A message from VPIT-CIO Ravi Pendse
My vision is that U-M will be a leader in the appropriate use of technology among our peers and in the world. From your perspective, what can we do to be #1 on this list?
Category Archives: Top Stories
ITS volunteers dedicated to a diverse workplace
Over 40 staff volunteers at ITS are committed to enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion—and are making significant strides to accomplish their goals.
Participate in National Cybersecurity Awareness Month this October!
Every October, Information Assurance (IA) leads a celebration of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) by hosting events, sharing tips, and reminding everyone of our shared responsibility to protect and secure university and personal systems and the sensitive information they contain. NCSAM is spearheaded by the National Cyber Security Alliance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This year,… Read More »
It’s a wrap! Campus WiFi Upgrade and WiFi on the Diag are complete
On Friday, September 7, 2018, ITS held a ribbon cutting ceremony on the steps of Hatcher Graduate Library, in the iconic central Diag, to mark the completion of two projects: the Campus WiFi Upgrade Project and WiFi on the Diag. The event began with remarks from Vice President of Information Technology and CIO, Ravi Pendse. Pendse reviewed the… Read More »
U-M hosts hackathon to lead development of next gen learning analytics platform
On August 2-3, U-M hosted eight of our peer institutions from the Unizin consortium, as well as developers from Google, to participate in a hackathon using the newly developed Unizin Data Platform (UDP). The UDP is a cloud-based, learning analytics infrastructure that commonly models behavioral, performance, and demographic dimensions of teaching and learning data. Participants used a representational… Read More »
Virtual visits provide patients with care from the comfort of their homes
This wasn’t how Terri wanted to spend her weekend. It was Friday night when she first started noticing signs of a urinary tract infection. She had a busy schedule, and now this recurring condition was threatening to derail her plans. Hoping for quick relief, Terri signed into MyUofMHealth.org and initiated an eVisit by answering a series of questions… Read More »
Digital accessibility team to introduce new SPG, tools, & training
Accessibility is a priority at the University of Michigan and in Information and Technology Services (ITS). Becoming more accessible as an institution will mean a fundamental shift in approach to how we plan, design, develop, create, and instruct.
Q&A with Ravi Pendse
Read about Ravi’s initial priorities and his belief that Michigan IT staff are critical in supporting U-M’s core competencies—creating, sharing, and preserving knowledge.
Beyond the classroom: ISS has deep roots in the Ann Arbor community
LSA Instructional Support Services has a professional staff of 53 full-time employees that strives to provide exceptional and professional support for the integration of new technologies, methods, and content into courses across LSA. ISS is also responsible for the audio/visual, computing, and technology needs of all of LSA’s classrooms, auditoriums, and event spaces, as well as most of… Read More »
MiVideo supports collaborative research at U-M
Have you ever wondered how to efficiently manage and and share a collection of more than 15,000 research videos? “With MiVideo, of course!” says Melinda Kraft, ITS Teaching and Learning service manager. MiVideo is the university’s streaming media service, powered by Kaltura, and is approved for use with certain types of sensitive data. “It’s a great option for… Read More »
Role & access management: A smarter way to grant access
The Role and Access Management Project selected and began to create a tool to improve how access is granted and revoked at U-M. The tool is designed to accelerate start-up time for new employees, improve data security, replace some manual processes, increase the ability to track and report on access, and simply make it easier for authorized individuals to access the right U-M resources when they need them.
HITS uses data to improve customer service and communication
Each year, HITS receives more than 265,000 service tickets from the Michigan Medicine community requesting help with password resets, new device orders, video conferencing, software installations, and much more. Until recently, tickets were collected in two systems, making it difficult for HITS to obtain a holistic view of the types of requests coming in and to use that… Read More »
Shared threat intelligence saves the day
A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack took down a residence hall network switch at the University of Maryland (UMD) over spring break 2018, but it could have been a lot worse without the collaborative threat information sharing partnership of U-M and other universities. 90% of attack traffic blocked “If we hadn’t been using our shared threat intelligence,… Read More »
Arbor Lakes: A longstanding hub of tech innovation
Long before Arbor Lakes became the residence of U-M Information and Technology Services and Health Information Technology and Services, it was owned by Manufacturing Data Systems, Inc. (MDSI), a pioneer of computer-aided manufacturing. On Friday, June 15, 2018, MDSI returned to Arbor Lakes for their 50-year reunion. For co-founders Charles (Chuck) Hutchins (U-M class of ’57), Ken Stephanz,… Read More »
Call for proposals for the 2018 Michigan IT Symposium
How does your work move U-M forward in its mission to provide world-class teaching, research, and patient care? How is your work changing with the evolution of technology? Showcase your most innovative, IT-related project, service, or process improvement at the fifth annual Michigan IT Symposium, November 28 & 29, 2018 Submit your application before August 10. Important dates… Read More »
Profiles in IT: Melissa Thurber—project manager, customer advocate
Melissa Thurber, was recently interviewed about her work on the Software Delivery Team. The Health Information Technology & Services (HITS) project manager began her career in IT working in the digital marketing space. Thurber understands what customers are looking for, making her contributions to healthcare IT all the more impactful. Tell us about your role and responsibilities. I… Read More »
Export Controls CoP expands to address CUI
A new Community of Practice (CoP) group has been established to address the challenges U-M programs, faculty, students, and employees may face with the federal government’s Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) program. The new U-M CUI CoP has evolved from the Export Controls CoP, which now falls under the umbrella of the CUI CoP. U-M, like all research universities,… Read More »
ITS launches the Cloud Infrastructure Transformation Program
We all have read plenty of stories about organizations moving their systems and applications to the cloud. Many individuals and units at U-M have made their own forays into the cloud, and it’s now time for ITS to provide a way to facilitate the university’s use of cloud services. In March, 2018 ITS formed the ITS Cloud Infrastructure… Read More »
U-M preparing for GDPR
A cross-university working group has been working for months to prepare U-M for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which goes into effect on May 25. To date, these efforts have included developing a risk-based GDPR compliance strategy, making important decisions regarding key requirements of the regulation, developing key GDPR processes and tools, and making recommendations for an… Read More »
Charting a course: ITS Cloud Decision Framework & Application Roadmapping Project (CFAR)
ITS has embarked on a journey to determine which of the hundreds of applications that we manage should be candidates for migration to the cloud. Unlike other institutions, U-M is not being driven to these decisions by a need to free up data center space, or many of the drivers currently faced by other universities. We have the… Read More »