Information Technology at Indiana University: News In Focus

IDS: IU begins switch to Umail

The Indiana Daily Student reports on the migration of all undergraduate student email accounts to Google-powered Umail for those who have not yet voluntarily moved their account to either Umail or Microsoft-powered Imail. Charles Rondot, manager for university communications for UITS, comments in the story. Both systems offer expanded services and an IU email address for life.
-- Posted 6 November 2009

VP Wheeler on Inside INdiana Business

Now that IU's new Data Center has been formally dedicated, IU VP for IT Brad Wheeler will appear on Inside INdiana Business this weekend to discuss its role as part of a much bigger technology push.
-- Posted 6 November 2009

Dedication of the new Data Center

Evoking IU's late president Myles Brand as one of the first to "clearly see the emerging importance of information technology for higher education," IU President Michael McRobbie formally dedicated IU's new $32.7 million Data Center. The facility protects such assets as the supercomputers Big Red and Quarry and the Bloomington hub of Indiana's statewide I-Light network. Watch the archived video of the dedication. Also: IU VP for IT Brad Wheeler will appear on Inside INdiana Business this weekend.
-- Updated 6 November 2009

IU Data Center dedication ceremony live stream

Can't make the dedication ceremony? Watch the live stream.
-- Posted 5 November 2009

Video about the new Data Center

Watch a video documenting the construction, move-in, and statistics of the new IU Data Center -- Bloomington. Produced by the Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University.
-- Posted 5 November 2009

Online H1N1 vaccine reservations

A web site for IU Bloomington students and employees to reserve a free H1N1 flu shot will be up and running Friday (Nov. 6). IU has yet to receive any H1N1 vaccine but those making reservations will be the first to receive it. IU employees and students currently eligible to make reservations are pregnant women, households with children younger than six months of age, students and employees through age 24, health care and emergency medical services personnel, and people 25-64 with a chronic medical condition that creates a higher risk for complications.
-- Posted 5 November 2009

Innovation Center to be dedicated Nov. 9

The Indiana University Innovation Center, a new $10 million home to the Pervasive Technology Institute, university researchers, and private start-up companies, will be formally dedicated Nov. 9 by IU President McRobbie. The facility is a key component of the President's Innovate Indiana initiative. Pervasive Technology Institute is home to three research centers: the Digital Science Center, the Data to Insight Center, and the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.
-- Posted 5 November 2009

Nov. 18: Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom to keynote GIS Day

From environmental research to market tracking, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and mapping technologies impact countless public and private enterprises. On November 18, IU will celebrate GIS Day to show how geography and GIS technologies make a difference in our lives.
-- Posted 4 November 2009

IU iPhone conference

With a substantial increase in iPhones and mobile applications on campus, the IU community is more connected than ever. The upcoming iPhone conference invites students, faculty, and staff to get more out of Apple's developer tools for Mac and iPhone: Saturday, November 14, 9am-3pm; IMU Alumni Hall and Solarium, IU Bloomington. Conference attendees will get an overview of the technologies available for iPhone web applications and benefit from other developers' experiences creating iPhone applications that are visually compelling and simple to use.
-- Posted 4 November 2009

Kuali Financial System 3.0 & Kuali Rice 1.0.1 now available

The Kuali Foundation has released the Kuali Financial System (KFS) 3.0 and Kuali Rice 1.0.1. These releases represent the culmination of many years of collaborative work among higher education institutions to build a financial system that meets their collective needs. Indiana University is a founding Kuali partner.
-- Posted 4 November 2009

IUPUI Music and Arts Technology recital

The Dept. of Music and Arts Technology at IUPUI will hold its graduate student recital this month, titled “The Colors of Music”: Monday, Nov. 30, 7:30pm; ICTC 152, 535 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis. Free and open to the public, the recital will include performances by 17 graduate students in the masters of music technology program on the IUPUI campus. The Master of Science in Music Technology program brings new and emerging digital arts technology to students as they relate to a new discipline defined as music technology.
-- Posted 4 November 2009

