better, and more powerful way. Combining the best of desktop, web, and mobile applications, M365 will enable users to collaborate in real-time, with anyone in Michigan Medicine… Read More »

ITS adds additional security to Virtual Sites with Duo

In January 2019, U-M made Duo two-factor authentication a requirement for logging into many U-M systems. Since then, Information and Technology Services (ITS) continues to add two-factor authentication to additional services to ensure that the university is securing our important digital resources. Beginning June 16, 2021, Virtual Sites, another ITS provided service, will be added to the list… Read More »

New! Technology Leadership Community of Practice

By | May 25, 2021

We are excited to announce the creation of the Technology Leadership Community of Practice (CoP)! This new group offers those within the U-M technology community an opportunity to come together with others interested in leadership development, skill advancement, and next practices. The new CoP will create an environment that seeks to discuss, shape, and guide each other through collaboration… Read More »

U-M retires BlueJeans videoconferencing service

One of the university’s original videoconferencing services, BlueJeans, was retired on May 1. Information and Technology Services (ITS) will continue to offer Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams for all faculty, staff, and students to use at no cost. The U-M community uses videoconferencing services to facilitate everything from remote meetings to virtual classrooms, research collaborations to yoga… Read More »