Three UMBC information technology (IT) leaders have received the Blackboard Catalyst Award for Leading Change in recognition of their work implementing technologies on campus in innovative ways. Vice President of IT Jack Suess ‘81, mathematics, M.S. ‘95, operations analysis; Associate Vice President of IT John Fritz Ph.D.‘16, language, literacy, and culture; and Director of Business Intelligence Kevin Joseph ‘87, computer science and information systems, formally received the award at a special event on July 26, 2017.

Each year, Blackboard, Inc., presents a range of awards to leaders at academic institutions across the country. The Catalyst Award for Leading Change is presented to educational institutions that have implemented educational technology strategies campuswide in novel ways to support the needs of their faculty, students, and staff.

“This award illustrates what can happen when customers and vendors partner on a common goal like student success,” explains Fritz.

Using Blackboard tools and technology, UMBC has created one of the most robust data warehouse in higher education. Joseph led the development of the UMBC data warehouse, called REX, which combines systems from across the university. He explains that REX was built using the Blackboard Analytics platform, noting that it “integrates academic, faculty, and administrative data from systems throughout UMBC and allows authorized faculty, staff, and institutional researchers to report and analyze University data to help turn data into insight.”

“The award shows how the collaborative spirit of UMBC is helping to improve the success of our students,” says Joseph.

Fritz notes that Blackboard also helped the team expand their work in important ways. “We piloted an approach to learning analytics that Blackboard refined and scaled in ways we never could. In turn, this freed us up to dive deeper and share our lessons learned about student engagement, faculty course design and the use of of a learning management system (LMS) as a diagnostic and early warning tool, not just a way to deliver content like the syllabus,” he explains.

In a recent article in EduCause Review, Fritz describes how UMBC analyzed data on an existing learning management system to help the instructor utilize a Blackboard tool more effectively in his course, and then applied their findings in a broader way to help more faculty and students across the university.

Fritz worked with a tool called “adaptive release,” which allows an instructor to set conditions students must meet to access course content” to ensure each student is prepared for increasingly challenging material. He identified which faculty used this particular tool, analyzed quantitative data to determine who was using the tool most effectively, and then examined in greater detail the top cases to determine why adaptive release was particularly effective in certain courses. He explained that UMBC now uses this approach to identify other tools that are particularly effective in supporting student learning.

Read “Moving the Heart and Head: Implications for Learning Analytics Research” in EduCause Review.

Banner image: Jack Suess, John Fritz, and Kevin Joseph. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

John 3:16 (NIV) - “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

If we were to try to summarize the Christian message - it’s about love. Christian life is often characterized as a faith-journey and no matter where we are or what the journey is like, there is an aching in our soul, a longing that cannot really be explained, but it can be perfectly identified - John 3:16. Blaise Pascal, the famous mathematician said “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.” Each person in this world is yearning and seeking for something to fill this void in their lives, and John 3:16 makes it very clear, that it is only through God’s love in Jesus Christ that this void can be filled.
For today’s transmission, watch this video clip, and may we be touched with this message that Salvation starts with God’s love for the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLHsQF131HQ

-GK

Baltimore Sun highlights UMBC programs that prepare students for high-demand careers

The latest special section on education in The Baltimore Sun highlights several UMBC programs that prepare students to succeed in careers in rapidly growing and already high-demand industries. The Sun highlights how the flexibility of these programs makes them particularly accessible and valuable to students, allowing students to tailor their pathway to match specific areas of interest.

Marc Olano, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the game development track in computer science, described UMBC’s multiple pathways for learning game development. “We created two programs, the game development track in computer science and the animation and interactive media concentration in visual arts,” he explained. “In both cases, the students get a degree in the primary discipline, a B.S. in computer science or a B.A. or B.F.A. in visual arts,” he noted. The “track” system helps students focus their electives specifically on skills “that are used in the games industry.”

Jacqueline Wojcik ‘17, visual arts, who completed a concentration in animation and interactive media and a minor in computer science, shared her experience as a member of UMBC’s Game Developers Club. Collaborating with other students in the club helped her apply skills she learned in the classroom to other creative opportunities. For the coming year, Wojcik has received a Fulbright research grant to complete an innovative project in Oslo, Norway. “I will create digital models from two Viking Age ship burials and then place in interactive, game-like environments so that people can see how the artifacts would have used in the lives of their owners,” she told the Sun. “The project will explore the intersection of games, learning and archeological visualization.”

The education section also highlighted UMBC programs in health information technology and cybersecurity.

The health IT program prepares professionals with backgrounds in computer science, information systems, and health care for growing opportunities in work to prevent medical errors, improve care delivery, and address other major health care challenges through technology. “Not only does it provide students with technical information technology skills, but it also provides a pragmatic understanding of the health care system, which has its own terminology,” explains Krystl Haerian ‘99, biological science, an instructor in the program.

Laura Humber ‘16, health administration and policy, a current student in the health IT master’s program, says that she didn’t think she would end up pursuing an advanced degree in such a technical-sounding field, but she came to realize it could help her take the next steps in a research career focused on addressing opioid addiction. “People think when you say, ‘IT’ that you’re dealing with computers, but it’s making computers work for you and get you the information you need,” Humber explained.

