SpaceScout, a Web and mobile app developed by UW-IT, helps students find the perfect place to study. Check out SpaceScout at http://spacescout.uw.edu on your browser or smartphone, or download the app from iTunes. SpaceScout was one of nine winners selected from 235 entries to receive a 2013 Campus Technology Innovator award in the Student Systems and Services category on June 1, and will be featured in the July issue of Campus Technology magazine. Learn more about SpaceScout.

When IT Connect re-launches as a “mobile first” Web site later this summer, you will have UW technology tools, instructions, and resources at your fingertips on any device you use. The new design responds to input from users, offering a streamlined approach that makes it easier to find information through better search and navigation. The new site also will offer improved accessibility for people who use assistive technologies. Get ready to say goodbye to the current IT Connect orange.

On April 24, join a knowledgeable panel of UW and other experts to discuss “altmetrics”—new online technologies and tools to measure and track the impact of scholarly work, including data sets, code, and research results. This ScienceOnlineSeattle event, with its vibrant community of interest, takes place in UW Seattle’s Odegaard Undergraduate Library, room 220, at 5:30 p.m. Get details about the discussion panel, optional registration, refreshments, and live streaming and tweeting.

Read how 16 UW faculty are using new tools and techniques to support, challenge, and engage students in a new 13-page report from the UW Office of the Provost. In “Innovators Among Us: How UW Faculty Are Enhancing Teaching With Technology” faculty talk about using the Canvas learning management system, clickers, MOOCs (massive open online courses), and Tegrity lecture capture to flip the classroom. UW resources for faculty are included. This report is part of a series about trends and issues facing higher education.

MyUW Mobile gives UW students on-the-go access to their most important information, and the latest release offers new features that make the app even more useful. Students can now check Husky Card and residential balances, see final exam schedules, compare prices on required textbooks, and view information about the upcoming quarter. Watch a two-minute video introduction to MyUW Mobile.

A new central file storage is now available for UW students, faculty, and staff at no additional cost, supported by the Student Technology Fee and the Technology Recharge Fee. This new “U Drive” service offers 5GB of general-purpose, backed-up storage for electronic files.  It is activated automatically for students. Faculty and staff need to activate their U Drive, and may increase the amount of storage with a UW budget number. The storage is accessible via standard protocols. While available to everyone, please check with your unit’s IT support people to see if they have plans to deploy this service. Get details.

UW-IT provides free workshops to help UW students, faculty, and staff develop digital skills for applications as diverse as Photoshop, Web development tools, or Excel. This year, an introductory session on “Terminals, Command Lines, and Consoles” will help you become more comfortable learning and working with a variety of technical tools, no matter what your skill level. Workshops on iMovie, InDesign, HTML, the Odegaard Sound Studio, and other topics—all at UW Seattle—continue to focus on the basics. Register today to ensure a seat.

A new medical educational app--RadLinks--brings hundreds of Internet radiology resources to medical students and radiologists. Developed by radiologists at the UW, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, and Seattle Children's Hospital, this hand-curated collection covers radiology educational Web sites, teaching files, online lectures, and more. It is designed specifically for viewing on tablets. Watch the RadLinks video and download this free application for your iPhone, iPad, or Android devices.

A large majority of UW students feel that reviewing Tegrity lecture capture recordings contributes to their learning, according to the findings in UW-IT’s just released report. An assessment, undertaken in Winter and Spring Quarters, aimed to learn how Tegrity was being used in courses on all three campuses, identify best practices, uncover any unmet support needs or obstacles, and find out how instructors and students would like to use Tegrity in the future. Read more.

MediaAMP can help UW units manage and deliver digital media—especially streaming video and audio—to mobile devices, Web platforms and enterprise systems, while meeting information privacy requirements. This subscription service, offered through UW-IT, provides automated workflows, metrics and reporting, and a Web-based interface to manage your library of digital content. MediaAMP uses a cloud-based platform, and was designed to address the specific needs of clinical, research, teaching and learning, and archival environments. Learn more.

