Increasingly specific social distancing questions are weighing on states and municipalities as they inch toward relaxing COVID-19 restrictions. Now, a team of computer science and medical researchers based at U-M is working on a tool that could provide more precise answers. The team is mashing up census data, virus transmission rates, and decades of social science research to… Read More »
U-M leaders, alumni, notables join in pandemic-altered virtual party Congratulatory video messages and other virtual activities replaced traditional commencement ceremonies as the University of Michigan community celebrated the Class of 2020 online amid the coronavirus pandemic. President Mark Schlissel, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, university deans, notable alumni and many others were part of a daylong online… Read More »
When President Mark Schlissel announced last month that the balance of the winter semester would be conducted in alternate, virtual forms as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, all university units were quick to respond. Information and Technology Services had been actively preparing for such a situation for almost a month, in partnership with university leadership and IT leaders… Read More »
ITS Teaching & Learning is hosting a series of live Canvas workshops called “Teaching Online with Canvas Workshops: From Good to Great.” Sessions are held daily at noon. Topics will change based on need and interest. Please share this information with faculty and staff in your units who might be interested. Visit the Canvas training page to register. All sessions are… Read More »
On March 9, Michigan Medicine treated its first COVID-19 patient, one of two in the state, prompting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to mandate that non-essential workers “Stay Home and Stay Safe.” To Michigan Medicine ambulatory care clinics, this meant deferring all in-person, non-critical appointments and elective surgeries, creating a backlog of appointments that pushed virtual care to the forefront.… Read More »
The Collabrify Roadmap Platform, a set of free, customizable digital learning tools developed by the Center for Digital Curricula at the College of Engineering, provides K-12 teachers with scheduling templates that can be customized to include all the activities that would normally take place in their classrooms. Created last summer as a supplemental tool to make educational resources… Read More »
Technology professionals do their best every day to deliver reliable and innovative services to faculty, students, and staff. Sometimes they work on their own, sometimes as a team, and often in collaboration with other campus IT units. The LSA Technology Services team rose to new heights in response to changes in the last half of March, from the… Read More »
A COVID-era redesign of a long-running computer science undergraduate course will put up to 120 U-M computer science and engineering students to work designing software to tackle problems related to the crisis during the 2020 spring/summer semester. Computer science and engineering lecturer David Chesney has run the class for years as an in-person offering called “Software for Accessibility.”… Read More »
In light of the coronavirus outbreak, U-M summer student orientation, which is mandatory for all first-year and transfer students, is moving online. The switch to online orientation will affect the ability of students to visit campus and meet other students. Ann Hower, director of the Office of New Student Programs, said the office is preparing intensively to provide an excellent experience… Read More »
Like so many across campus, including the Ross School of Business, the priority was the safety and well-being of their faculty, students, and staff, followed by their academic mission. Using those principles as a guide, the Ross IT team sprang into action to ensure that their community had the tools they needed to successfully continue teaching and learning. … Read More »
Amid a growing coronavirus crisis, experts in all fields have begun compiling massive datasets to track the impact of the contagion. To make constructing these datasets as accurate and timely as possible, Michael Cafarella, professor of computer science and engineering, is leading an NSF-funded project that will build high-quality auxiliary datasets to enable automatic quality checking and fraud… Read More »
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world around us and is affecting our health, our economy, our social interactions, and so much more. Faculty and students affiliated with the AI Lab in Computer Science and Engineering have partnered with clinicians and experts from other disciplines to bring their expertise to assist with the outbreak and to help find… Read More »
The AV Technology community of practice united to support Michigan Medicine as HITS outfitted a potential field hospital with AV equipment. While the need for the field hospital is evolving, the experience demonstrates that relationships are being strengthened across Michigan IT.
With advanced computer vision models and live public street cam video, a U-M startup is tracking social distancing behaviors in real time at some of the most visited places in the world. Voxel51’s new tool uses the company’s existing platform and underlying custom AI to continuously track vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian traffic at seven locations around the world, and… Read More »
As universities around the country transitioned to online instruction, faculty and staff members had to quickly change how they teach and work. The shift has been filled with challenges, but also new opportunities. The University Record recently featured stories about how four faculty made the quick transition to remote teaching: Ginger Shultz’s chemistry students would no longer have… Read More »
As U-M has shifted to offering classes, programs, and events in alternative and virtual formats, Michigan IT has risen to the challenge by enabling and supporting the most cutting-edge conferencing services available.
Dearborn Information Technology Services began an all-hands exercise in response to the changing landscape of COVID-19 the week of March 9. We had two main concerns when the possibility of the campus going completely remote was looking like it was going to become a reality. The first challenge was keeping the Service Desk running so we could accept… Read More »
In-copyright books in the U-M library collection are now fully searchable and readable online via the HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service. This service, which was turned on early this week for all authenticated U-M affiliates, makes fully 60% of the library’s physical book collection searchable and readable online on a temporary basis during the COVID-19 crisis. The HathiTrust website offers information about… Read More »
COVID-19 turned all of our personal and professional lives upside down. For Michigan Medicine, the HITS team has proved they are up to the challenge, coming together to solve problems, support customers, launch ingenious solutions, and take care of one another. Innovative service In the first two weeks of remote work, the Service Desk fielded over 4,000 telework… Read More »
If organizations are learning one thing in this time of coronavirus, it’s that necessity remains the mother of not just invention but also innovation. U-M’s Mary A. Rackham Institute (MARI) has been quick to adopt technological tools amidst coronavirus chaos. MARI, an organization that provides mental health, testing, and language and literacy services to the U-M community as… Read More »