Course Copy vs. Export vs. Copying Individual Content

To learn more about using Course Copy in Blackboard:

• visit our Course Copy FAQ page  

• open an RT Ticket for any technical issues 

• view the schedule of training workshops on the DoIT Group Page 

• contact  the Instructional Technology Team with any questions or concerns

UMBC, in partnership with the YMCA of Central Maryland, is excited to announce the re-opening of the Y Preschool at UMBC, effective September 1, 2015. TheUMBC Preschool offers quality instruction to children 2-5 years of age and provides development opportunities for young children to:

• Learn through imaginative play
• Develop cognitive and physical health
• Be independent and self-confident
• Become enthusiastic, inquisitive learners
• Develop character

The program also offers opportunities for UMBC students to work with the Y Center Staff to gain experience working at the Preschool in areas such as music, theater, geography, and STEM. The Y is looking to collaborate with other areas for academic research, internships, and direct learning.

Early Bird registration for UMBC faculty, staff, and students is May 1 – May 31, 2015. There are a limited number of enrollment spots available, so please register early to ensure you are able to take advantage of this opportunity.

In person registration is required. To schedule your in-person registration appointment, contact Betty Sterner at 410-747-4951. Please note, the $85 non-refundable registration fee will be applied to the first week's tuition.

Valerie A. Thomas, Associate Vice President of Human Resources

The Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition shows UMBC’s innovation offerings

The Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition finals were held this past Thursday, April 23, from 7-9 P.M. on the seventh floor of the AOK Library and Gallery. The CBIC finals, a competition for all UMBC students, consisted of seven entrepreneurial individuals or groups of students and their technology related business ideas.

Judging the competition was Ed Chalfin, Kelly Trumpbour and Demian Costa. In the audience was Greg Cangialosi, UMBC alumnus, CEO of MissionTix, chairman and cofounder of Betamore and co-chair of the Baltimore Angels.

Winning third place was Annah Seo presenting her application, Pivot, a job finding tool for millennials in high school and college. Pivot, she said, is “a new tool to link millennials to their new job and to their new employers and to help employers find potential talent.”

The competition’s second place winners were Patrick Wheltle and Robbie Oehrli with their company, Baltimore Emergency Medical Technology. Through a very energetic and passionate performance, Wheltle and Oehrli outlined their idea for electronic triage tags costing between $20 and $30, an alternative for currently used paper methods.

These tags would relay information between EMS providers, allowing for better distribution of personnel. It also provides a more efficient estimate of needed resources, which will ultimately, “save time, save resources and most importantly, save lives,” according to Wheltle.

In first place was Michael Gardner with his software as a service platform, NeighborhoodNet, a site that, “bridges the communication gap between the residents and the community managers, facilitates an easy online communication method and has a simple setup and easy user set up.”

NeighborhoodNet is a platform that fixes the flaws found in competitors’ sites, as well as adding multiple new easy-to-use features such as discussion forums, polls, interactive maps, document storage and even a way to pay homeowner association fees online. While right now, NeighborhoodNet is a standalone site, Gardner promises a native application coming soon.

Also presenting, were Gaurav Luthria with PrkPin, John Leung and Namrata Mohanty with tldrBills, Sheriff Taiwo and Fabrice Nkodo with Rent-me along, and Jack Neumeier and Andres Camacho for their idea True Greens.

At the end of the night though the winners were absolutely elated to have their companies win. Not only because they won, but also because first, second and third place came with prizes of $5,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively. They also won financial, legal and all summer to collaborate and learn at Betamore, a campus for entrepreneurship in downtown Baltimore.

When asked where the idea came from, Gardner talked about a company that he and a friend started up while he was in high school, Lucid Media, and shared how that developed into NeighborhoodNet. He said, “We luckily saw a problem that we identified a potential solution for, created that solution and now we are ready to take it to the market.”

Gardner said that the next step is to “graduate with my degree in information systems but one can immerse themselves in their business as well with a little extra dedication and a little less sleep.”

Cangialosi emphasized the opportunity that winning gives students. “[Betamore] focuses on three things, incubation of early stage tech comp, community development and education,” he said, “we teach skills like front and back end web development, data based design and all kinds of things.”

Even though not everyone won, CBIC was without a doubt a display of all of the great ideas and entrepreneurship found here at UMBC.

Read more stories from: The Retriever Weekly

This visually stunning game is challenging, but worth the effort.

Summary: Lumenox Games took three years to finish developing this game, focusing on fluidity and graphics.

“Aaru’s Awakening” is a video game that has the potential to be incredible. Over the course of the game, players have the chance to fight off monsters made of molten lava, traverse mountains made of crackling electricity and take on deities of varying sizes, power and wonder. Players will also die about 12,000 times in the process.

The primary problem with this game is the difficult controls. The playable character, Aaru, has the capacity to do things such as smash through solid walls, teleport and power-jump through the air. These are all pretty standard things to find in 2D-platform games, but for some reason they are incredibly difficult to pull off perfectly in this game. Randomly placed checkpoints add a relief factor to many levels that would have otherwise tested the patience and sanity of many players.

Beyond the gameplay mechanics being frustratingly challenging to master, this game is quite good. The graphics are lovely and the atmosphere is both mythical and ethereal. There is plenty of lore provided to the player through various narrations.

The level designs are clever and purposefully puzzling, quickly evolving from simple run-and-jump levels to frustrating run-and-jump-and-teleport-while-breaking-down-massive-barriers-and-trying-not-to-fall-into-spike-pits-or-get-eaten-by-a-lava-monster levels. This allows for huge amounts of time spent trying to decide how to get through a single part of one level.

Earlier levels afford more time to stop and look at the scenery, while later levels add the risk-factor of moving monsters that need to be avoided. Although the game keeps you moving, and offers rewards for completing levels quickly, there are a lot of times when the backgrounds are so intricate and detailed that it is difficult not to stop and stare.

The game has the appearance of being entirely hand-drawn, which adds a beauty and intimacy to every single level. There are endless details in the backgrounds and in the character, Aaru. Visually speaking, the game is truly stunning.

Aaru himself is quite an impressive protagonist. Appearing to be some sort of hybrid of a wolf and an eagle, he soars through the air with grace and takes down barriers with ease. He is the champion of the god, Dawn, sent to restore balance to a crumbling world. A fun aspect of the game is watching Aaru’s character movement, observing how his head follows the mouse around the screen and the way he shuffles around, bounding rather than walking and leaping into incredible parabolas of gravity-defiance.

“Aaru’s Awakening” took three years to develop and is the first game to be released by producers Lumenox Games. The company consists of only eight people all of whom are either artists of programmers and are based in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Read more stories from: The Retriever Weekly