Patients are collaborating for better health — and, just maybe, radically reduced health-care costs.

Not long ago, Sean Ahrens managed flare-ups of his Crohn’s disease—abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea—by calling his doctor and waiting a month for an appointment, only to face an inconclusive array of possible prescriptions. Today, he can call on 4,210 fellow patients in 66 countries who collaborate online to learn which treatments—drugs, diets, acupuncture, meditation, even do-it-yourself infusions of intestinal parasites —bring the most relief.

Hi Tea is back with a bang! Registration is now open for the Fall 2013 CSEE Hi Tea Competition. Hi Tea is a student-run social event held (nearly) every Friday from 3:00 to 3:30 in the third floor hallway of the ITE building outside the CSEE Department suite (325 ITE). All students, staff, faculty and friends of the CSEE Department are welcome to attend. Each week, a group of students will plan and assemble simple refreshments for the event. This Fall we will repeat the popular competition used in the Spring (see some photos).

Let's come together to cheer and vote for the competitors, have some food, mingle with old friends and make new ones. Here are the rules:

• Form groups of one to four members. Teams do not have to have all members from the same lab. So feel free to form a group with any of your friends from the CSEE Department.
• Create a name for your team.
• The winning team will be chosen from a weighted combination of votes. One vote will result from attendees. Another vote will come from faculty judges. Ties will be resolved by faculty judges.
• Each team should limit their presentation to $15. Therefore, each team will be reimbursed up to $15. Each team must save their receipts and submit them to Jane Gethman to obtain their reimbursement.
• Teams will be judged on creativity, presentation, and budget planning. It is preferred that you list how you managed your expenses for the judges to verify limit-to-$15 rule.
• Each week, two teams will compete against each other (). The winner will proceed to the next round.

Hi Tea will proceed for eight weeks. After that, the winner, first runner-up, and second runner-up will receive a $100, $75, and $50 gift certificate, respectively.

The following dates are reserved for fun-filled special editions of Hi Tea. No teams will compete on these days. Stay tuned for more details!

• 25-Oct-2013: Halloween
• 1-Nov-2013: Diwali
• 22-Nov-2013: Thanksgiving

For questions, comments, and registration, email the following Hi Tea committee members:

• Raghavendra Shruti Rao ( Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. )
• Genaro Hernandez Jr (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. )
• Rukmini Ramakrishnan (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. )

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today announced a premium W3C Validator Suite to help people improve the quality of Web pages. With the Validator Suite, it becomes easier and faster to perform checks on HTML, CSS, and Internationalization (I18n) for an entire public site. The Validator Suite service scans an entire site to produce customizable, integrated reports for easier tracking and prioritization of any Web issues.

W3C will continue to operate and enhance its free validators, as it has done for 15 years. Revenues from the new service will help W3C improve both the free service and the Validator Suite, and provide long-term stability of these services.

Today W3C transitions the service out of beta. While the new service is young, we are already studying enhancements based on feedback we have received and our own goals to help people use W3C’s open standards.

We invite the entire community to try the Validator Suite. Discount rates are available for W3C Members. For more information, contact the Validator Suite Team.

UMBC was ranked #6 on U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges Guide’s list of schools with the “Best Undergraduate Teaching,” along with such universities as William and Mary, Berkeley, Princeton, and Brown.

UMBC has also again been named the top national university for “promising and innovative changes.” This is the 5^th consecutive year that UMBC has topped this “Up-and-Coming” list.

“I’m encouraged that our colleagues around the country continue to recognize the quality of our academic program. Our faculty and staff are consistently looking for creative ways to strengthen teaching and learning on our campus, and we are proud that this has made us a leader in redefining excellence in undergraduate education,” says President Freeman Hrabowski. “Each fall, I see the result of our hard work as I welcome yet another outstanding class of undergraduates.”

This continued recognition points to what makes UMBC unique: our community successfully combines a deep commitment to undergraduate education with achievements in graduate education and research. Our investments in undergraduate student success and steady efforts by our faculty and staff to maximize student engagement and success are attracting ever-larger numbers of talented, diverse students. This year, we welcomed a record-breaking incoming class of 1,660 freshmen. These students are planning to study in a wide range of disciplines.

Most important, we continue to assess student outcomes and explore new ways to advance teaching and learning. For example, the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation invests in faculty initiatives that fuel creativity and enterprise, helping more students from all backgrounds to excel. Our iCubed study, funded through the National Science Foundation, is examining the effectiveness of a variety of learning activities for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students. And our STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is building a national model for ensuring more transfer students complete four-year degrees.

Congratulations to our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and supporters who make UMBC a national model for educational excellence.