Rick Forno, assistant director of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity and director of the graduate cybersecurity program, described in the Sun how UMBC’s cybersecurity graduate programs are also designed work across fields and to connect students with skills that will help them advance their careers. He noted that at UMBC, studying cybersecurity can include courses in economics, public policy, and biotechnology. “Pick a field or major, and cybersecurity applies to it,” he said. “It really is interdisciplinary.”

Students are encouraged to tailor the program to their interests, and gain experience through research and internship opportunities, so they can explore the full range of career opportunities available to them.“You can go to grad school and get a degree and get a job,” Forno reflected. “But we want you to be a professional. You can do more than just your degree. There’s depth to what we offer.”

Read the full education section in The Baltimore Sun.

This post was adapted from a UMBC News artcle written by Megan Hanks. Banner image: The game developers club display in House of Grit at UMBC’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Photo by freelance photographer.

The post Baltimore Sun highlights UMBC programs that prepare students for high-demand careers appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

A new study led by Chris Swan has found that stream restoration efforts such as bank stabilization, tree planting, and streambed manipulations have a greater impact on stream life in small headwaters than in larger streams. “Larger streams are more well-connected to populations of species that are tolerant of disturbance, but smaller streams are more isolated, so the actual manipulation for the restoration has a stronger effect on who’s there,” he explains.

The findings suggest that “restoration practices would be most effective in areas where community structure and biodiversity are driven primarily by local factors, i.e., isolated sections of networks,” write Swan, professor of geography and environmental systems, and co-author Bryan Brown of Virginia Tech, in Ecological Applications. “Our results amplify the call for a larger scale perspective on river restoration.”

The study compares adjacent restored and unrestored sections of five headwaters and eight large streams in Maryland. Over the course of a year, Swan, Brown, and lab technician Charles Wahl spent hundreds of hours at the 13 sites, kicking up the streambed to drive tiny invertebrates, just two to 10 millimeters long, into nets. Back in Swan’s lab, the researchers used microscopes to painstakingly identify each organism. Caddisfly and may fly larvae were most common, with a variety of beetle larvae and snails rounding out the catch.

Data analysis revealed that restored sections of headwaters supported 15 to 37 percent more species than unrestored sections next door. However, in large streams, the restoration had no discernible effect on biodiversity. Also, the restored headwaters were more likely to sustain stable communities of organisms, whereas large streams were more likely to gain and lose species in both restored and unrestored sections. Swan suggests the differences may exist “simply because we haven’t appreciated completely the way these organisms move around.”

Swan is also quick to point out that restorations are undertaken for a variety of reasons, and invertebrate diversity is not the only measure of success or failure. In general, “Just because invertebrates didn’t respond, doesn’t mean restoration didn’t do its job.”

Still, Swan notes, these results are important because “this is one of the few studies that finds restoration is context-dependent.” He hopes the study will encourage people to think more thoroughly about how factors like species dispersal and river network connectivity impact biodiversity, ideally trickling up “to the state level, or even the EPA level” to inform future investments in restoration efforts.

It’s notable that the small headwaters most improved by restoration are also the most vulnerable. “When we develop a landscape, the first thing we do is mow over or bury headwater streams, because it’s easy to do—or we put them in a pipe,” Swan says. Plus, “Headwater streams are 60 percent or more of all stream miles in a river network, so they’re disproportionately at risk of being lost.” The good news? “They’re the cheapest to restore, because they’re so small.”

Swan, Brown, and additional colleagues at UC-Riverside and the National Science Foundation’s National Ecological Observatory Network have received a new grant from the NSF, which also funded the current study, to expand on this work by looking at species dispersal in river networks at the watershed level. If a species’ population is declining in a well-connected stream, it may be replenished (or “rescued”) by migration of individual organisms from a nearby stream. In an isolated headwater, that’s much less likely, and the species is more likely to disappear in that location. In their upcoming research, Swan and colleagues will ask, “How does that scale up to the entire watershed and help us understand how biodiversity persists through time?”

Swan hopes the team’s work on species dispersal patterns will further inform practical decisions about investments in supporting healthy streams. The current study was a step in the right direction, he says, demonstrating that “we can do this at a realistic scale,” and showing scientists as well as non-profits, citizens, and lawmakers that this work is “something that matters.”

Learn more from the complete article, “Metacommunity Theory Meets Restoration: Isolation May Mediate How Ecological Communities Respond to Stream Restoration“ in Ecological Applications.

Chris Swan is also known for his research on urban ecology. Learn more from “Urban nature: What kinds of plants and wildlife flourish in cities?” in The Conversation.

Image: Chris Swan speaks at the Green Lab at Light City in Baltimore, April 2017. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

The latest special section on education in The Baltimore Sun highlights several UMBC programs that prepare students to succeed in careers in rapidly growing and already high-demand industries. The Sun highlights how the flexibility of these programs makes them particularly accessible and valuable to students, allowing students to tailor their pathway to match specific areas of interest.

