Are you creating new MCommunity groups to help you collaborate and stay in touch with people while working or learning remotely? Group owners are responsible for ensuring that members of their group have a good experience. The MCommunity Directory includes options to help you do that. If you own a group, your responsibilities include: Having a clear purpose… Read More »
As more and more events go to a virtual platform, “virtual event fatigue” is also on the rise. Many groups have been either canceling or finding creative ways to deal with the burnout. One alternative conference getting a lot of attention right now Deserted Island DevOps. It’s using the popular video game called Animal Crossing to engage participants.… Read More »
I was recently asked how to add formatting to some of the text fields within the Google Forms editor. The fields do not include a visual editor nor do they accept HTML. How can you bold, italicize, or underline the text? Fortunately, there’s a workaround available. This tool is only one of many, but I like its simplicity.… Read More »
This month, I am sharing a few internet search services that focus on privacy. Yes, Google is a great way to find information on the internet. However, there are quite a few alternatives available that may produce similar/better results, do not store user data, provide identical results for all users (not personalized), and do not track you as… Read More »
The Digital Public Library of America displays over 36 million records. While a large share come from ‘Content Hubs’ like the Smithsonian or HathiTrust, there are still millions of records ingested from a wide range of smaller institutions across America. “The technologies we use to transform and validate XML records, like XSLT, are well-established and highly reliable, but software for… Read More »
This month, I am sharing information on some providers that have extended their services and are offering free upgrades to help users being impacted by COVID-19. As you know, each day is different and companies are doing their best to keep up with demand. This list only covers some services that I am currently aware of, so keep… Read More »
This month’s tip is a tool that I am using right now as I type this paragraph. It is LanguageTool, which I have installed as a browser extension, but it is also available for Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Android, as a desktop application, and more. The service is open source and can be used offline (the desktop app)… Read More »
Project Naptha is a useful Chrome extension that enables users to select, copy, edit, and even translate text that is included within an image. In my experience it works surprisingly well, especially since this kind of tool typically requires special software and conversions. Upon installing, the extension works in the background. If an image with text is displayed… Read More »
For a number of years, I have been looking for a good timeline creator. Unfortunately, most of the options I found were either outdated or looked rather bland. I recently discovered Office Timeline and so far it is quite promising. Full of features like online collaboration and Excel support, Office Timeline looks great and is easy-to-use. They offer… Read More »
Take a Five is a tool that I recently found (Although, it’s been around for a few years.) to help stay productive. As a fellow human, I occasionally need a break. However, it can also be easy to lose track of time while going down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles, YouTube videos, or social media feeds. This… Read More »
The three instructors worked with behavioral scientists, developers, and user experience designers from Academic Innovation to develop Tandem.
In a recent article for “Inside Higher Ed,” Perry Samson, professor of atmospheric science at U-M, suggests that digital transcribing tools might free students up to do more beneficial things with their time in class. “Just as speech-to-text technologies like Amazon Alexa or Google Home can answer your questions in the kitchen about the latest news and weather… Read More »
For this month’s Tech Tip, I am sharing a design tool that can come in handy while developing a presentation, designing a newsletter, creating graphics for a project, or making a visualization chart that displays your favorite data. Colors can be tricky and tools like Coolors make it much easier to know that they complement one another. You… Read More »
This month’s tip is a free, online service that enables you to schedule emails to yourself or others. FutureMe can remind you to do something, provide you with a quick confidence boost before a big presentation, be used as a diary, to make predictions on what the next iPhone is going to be named, or even to schedule… Read More »
Some of you may have heard folks from ITS talking about the “Where’s Our Data?” effort that spun up around seven months ago and probably wondered: What exactly does that mean? When our new VPIT-CIO Ravi Pendse arrived on campus last August, he spent several months listening to the U-M community about IT needs and asking questions. With… Read More »
CloudConvert is an easy-to-use online file conversion tool that has saved me time, frustration, and has eliminated the need to install more software on my computer. Sometimes you have a file that needs to be converted to another format. Perhaps it is an .mp3 audio file that you need in .wav format for video editing. Or maybe it… Read More »