Category Archives: Top Stories

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Former Pres. Ilves talks cybersecurity, restarting banking system, and farming during Distinguished Lecture Series

Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has planted more than 19,000 trees on his family farm that dates back to the early 1700s. He’s also helped reboot the banking system after a Russian cyber attack on the country he was leading at the time.  “The first thing you must understand is – this was a DDOS attack, servers… Read More »

Message from the VPIT-CIO

By | September 7, 2022

The energy on the U-M campus in September is hard to miss. Welcoming students back on campus is a joy and a privilege, and something I am particularly grateful for following the shift online early in the pandemic. I encourage you to pause and reflect on the hard work that you and your colleagues put in to prepare our campuses for a successful fall semester. This is no small feat that we collectively accomplish each year.

You’re invited to the Leadership in Technology: Distinguished Lecture Series

Join Dr. Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at U-M, for a conversation with Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia from 2006-16. The conversation will cover the intersection of technology and government, cybersecurity, and more — President Ilves was in office when Estonia was a victim of a massive cyber-attack, believed to have originated in Russia, in 2007.

New Canvas App Explorer tool helps faculty get the most from Canvas

By | September 6, 2022

In the several years since Canvas became the university’s primary learning platform, the ITS Teaching & Learning team has leveraged Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), a standard that allows courseware and learning tools from different vendors to be launched within a learning platform, like Canvas. LTIs make available to Canvas users a significant number of external tools that can be… Read More »

The history and future of the MCommunity Directory

Released over ten years ago, MCommunity recently went through a remarkable transformation! The MCommunity Directory replaced the legacy U-M Online Directory (UMOD) in the summer of 2011. A major driver for the replacement was that UMOD did not support authentication and managing access to U-M resources based on who is affiliated with the university and in what capacity.… Read More »

STAC FY22 progress report 

The Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) helps shape the strategic direction for technology services and projects across U-M by providing strategic advice to the VPIT-CIO and sharing information across the U-M IT community. Here are their achievements so far. ITS Executive Directors and STAC Core Positive direction for improving communications and partnership when rolling out new services, including service catalog. Adjustments to… Read More »

Schedule Displays now available through the Tech Shop

Schedule Displays are now available for order through the Tech Shop. Schedule Displays are small, interactive touch panels that allow users to see what meetings are coming up in a specific space. These Schedule Displays are compact and simple to install. Licensing is covered at no additional cost. All you need to do is purchase the display and… Read More »

Hacks with Friends 2022 Recap

Fourteen teams of creative and technology-minded staff members from across U-M collaborated in person and online at the eighth annual Hacks With Friends (HWF). The event, which took place on June 2 and 3, 2022, was the first in-person Michigan IT event to take place since HWF 2020, which was held just prior to the pandemic. 

Save the date: Michigan IT Symposium is November 16-17

Join technology professionals across the Michigan IT community for the 2022 Michigan IT Symposium on November 16 and 17. This annual event creates connections between community members and showcases the innovation occurring across U-M’s campuses. This year’s event will be focused on how technology helps shape the future of learning, research, and care.

Denodo at U-M received an upgrade on July 9, 2022

On July 9, 2022, Denodo at U-M was upgraded from version 7 to version 8. Denodo at U-M is a data virtualization tool that can connect to a wide variety of data sources—relational databases, APIs, spreadsheets, websites, flat files, document databases, etc.—and combine, aggregate, filter, and join the data to create easy to understand views. When these views… Read More »

Callaghan is new STAC chair

The Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) helps shape the strategic direction for technology services and projects across U-M by providing strategic advice to the VPIT-CIO and sharing information across the U-M IT community. STAC recently completed their annual charter review and elected new officers. On June 21, STAC leadership held their annual business meeting and elected new officers and reviewed and approved the… Read More »

U-M first in nation to offer WiFi 6E; universitywide accomplishment is an investment in the future

The University of Michigan is the first university in the nation to offer WiFi 6E to students, faculty, staff, and campus visitors on the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses. Learn how the WiFi Upgrade Project team replaced more than 16,000 wireless access points (APs) in over 225 indoor and outdoor locations despite a global chip shortage and supply chain disruptions.

Message from the VPIT-CIO

By | June 10, 2022

Congratulations to this year’s Hacks with Friends participants! The event was an exceptional showcase of our community’s outstanding creativity and innovation. We have many opportunities to stay connected with colleagues throughout the year by joining one of nearly 30 Michigan IT Communities of Practice.