Marc Olano, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the game development track in computer science, described UMBC’s multiple pathways for learning game development. “We created two programs, the game development track in computer science and the animation and interactive media concentration in visual arts,” he explained. “In both cases, the students get a degree in the primary discipline, a B.S. in computer science or a B.A. or B.F.A. in visual arts,” he noted. The “track” system helps students focus their electives specifically on skills “that are used in the games industry.”

Jacqueline Wojcik ‘17, visual arts, who completed a concentration in animation and interactive media and a minor in computer science, shared her experience as a member of UMBC’s Game Developers Club. Collaborating with other students in the club helped her apply skills she learned in the classroom to other creative opportunities. For the coming year, Wojcik has received a Fulbright research grant to complete an innovative project in Oslo, Norway. “I will create digital models from two Viking Age ship burials and then place in interactive, game-like environments so that people can see how the artifacts would have used in the lives of their owners,” she told the Sun. “The project will explore the intersection of games, learning and archeological visualization.”

The education section also highlighted UMBC programs in health information technology and cybersecurity.  

The health IT program prepares professionals with backgrounds in computer science, information systems, and health care for growing opportunities in work to prevent medical errors, improve care delivery, and address other major health care challenges through technology. “Not only does it provide students with technical information technology skills, but it also provides a pragmatic understanding of the health care system, which has its own terminology,” explains Krystl Haerian ‘99, biological science, an instructor in the program.

Laura Humber ‘16, health administration and policy, a current student in the health IT master’s program, says that she didn’t think she would end up pursuing an advanced degree in such a technical-sounding field, but she came to realize it could help her take the next steps in a research career focused on addressing opioid addiction. “People think when you say, ‘IT’ that you’re dealing with computers, but it’s making computers work for you and get you the information you need,” Humber explained.

Rick Forno, assistant director of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity and director of the graduate cybersecurity program, described in the Sun how UMBC’s cybersecurity graduate programs are also designed work across fields and to connect students with skills that will help them advance their careers. He noted that at UMBC, studying cybersecurity can include courses in economics, public policy, and biotechnology. “Pick a field or major, and cybersecurity applies to it,” he said. “It really is interdisciplinary.”

Students are encouraged to tailor the program to their interests, and gain experience through research and internship opportunities, so they can explore the full range of career opportunities available to them.“You can go to grad school and get a degree and get a job,” Forno reflected. “But we want you to be a professional. You can do more than just your degree. There’s depth to what we offer.”

Read the full education section in The Baltimore Sun. 

Banner image: The game developers club display in House of Grit at UMBC’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Photo by Jay Baker.

Three UMBC information technology (IT) leaders have received the Blackboard Catalyst Award for Leading Change in recognition of their work implementing technologies on campus in innovative ways. Vice President of IT Jack Suess ‘81, mathematics, M.S. ‘95, operations analysis; Associate Vice President of IT John Fritz Ph.D.‘16, language, literacy, and culture; and Director of Business Intelligence Kevin Joseph ‘87, computer science and information systems, formally received the award at a special event on July 26, 2017.

Each year, Blackboard, Inc., presents a range of awards to leaders at academic institutions across the country. The Catalyst Award for Leading Change is presented to educational institutions that have implemented educational technology strategies campuswide in novel ways to support the needs of their faculty, students, and staff.

“This award illustrates what can happen when customers and vendors partner on a common goal like student success,” explains Fritz.

Using Blackboard tools and technology, UMBC has created one of the most robust data warehouse in higher education. Joseph led the development of the UMBC data warehouse, called REX, which combines systems from across the university. He explains that REX was built using the Blackboard Analytics platform, noting that it “integrates academic, faculty, and administrative data from systems throughout UMBC and allows authorized faculty, staff, and institutional researchers to report and analyze University data to help turn data into insight.”

“The award shows how the collaborative spirit of UMBC is helping to improve the success of our students,” says Joseph.

Fritz notes that Blackboard also helped the team expand their work in important ways. “We piloted an approach to learning analytics that Blackboard refined and scaled in ways we never could. In turn, this freed us up to dive deeper and share our lessons learned about student engagement, faculty course design and the use of of a learning management system (LMS) as a diagnostic and early warning tool, not just a way to deliver content like the syllabus,” he explains.

In a recent article in EduCause Review, Fritz describes how UMBC analyzed data on an existing learning management system to help the instructor utilize a Blackboard tool more effectively in his course, and then applied their findings in a broader way to help more faculty and students across the university.

Fritz worked with a tool called “adaptive release,” which allows an instructor to set conditions students must meet to access course content” to ensure each student is prepared for increasingly challenging material. He identified which faculty used this particular tool, analyzed quantitative data to determine who was using the tool most effectively, and then examined in greater detail the top cases to determine why adaptive release was particularly effective in certain courses. He explained that UMBC now uses this approach to identify other tools that are particularly effective in supporting student learning.

Read “Moving the Heart and Head: Implications for Learning Analytics Research” in EduCause Review.

Banner image: Jack Suess, John Fritz, and Kevin Joseph. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.