Information Technology at Indiana University: News In Focus

Results of IU South Bend's electronic recycling

The fifth annual electronic recycling at IU South Bend took place Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 11. Electronics such as computer systems, computer accessories and televisions, were recycled free of charge. More than 375,000 pounds were collected, surpassing the goal of 250,000 pounds. In the last five years, more than 1 million pounds of electronic waste has been collected and diverted from landfills.
-- Posted 17 May 2013

IDS: Adobe's change to subscription model will affect IU

The Indiana Daily Student reached out to Bob Flynn of IU's IT Community Partnerships to ask about how Adobe's change to its Creative Cloud subscription platform will affect IU's students, faculty, and staff. IU AVP for Client Services and Support Sue Workman is working with Adobe to create a path forward for IU. Adobe is abandoning its Creative Suite in favor of the subscription-based model. CS6 will still be available at IU bookstores and supported by Adobe.
-- Posted 16 May 2013

edCetera: How IU is saving students money with digital textbooks

edCetera, an education technology blog, interviewed IU VP for IT and CIO Brad Wheeler in a post about eTexts adoption at IU. Wheeler has suggestions for other institutions considering adoption of electronic textbooks.
-- Posted 15 May 2013

InformationWeek: IU researchers use data feedback in flight to guide NASA's ambitious airborne survey of Earth's polar ice

InformationWeek interviews IU's Rich Knepper. NASA's Operation IceBridge mission wrapped up its spring flight season, gathering radar data about Earth's polar ice sheets to help scientists better understand global climate change. Experts from IU have once again played a key role in the mission's success. As the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice, the twice-yearly IceBridge missions generate massive amounts of data -- all stored and archived by IU's research cyberinfrastructure.
-- Posted 14 May 2013

Two IU student teams share $200K start-up investment as BEST contest winners

Teams of IU students who created a real-time interactive platform for sports fans and an Internet-based tuxedo rental business that provides online fittings have won IU Bloomington's BEST Competition. Each start-up company, founded by students from Kelley School of Business and the School of Informatics and Computing, will receive a $100,000 investment.
-- Posted 13 May 2013

IU recognized as 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate

IDG's Computerworld Honors Program recently named Indiana University as a 2013 Laureate. The annual award program honors visionary information technology applications that promote positive social, economic and educational change. IU earned the distinction for its pioneering eTexts initiative and recent wireless network upgrade to ensure reliable and secure access to digital materials.
-- Posted 8 May 2013

Kinsey, School of Informatics re-release app for anonymous reporting of sexual behaviors

IU has re-released the free Kinsey Reporter app, a global mobile survey platform for collecting and reporting anonymous data about sexual and other intimate behaviors. Kinsey Reporter allows citizen observers around the world to use free applications now available for Apple and Android mobile platforms to not only report on sexual behavior and experiences but to share, explore and visualize the accumulated data.
-- Posted 8 May 2013

IU innovations continue to help NASA manage big data

NASA's Operation IceBridge mission wraps up its spring flight season this week, gathering radar data about Earth's polar ice sheets to help scientists better understand global climate change. Experts from IU have once again played a key role in the mission's success. As the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice, the twice-yearly IceBridge missions generate massive amounts of data - all stored and archived by IU's research cyberinfrastructure.
-- Posted 2 May 2013

16 research teams splitting $1M in grants from OVPR

The IU Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) has awarded IU Collaborative Research Grants to 16 teams of faculty researchers. Now in its third year, the program will provide just over $1 million in seed funding to researchers from different departments, schools and campuses for transformative research projects that have a substantial chance of attracting future external funding.
-- Posted 1 May 2013

Watch archived video of the Big Red II dedication

IU confirmed its leadership in high performance, data-intensive computing by unveiling Big Red II, a powerful new supercomputer with a processing speed of one thousand trillion floating-point operations per second (one petaFLOPS). Big Red II replaces the original Big Red, installed in 2006. The new supercomputer, which is 25 times faster than its predecessor, will enable vital new research to be done and breakthroughs in fields ranging from medicine and physics to fine arts and global climate research. Additionally, it is expected to attract and help retain faculty whose work requires advanced data-processing power.
-- Posted 29 April 2013