Minority Engineering Advancement Program

Working with the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute created this video about the important work going on in the school's Minority Engineering Advancement Program. The program looks to engage and excite young students in the area of technology advancement.
-- Posted 4 November 2009

IU IT communicators win SIGUCCS awards

IU's IT communicators won a Best of Category award and four Awards of Excellence at the 2009 Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The SIGUCCS awards go to leaders in the field of IT communication in higher education. Several of IU's Awards of Excellence went to campaigns and products focused on communicating to students about IT, a goal outlined in the latest IU IT strategic plan, Empowering People.
-- Posted 3 November 2009

Sterling to be inaugural speaker for Peebles Lectures in IT

Dr. Thomas Sterling, renowned professor of computer science at Louisiana State University, will present the inaugural lecture in IU's Peebles Lectures in Information Technology series on November 10. All interested parties are invited to attend. Sterling is best known as the father of the Beowulf cluster and for his work on petascale computing. The Peebles Lecture series is a joint effort of the IU Office of the VP for IT and CIO, Pervasive Technology Institute, and University Information Technology Services.
-- Posted 2 November 2009

$32.7 million IU Data Center to be unveiled

The Indiana University Data Center, a $32.7 million facility designed to ensure the safety and security of IU's most prized networking, computer processing, and data storage equipment, will be formally dedicated on Thursday, Nov. 5, with a ceremony that will include remarks by IU President Michael McRobbie. The public event will take place at 3:30 p.m. at the Data Center, located at 2737 E. 10th St. in Bloomington. A reception and tours will immediately follow the ceremony.
-- Posted 2 November 2009

Chronicle: IU to try "crowdsourcing"

IU AVP for Support Sue Workman discusses the idea of adding crowdsourcing to IU's support arsenal in this column by Jeffrey R. Young in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Crowdsourcing in this context would allow IU computer users to answer each others' support questions in addition to support professionals. Young also goes into greater depth in his column about the whole notion of crowdsourcing and its value.
-- Posted 2 November 2009

Provisioning Above-Campus IT Services: Supply and Demand

This online-only EDUCAUSE Review article supplements the print and online article "Above-Campus Services: Shaping the Promise of Cloud Computing for Higher Education," by IU VP for IT Brad Wheeler and Shelton Waggener, associate vice chancellor for IT at UC Berkeley. They describe three supply-side models of cloud computing and what they mean for individual and institutional consumers.
-- Posted 30 October 2009

Above-Campus Services: Shaping the Promise of Cloud Computing for Higher Education

In this EDUCAUSE Review article, IU VP for IT Brad Wheeler and Shelton Waggener, associate vice chancellor for IT at UC Berkeley, describe the idea of "above-campus services" as a better way to frame IT service aggregation (cloud computing) for higher education -- that efficiency in IT services can best be achieved "at a higher level of aggregation, beyond a single institution." Offering three models for aggregating IT services, they argue that campus leaders should embrace a consortium sourcing model (e.g., Kuali, Sakai, HathiTrust) where institutions are both the means of supply and the source of demand.
-- Posted 30 October 2009

Nov. 14: IU iPhone conference

Learn how to get started with Apple’s developer tools for Mac and iPhone. Get an overview of the technologies available for iPhone web applications and consult with other iPhone developers to make your iPhone application visually compelling and simple to use: Saturday, November 14, 9am-3pm; IMU Alumni Hall and Solarium, IU Bloomington. Free for IU students, faculty, and staff; all others only $20.
-- Posted 28 October 2009

IU to help create Facebook for scientists

IU has received more than $1.8M from the National Institutes of Health to collaborate on a $12.2M, seven-university project designed to network researchers around the country. While the proposed new networking system will contain authentication mechanisms to protect sensitive data and intellectual property, it is being described as a Facebook for scientists. IU's portion of the project is led by Katy Börner, Victor H. Yngve Professor of Information Science and director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at IU. Co-investigators with Börner at IU are Ying Ding, an assistant professor of Information Science, and Robert McDonald, associate dean for library technologies at IU and associate director for the Data to Insight Center at the Pervasive Technology Institute.
-- Posted 26 October 2009

