The Dresher Center invites applications for new Faculty Working Groups in the Humanities. Faculty Working Groups are collaborative, interdisciplinary communities of scholars working on humanities projects, research concerns, or matters of public interest. The Dresher Center provides support for the formation and first-year activities of these groups in an effort to promote intellectual exchange and support research activities in the humanities among scholars across campus. Working groups meet regularly and may also use their funds to travel to sites or archives, host speakers, explore technologies, create new resources or materials, or other similar activities.

Faculty Working Groups can apply for up to $1,000 in annual support ($500 per semester) for their first-year activities. Priority will be given to groups with at least one member from a humanities department.

Deadlines for best consideration are November 1, 2015 for groups beginning in spring 2016 and April 1, 2016 for groups beginning in fall 2016. 

To download an application and to find out about current Faculty Working Groups, visit: http://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/scholarly-resources/faculty-working-groups-in-the-humanities/ 

Contact for questions: Jessica Berman (jberman@umbc.edu), Director, or Rachel Brubaker (rbruba1@umbc.edu), Assistant Director

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) issued on September 2, 2015 as a draft of the final rule intended to modernize, strengthen, and make more effective the current Federal regulations on protections of human subjects (the Common Rule).  The NPRM was published in the Federal Register on September 8, 2015 for public comment; comments must be received by 5:00 pm on December 7, 2015. 

There are plans to release several webinars that will explain the changes proposed in the NPRM, and a town hall meeting planned to be held in Washington, D.C. in October.  The ORPC will inform the campus community of the dates of these information sessions and will distribute comments and guidance from the IRB as it becomes available.

Check back regularly on the ORPC events page for more information.

The September 2, 2015 "Important" notice about the use of cloud services such as Box or Google may have led some to conclude both services are inherently and/or equally insecure under the University's data security classification below:

To clarify, Google is not approved for confidential data (levels 2 & 3 above). Since Google stores its data around the world and employs people around the world, ORPC and DoIT do not recommend that Google be used with export controlled data. By contrast, Box.com is approved for level 0, 1, and 2 data. This means that information such as SSNs and passport numbers can be stored in Box. While all Box.com data is currently stored in the USA, there is no guarantee that Box.com will always keep our data in the USA. There are also no guarantees that a foreign person will not be employed by Box.com and have an ability to access our data. Accordingly, Box.com is okay to use with data classified as level 0, 1, and 2, but we would would not recommend it for export controlled data. 

 

For more information, please consult UMBC’s policy for the protection of sensitive information as well as DoIT’s data use guidance for more information. You may also wish to consult with Mark Cather, UMBC's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), who can be reached at 410.455.3783 or mark.cather@umbc.edu.