IU scientists expect Big Red II will accelerate new discoveries, broader partnerships

Indiana University's new supercomputer is expected to further advance international collaborations reliant on big data research at a time when the globalization of education, science and research is omnipresent.
-- Posted 26 April 2013

IU raises bar in supercomputing power with dedication of Big Red II

VP Wheeler discusses Big Red II with Inside INdiana Business (video)

IU will dedicate its new supercomputer, Big Red II, on Friday, April 26. Offering unmatched speed, Big Red II will be the fastest university-owned supercomputer in the nation. IU President Michael A. McRobbie will lead the ceremony. Brad Wheeler, vice president for information technology and CIO, and Paul Messina, director of science for Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, will offer additional remarks. A reception, tours and demonstrations will follow the ceremony.
-- Posted 26 April 2013

Watch the Big Red II dedication today at 2pm via streaming video

Unprecedented licensing agreement to spark economic growth and discovery in health IT

IU's Regenstrief Institute, an international leader in electronic medical records and health information exchange research, development and operations, is licensing its Indiana Network for Patient Care and DOCS4DOCS clinical results delivery software to a subsidiary of the Indiana Health Information Exchange. This licensing agreement represents the single most significant transfer of discovery out of an academic medical informatics research setting to a commercial enterprise in the history of Indiana’s health information technology sector and the national evolution of health information exchange.
-- Posted 24 April 2013

IU and Internet2 announce $2M initiative to address public sector cyber threats

IU VP for IT and CIO Brad Wheeler and Internet2 President and CEO David Lambert today announced a $2 million initiative to stimulate collaboration in higher education cybersecurity efforts and to provide leadership on strategic cybersecurity issues nationally and globally. Speaking at the Internet2 Annual Meeting in Arlington, Virginia, Lambert and Wheeler invited the presidents and CIOs of other colleges and universities to join as investors and sponsors of this initiative.
-- Posted 24 April 2013

H-T: Scientists from India talk tech, science, with IU counterparts, business leaders (subscription)

The Bloomington Herald-Times reports on a group of five scientists visiting Indiana who are part of an International Visitor Leadership Program from the US Department of State. The scientists were in Bloomington learning about the area’s life sciences and technology sectors. One of the scientists is working with David Wild, the director of the cheminformatics program at the IU School of Informatics and Computing. Subscription required to access the article.
-- Posted 24 April 2013

Palakal receives distinguished service award from computing group

The Special Interest Group on Applied Computing has awarded Mathew Palakal, associate dean for graduate studies and research in the IU School of Informatics at IUPUI, its Distinguished Service Award for providing outstanding service to the organization’s annual Symposium on Applied Computing.
-- Posted 23 April 2013

IndyStar reports on Big Red II

The Indianapolis Star reports on IU's new supercomputer, Big Red II. IU will dedicate Big Red II on Friday, April 26 in a ceremony led by President Michael McRobbie. Big Red II will be the fastest university-owned supercomputer in the nation.
-- Posted 23 April 2013

IPFW hosts new tech showcase

Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) will host a showcase of projects from New Tech High Schools that demonstrate how high school students envision tomorrow’s technologies: Wednesday, April 24, 10am-noon; Walb Student Union International Ballroom (IPFW). The event is free and open to the public.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

IUN professor teaching app creation

IU Northwest Professor Ranjan Kini is introducing his students to software tools that enable them to create apps for handheld devices. Students are able to use the software without needing to know complex computer code. Kini's goal is to give them a competitive advantage in the workplace.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

IUK student presents his smartphone app at national conference

Andrew Boehner, an informatics student at IU Kokomo, combined his Android programming skills with his concern for his grandmother's safety to create a fall detection application for smartphones. Users of his app wear a watch programmed to send data to the smart phone if he or she falls. The phone then calls emergency responders for help.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

IUPUI Polis Center launches nontraditional GIS website for study of religion in America

A new digital tool developed by The Polis Center at IUPUI and two co-collaborators uses advanced geographic information systems technology to aid the study and teaching of American religious history. Researchers are invited to explore the Digital Atlas of American Religion, a new website for the study of America’s multi-dimensional religious life within a geographical and multimedia framework.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