HathiTrust launching full-text library of books

Information Today reports that by mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. IU was among the 12-university consortium known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and the 11 university libraries of the University of California system that jointly launched the HathiTrust.
-- Posted 22 October 2009

IMU computers now available 24/7

The Indiana Daily Student reports on IU's decision to keep parts of the Indiana Memorial Union on the Bloomington campus open 24/7. A main factor was to keep the new Student Technology Center available to students 24/7 like the Information Commons in the Wells Library. Students must be able to show a valid IU ID during the hours of 2am to 6am.
-- Posted 22 October 2009

IU partners in Facebook for scientists

The National Institutes of Health have awarded the University of Florida -- with Cornell University Library and Indiana University as major partners -- a two-year, $12.2M grant to bolster a national, Facebook-like, professional social network that enables scientists to find new biomedical research and partnerships more easily and quickly. The new network will be called VIVOweb which will be designed to make biomedical research and discovery move faster. IU's part will be to develop social networking tools to enable researchers to find others with similar interests. See also San Francisco Chronicle.
-- Posted 22 October 2009

Herring discusses Google Wave

IU School of Library and Information Science Professor Susan Herring discusses Google Wave in a recent article in the New Scientist. Google Wave is billed as a real-time communication and collaboration system. Herring comments on the possible advantages of Google Wave over traditional email. Herring researches the convergence of computer communication platforms at IU.
-- Posted 21 October 2009

Regenstrief investigators conquer emergency services

Regenstrief Institute investigators are the first in the nation to link emergency medical services providers (emergency medical technicians or paramedics) in the field to patients' preexisting health information, a link enabling the emergency workers to make more informed treatment decisions and to transport patients to the most appropriate facility.
-- Posted 20 October 2009

IU to develop GENI experimental network tools

Researchers are working on new models of computer networks that may someday replace the Internet, and researchers at IU have been awarded a $484,485 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop tools to ensure that detailed network conditions can be measured for research. A collaborative team from IU will lead the effort to provide essential tools related to the history and authenticity of an experiment's data set (called "provenance") for the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) computer network.
-- Posted 20 October 2009

Northeast Indiana Innovation Center to grow

The Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette reports on the expansion of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and other colleges partner with the center to attract high-tech companies to Fort Wayne. It features a business incubator called the Emerging Growth Center.
-- Posted 20 October 2009

IUSB Media Commons opens

The South Bend Tribune reports on the opening of IU South Bend's new Media Commons and Café in the Schurz Library. The space features several IT capabilities such as a multimedia production studio, three media viewing stations, and wireless access, along with a renovated circulation and interlibrary loan area, coffee bar, and other amenities. The new media commons is across the library lobby from the information commons that opened two years ago.
-- Posted 20 October 2009

Making IT a Key Part of the Campus Sustainability Effort

In this EDUCAUSE Quarterly article, IU's Dennis Cromwell, Kristin Hanks, and Sarah Engel address the problem of energy consumption on campus and how IT can contribute to a sustainability solution by contributing to overall energy reduction. They describe how IU's University Information Technology Services is playing a large and growing role in IU’s sustainability initiatives that started with Hanks, a PhD candidate at the IU School of Informatics and Computing who also served as a campus student intern. Cromwell is associate vice president, Enterprise Infrastructure; Engel is a communications specialist in the Communication and Support Division.
-- Posted 19 October 2009

IU physician receives national award for use of IT

Stephen M. Downs, M.D., M.S., IU School of Medicine associate professor of pediatrics and a Regenstrief Institute affiliated scientist, will receive the Byron B. Oberst Award from the American Association of Pediatrics at its Oct. 17- 20 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Each year, the Oberst Award recognizes a pediatrician who has made outstanding contributions to the use of health information technology in pediatrics.
-- Posted 16 October 2009

WTHR: IU research predicts early H1N1 flu peak

WTHR cites the research of the H1N1 prediction team in the IU School of Informatics in a story about vaccinations. According to Alessandro Vespignani, who is quoted in the story, the IU team is predicting a peak outbreak earlier than most immunizations will be available. The research is led by Vespignani, director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research at IU's Pervasive Technology Institute.
-- Posted 16 October 2009

