You are invited! The team at the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ABCEI) is excited to host the Idea Competition Final Event TONIGHT, November 10th, 2022 from 7-9 pm in the UMBC Library Gallery. 

This event will feature presentations from the top idea entries that will be judged by our amazing panel of judges. Join the ABCEI for a fun night of entrepreneurship, community, giveaways, audience voting, and good ideas! Mark your calendars now! This event is FREE to attend so please come out and support your fellow Retriever Entrepreneurs!

For more information on the Idea Competition, visit our website below!

Financial support available for training in statistics, quantitative methods, and data analysis
Scholarships open December 5!

The ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods offers more than $150,000 in student scholarships every year. Our goal is to remove financial barriers to participation in the ICPSR Summer Program and increase access to statistical methods training for students of all different backgrounds.

What do the scholarships cover?

ICPSR scholarships provide fee waivers to attend our 2023 summer three-week sessions. The three-week sessions offer a foundational training in research methods, including computation, formal theory, basic statistics, and regression analysis, as well as specialized training in a diverse array of the most advanced, cutting-edge methodological techniques.

Eligibility

ICPSR scholarships are open to students in Sociology, Political Science, Public Policy, Education, and several other disciplines. Additionally, we offer diversity scholarships for graduate students from under-represented groups.

Application

We will begin accepting applications on December 5, 2022. All application materials must be submitted by Wednesday, February 1, 2023.

Learn more and apply HERE! 

UMBC's National Distance Learning Week 2022 Lunchtime Series created space for candid conversations about online learning. The candid conversation on Monday, November 7th focused on course design and Quality Matters.   

The Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric (6th edition) is a set of 8 General Standards and 42 Specific Review Standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses. QM Standards are research-supported and based on published best practices. The rubric's General Standard 8 focuses on course accessibility and usability, and is designed to assess whether "the course design reflects a commitment to accessibility and usability for all learners."

Creating and adding content to an online course offers students the opportunity to engage with customized course materials, but may not provide equal access if the content is not accessible. The following content creation best practices promote accessibility so that all learners can access course content.

Content Accessibility Best Practices

Media

• Add captions to videos. 

• Visual information that is critical to meaning should include an audio description.

• Panopto and VoiceThread offer automated captions. Edit and correct automated captions for accuracy.

• Add slide presentations in video lectures to Blackboard for student view.

• Provide transcripts for audio files.

• Audio files can be uploaded to Panopto for automated captioning.

Images

• Provide alternative (Alt) text for all images that are not decorative.

• Long descriptions may be appropriate for complex illustrations or graphs.

• Add alternative text for images embedded in slide presentations, documents, or individual image files.

• When adding an image to Blackboard, use the Alt text field to provide a meaningful description of the image. 

• Add labels to charts, graphs, and illustrations.

Text

• Use text heading levels to format text, instead of editing text size or style.

• Use heading levels in order (h1, h2, h3, etc).

• Avoid using underlined text unless the text is a hyperlink.

• Avoid using text color alone to convey meaning.

• Color combinations provide sufficient color contrast.

Links

• Hyperlinks in text should describe the link destination.

• Use "National Distance Learning Week Lunchtime Series" instead of "click here."

Tables

• Create tables with column and/or row headers.

• Avoid using tables to format a document. Use text heading styles instead.

• Create tables using text. Avoid using tables as embedded images. 

What UMBC Resources Support Course Content Accessibility? 

Blackboard Ally

Instructors can use Ally to gauge the accessibility of course content.

• Receive feedback on the accessibility of course content through an Ally accessibility report.

• Improve content accessibility with Ally's step-by-step instructions.

• Create alternative formats for course content.

Students and instructors can use Ally to create alternative formats for course materials. This feature allows students to choose the type of file they want that best suits their needs.

SDS Information for Faculty

This SDS faculty resource include

• Accessible online/remote teaching resources

• UMBC SDS information and tools

• Disability Resources for instructors

Quality Matters Impact

As an extension of the award-winningPIVOT program, the Quality Matters Impact program is a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design.

UMBC Instructional Technology

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• PIVOT |Academic Continuity |Keep On Teaching |Student Technology Resources

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 

• What's new in Ultra? |Known Issues 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow theInstructional Technology &DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult withinstructional technology staff

Dear UMBC Community,

I write to inform the campus community that I will be launching a national search for the vice president of student affairs in partnership with the search firm Isaacson, Miller. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Nancy Young, who will be leaving the role on June 30, 2023, for more than 35 years of service to our UMBC community.   

Young joined UMBC in 1986 and has served as the vice president for student affairs since 2007. Grounded in an exceptional commitment to our students, Young's visionary perspective and service to the UMBC community has been instrumental in recruitment, retention, and student outcomes.

Under Young's leadership, the resident community grew to 4,000 beds, furthering the development of the residential campus. In recent years, Young advocated for and opened the Center for Well-Being and played a pivotal role in bringing the American Council on Education's Internationalization Lab to the campus. A champion for our core values of diversity and inclusive excellence, she established a director of inclusive excellence within the Division of Student Affairs and expanded support, programming, and resources for our diverse student population. Young served as a key leader in the campus response to the global pandemic and its impact on our community.

Young's leadership has been recognized in the broader higher education community. In 2021, she served as chair of the Council of Student Affairs for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, collaborating with other student affairs leaders across the U.S. to develop and promote practices that enhance students' experiences and well-being during one of the most challenging times in higher education and student affairs. In October, she traveled to France as the recipient of a 2022 Fulbright International Education Administrators award. Young attended a seminar helping U.S. international education professionals and senior higher education officials create empowering connections with their counterparts and the higher education systems of other countries. She was also recognized as one of Maryland's Top 100 Women for 2022 by the Daily Record.

Please join me in thanking Vice President Young for her commitment and service to our community.  

Sincerely, 

President Valerie Sheares Ashby

Peabody Institute seeks Maryland-based musicians working in diverse genres to join Sound Rounds, a program which brings trained musicians to patients’ bedsides to provide comfort and companionship through music. The Sound Rounds program began as a partnership in 2018 between the Peabody Institute and the Johns Hopkins Hospital Patient and Family Advisory Councils. To date, musicians have worked at the bedside at Johns Hopkins Hospital in East Baltimore.