New tools available to mine world's largest digital repository of books

This week the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) announced the availability of data mining and analytics tools for the HathiTrust Digital Library, a collection of digital texts from over 70 research libraries around the world. The new tools provide a much-needed entry point to large-scale analysis of HathiTrust's contents.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

IU receives TechPoint Mira Award for IUanyWare

The TechPoint Mira Awards recognized IU for IUanyWare, a cloud-based service that provides IU students, faculty and staff with on-demand access to over 200 software applications. The awards honor outstanding technology performers and contributors who benefit the state's economy. IU received the Technology in Education Excellence & Innovation Award.
-- Posted 22 April 2013

IU Southeast hosts Midwest Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Science Conference

The Computer Science Department at IU Southeast hosted the 24th Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (MAICS) Conference on April 13-14. The conference brought together graduate students, junior and senior faculty, and industry researchers to present and exchange ideas related to topics in artificial intelligence and cognitive science.
-- Posted 19 April 2013

HPCwire: Big Red II Colors New Page for Hybrid Systems

HPCwire reports on IU's new supercomputer, Big Red II, and interviews IU's Thomas Sterling, executive associate director of the Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies (CREST) and professor of computer science in the IU School of Informatics and Computing. Sterling discusses the plans for using Big Red II.
-- Posted 19 April 2013

IU saves nearly $20 million with open source financial system

The Kuali Financial System is open source software that was created to fit the needs of colleges and universities. By definition, open source software is free to use, distribute and modify, meaning IU avoids the costs of licensing expensive commercial systems that often cost tens of millions of dollars to buy and install. IU fully implemented and transitioned to the Kuali System in February.
-- Posted 18 April 2013

IU Southeast's roving library brings books to the people

The IU Southeast Library recently began its new “Roving Reference” initiative that sends librarians to various parts of campus with electronic tablets and allows students to ask research questions, reference questions, and look up books that are currently in the library -- all without setting foot inside the library building.
-- Posted 17 April 2013

IU cloud software service garners ACUTA Excellence award

IUanyWare, IU's cloud software service, is a 2013 recipient of ACUTA's prestigious Institutional Excellence award. ACUTA (the Association for Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education) is an international nonprofit dedicated to serving the needs of higher education, including nearly 2,000 individuals at some 700 institutions. With IUanyWare, IU students, faculty and staff have on-demand access to software and linked file storage on almost any device from wherever they need to work.
-- Posted 16 April 2013

IU Libraries digitization project creates rich repository of Hoosier authors

An IU Libraries project that will allow anyone to research Hoosier authors and their bibliographies online -- as well as access hundreds of digitized books -- is nearly complete. The website includes more than 7,000 author entries and nearly 21,000 book citations. It links directly to about 400 digitized copies of selected titles and allows users to search for remaining titles via external services like Google Books, WorldCat, Hathi Trust Digital Library and the Libraries' online catalog, IUCAT.
-- Posted 15 April 2013

IU networking experts launch NetTalk lecture series

IU shares its expertise in advanced networking with the launch of a new lecture series for state business and industry leaders. Hosted by IU's Indiana Center for Network Translational Research and Education (InCNTRE) and Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC), the IU NetTalk Series will kick off at 6 p.m. on May 7 in the ICTC building on the IUPUI campus.
-- Posted 11 April 2013

IUPUI computer scientist earns NSF CAREER Award for young investigators

Murat Dundar, assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at IUPUI, has earned the prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research ways to help computers actively adjust models and classify new data by enhancing machine learning technology.
-- Posted 9 April 2013

EDUCAUSE podcast: CIOs on Consumerization

In this EDUCAUSE podcast, IU VP for IT and CIO Brad Wheeler and CIO James Hilton discuss consumerization in the context of IT organizations in higher education.
-- Posted 3 April 2013

InsideHPC video: Thomas Sterling Presents: Towards the Exascale Target – the Arrow in Flight

Thomas Sterling, executive associate director of the Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies (CREST) and professor of computer science in the IU School of Informatics and Computing, presents "Towards the Exascale Target -- the Arrow in Flight" from the 2013 National HPCC Conference.
-- Posted 1 April 2013