Tracking Devious Phishing Websites

The MIT Technology Review reports on the work of IU IT researchers into how fraudulent web sites are using a trick called "flux" to keep their phishing scams from being easily detected -- and subsequently blocked. The Review reports that IU researchers Andrew Kalafut, Youngsang Shin, and Minaxi Gupta found that 83 percent of phishing sites that used flux lasted more than a day before being blocked. Flux takes advantage of the Internet's domain name system to direct visitors to different sets of machines that phishers control through botnets.
-- Posted 16 October 2009

H-T: IU ranks among top Twitter users

The Bloomington Herald-Times reports that IU ranks among the nation’s leaders in its use of the social networking service Twitter. From data collected during September 2009, UniversitiesAndColleges.org has determined that IU Bloomington is in the top 10 among colleges and universities in Twitter accounts, followers, and tweets. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. The study was limited to accounts officially affiliated with university administrations. For a growing list of IU-affiliated Twitter accounts for all campuses, see twitter.iu.edu.
-- Posted 16 October 2009

TILE grant will bring documents, knowledge together

Backed by $400,000 just awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, John Walsh, an assistant professor in IU's School of Library and Information Science, will collaborate with peers from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and the Digital Humanities Observatory in Belfast, Ireland, to develop a new technical infrastructure designed to unleash all of the knowledge connected to individual images and documents.
-- Posted 15 October 2009

IU among top college tweeters

From data collected during September 2009, UniversitiesAndColleges.org has determined that IU Bloomington is in the top 10 among colleges and universities in Twitter accounts, followers, and tweets. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. The study was limited to accounts officially affiliated with university administrations. For a growing list of IU-affiliated Twitter accounts for all campuses, see twitter.iu.edu.
-- Posted 15 October 2009

IDS: Sony to give free laptops, scholarships

The Indiana Daily Student reports on IU's selection for a new Sony scholarship program. Top students and faculty at IU will benefit from the selection of IU as a "First Wave" participant in a new Sony scholarship program. Sony Electronics, with the support of Intel, has invited IU as part of a select group of institutions, to participate in the program whereby select students and faculty are awarded grants that will provide the tools necessary to continue their academic excellence. See also IU selected for new Sony scholarship program.
-- Posted 15 October 2009

IU hits virtualization milestone

An Indiana University strategy that harnesses the power of information technology to save energy reached a milestone today when its infrastructure of virtual machines and servers topped 1,000. Information technology uses massive amounts of electricity, and virtualization is of growing interest as universities confront the triple concerns of sustainability, security, and space.
-- Posted 14 October 2009

NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing

As part of an effort to encourage more young women to choose computing careers, the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) is seeking applications from young women for its NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. Competition for the 2010 Award is open to any US high school-level female (grades 9-12). Applicants will have until November 15, 2009 to complete their applications. Indiana University is a member of NCWIT. See also IU Women in Informatics and Computing.
-- Posted 14 October 2009

IDS: Earth as Art contest: GIS Day 2009

The Indiana Daily Student reports that the IU Geographic Information Systems (GIS) community is hosting the 3rd annual Earth as Art contest in celebration of GIS Day, November 18. The contest encourages participants to create works of art based on satellite imagery, aerial photography, elevation data, infrared imagery, or map features from locations worldwide.
-- Posted 9 October 2009

Informatics at IUPUI launches new web site

The IU School of Informatics at IUPUI has launched a new interactive web site developed to better serve students, faculty, staff, and others, and to foster a clearer definition of informatics and its implications for the future. A featured element of the new web site is an animation that answers the question, "What is Informatics?"
-- Posted 7 October 2009

IU, Regenstrief awarded $4.8M to create center for health IT

Researchers from IU and the Regenstrief Institute, with its world-renowned medical informatics research group and regional health information exchange, have been awarded a $4.8 million grant by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create the Indiana Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics, one of only four such centers in the nation.
-- Posted 6 October 2009