The U-M ITS/Information Quest Team (IQ) is hosting the 16th Annual HEDW 2019 Conference right here in Ann Arbor, April 14-17, 2019, at the Ann Arbor Sheraton on Boardwalk. The Higher Education Data Warehousing Forum (HEDW) is a community of higher education representatives dedicated to sharing knowledge about data management, best practices, data warehousing designs, institutional reporting strategies,… Read More »
U-M is full of rich core resources, but they are often challenging to find. The new Michigan Research Cores web portal enables researchers to easily find and identify the location and capabilities of 70 research cores across campus. Cores are centralized facilities or labs that offer services, equipment, resources and expertise on a recharge basis to scientific researchers.… Read More »
From understanding the influence of congressional members’ Twitter accounts to discussing why the global crude oil price rose again after 2016, the second annual Data for Public Good Symposium will showcase the unique ways in which students, faculty, staff and community members have analyzed and assessed data to benefit others. The conference takes place 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Feb.… Read More »
MiDAS, an algorithm-based administration and fraud collection system implemented by the state of Michigan, ran without human intervention between 2013 and 2015. During that time, it accused about 50,000 Michiganders of unemployment fraud. A 2017 review by the state found that more than 90 percent of those accusations were false. A growing number of people have been harmed… Read More »
In September, 2018, the university completed the move of more than 20 million museum specimens from its zoology, paleontology, and anthropology collections to a state-of-the-art collections and research facility on Varsity Drive. Not as well known, however, is that a second large move was occurring at the same time—this one digital. LSA Technology Services team members John Torgersen… Read More »
Official medical records are protected by strict privacy laws. But everyone who wears a fitness tracker, uses a health app, shops online, searches the internet for health information, or posts about their health creates a “shadow record” of that data. A team led by U-M researchers Nicholson Price and Kayte Spector-Bagdady reviewed current laws and regulations surrounding these… Read More »
Cue the love+data puns. The Office of Academic Innovation invites the U-M community to the first Academic Innovation Data Showcase on February 14.
The ITS Learning Analytics & Data Services team is happy to share its year-end report (PDF) with the Michigan IT Community. LAADS achieved several milestones in 2018: Delivered the initial phase of the Unizin Data Platform Piloted My Learning Analytics in collaboration with faculty from the School of Information and School of Education Data Concierge services fulfilled 15… Read More »
Beginning in January of 2019, Consulting for Statistics, Computing and Analytics Research (CSCAR) will offer most of its workshops free of charge to U-M students, faculty, and staff. CSCAR is able to do this thanks to funding from U-M’s Data Science Initiative. Registration for workshops is still required, and seats are limited. CSCAR requests that participants please cancel their… Read More »
A cross-campus collaboration that moved UM-Dearborn to UM-Ann Arbor ITS’s MiBackup system has resulted in significant cost savings, increased efficiency, and reduced work effort. At the end of 2017, Dearborn’s primary server backup system had reached capacity. After consulting with Ann Arbor ITS, Dearborn ITS created a plan to migrate its failing backups over to the MiBackup service… Read More »
The emerging field of genomic analysis is on the cusp of revolutionizing the understanding of diseases and the methods for their treatment and prevention. However, current DNA analysis is restricted to using limited data due to the large time and cost for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), restricting progress. As biochemical sequencing is getting faster and cheaper, the bottleneck… Read More »
ITS Teaching and learning (T&L) is partnering with the School of Information (SI) and the School of Education (SOE) to develop learning analytics tools aimed at improving student performance. Equipped with evidence from past learning dashboard efforts, research faculty and graduate students in SI and SOE have been working with development staff from T&L on designing —and then… Read More »
The launch of a new research collaboration and a data center at the University of Michigan marks the start of a unique collaboration between U-M, Michigan State University, the Michigan Department of Education and the Center for Educational Performance and Information. The new Michigan Education Research Institute and Michigan Education Data Center will facilitate research projects in education,… Read More »
The Higher Education Data Warehousing Forum (HEDW) is a network of higher education representatives dedicated to sharing knowledge about data management, best practices, data warehousing designs, institutional reporting strategies and more. HEDW is now accepting proposals for the upcoming 2019 conference. To submit your proposal, please follow the link below. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2018.… Read More »
Academic Reporting Tools (ART 2.0) serve the U-M community by exposing historical academic data including information about courses, instructors, and majors. ART 2.0 is a data visualization tool that will assist decision makers in accessing and analyzing U-M course and academic program data to help administration, faculty, and students make more informed decisions. In service of meeting this objective, ART… Read More »
Vaccinations, early detection, and new cures have led to incredible medical breakthroughs over the past several decades. Today, advancements in precision health, wearable technology, genetic sequencing, and big data analytics promise to reshape modern medicine even further. A critical, yet often overlooked factor in the advancement of healthcare is the underlying health IT infrastructure. As Michigan Medicine faces… Read More »
Recently, ARC-TS and the School of Information used the new Big Data platform Cavium ThunderX to reduce run times of the school’s analytics pipeline by a factor of 10, taking overall run time from almost a week to only a few hours. Cavium ThunderX is a free-to-use Big Data platform for researchers at U-M. Currently ThunderX supports mapreduce, Spark,… Read More »
Advanced Research Computing – Technology Services (ARC-TS) is seeking pilot users for two new research services. The first, Locker, is group project storage focused on large data sets, and is available at a cost less than half that of current primary storage services. Locker still provides encryption, replication, snapshots, and workstation access. Example use cases for Locker are research… Read More »
Last month, the Medical School Office of Research launched Michigan Research Experts, a searchable, web-based database of research expertise designed for U-M and developed to foster collaboration. Several HITS teams worked for months with the Office of Research and a new vendor in support of the effort. HITS lent its expertise in the integration of thirteen databases to create a more powerful… Read More »
Ever needed higher-resolution aerial imagery than Google or ArcGIS basemaps offer? Or, more frequent historical imagery? Nearmap, for which the Library recently renewed university-wide access, meets both those goals for developed areas of the U.S. (Rural areas are not covered by this service.) Nearmap imagery has a resolution of less than 7.5cm (or <3-inches), as compared to the… Read More »