If you are collaborating with colleagues at another institution and want to use Catalyst Web Tools, there is now an easy alternative. Instead of logging in with a sponsored UW NetID or a Protect Network ID, they can use Google ID. Google accounts are free and can be created quickly. (Note: A Google ID is username@gmail.com whereas a UW Google Apps ID is username@uw.edu.) Learn more.

Students can now use SpaceScout to find the perfect place to study at UW Seattle. The new SpaceScout mobile app, released in August for any iOS device, features some 200 study spaces in 26 buildings. Students can use the map, or search by criteria such as capacity, hours, amenities, and more. The Web version was released in mid-October. Learn more.

HuskyBytes, on Facebook and Twitter, keeps UW students in the know about great free technology resources available to them. Find out first about new mobile apps like SpaceScout (for finding study spaces at UW Seattle), software you can use (funded by the Student Technology Fee) and upcoming technology workshops, taught by students, for students. Become a fan of the HuskyBytes Facebook Page or follow HuskyBytes on Twitter to hear the latest and share your thoughts.

Find some two thousand full-text reference handbooks in ENGnetBASE, an eBook collection that covers all areas of engineering (civil, electrical, mechanical, computer science, material science, nanotechnology, etc.) plus business management, ergonomics, food and culinary science, forensics and criminal justice, and more. Learn about topics such as transforming organizations, digital color imaging, and the technology of cookie production. Check the "Full Access Content Only" box in the top banner to get titles accessible to you on this UW-restricted site provided by UW Libraries.

Seattle startup Decide.com, brainchild of UW Computer Science & Engineering Professor Oren Etzioni, has progressed from analyzing price drops and increases on cameras, phones, appliances, and more to now assigning them to one of four categories, from “we love it” to “don’t buy it.” The new "Decide Score" feature uses expert and user reviews, aggregated and analyzed, to “determine if products are the best or worst,” reports GeekWire.

UW-IT is holding free introductory workshops for UW faculty and instructors who want to know more about using the Canvas Learning Management System. These 90-minute sessions are held in Mary Gates Hall at UW Seattle. Learn more and register for one of the sessions to get an overview of some of the key features of Canvas.

New functionality for Tegrity, the lecture recording tool, expands its use beyond for-credit courses at the UW. Tegrity Manager provides access to Tegrity to everyone with a UW NetID—students, faculty, and staff—for creating and sharing presentations, projects, training, and more, while controlling access (membership) to these “courses.” Learn more about Tegrity and Tegrity Manager, and sign up for workshops that start August 16.

UW students will have a new online tool this fall—called MyPlan—that will enable them to develop multi-quarter academic plans, search for and track courses, assess their progress toward a degree, and have more productive discussions with their advisors. New funding from the Student Technology Fee Committee will allow this new tool to expand over the next year, adding advisor-created ‘sample’ plans, pre-registration planning, and other new features. This effort is part of the UW’s 2y2d Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Initiative.

Based on the results of a successful pilot, the Canvas learning management system has been endorsed for adoption at the UW by the Board of Deans and Chancellors and the Teaching & Learning Technology Oversight Committee. Pilot results showed that 79 percent of pilot users would recommend Canvas to other instructors and colleagues, and both students and faculty preferred it to Blackboard and Moodle. Canvas simplifies course management activities like calendaring and grading, and provides ways to collaborate and deliver materials to students. UW-IT will work closely with departments to support them as they transition to Canvas. Units interested in using Canvas for Autumn Quarter 2012 may contact UW-IT. Learn more.

Going on vacation for a few weeks or months? Get summer tips from UW Libraries to find out what you need to know before you go, including how to renew your books and pay your fines online. Want to continue to borrow materials once you’ve graduated? You’ll find helpful information whether you are searching for work or just looking for a good book or DVD.

The UW Directory has been updated with the familiar UW branding, and now you can easily search for someone whether you are using your mobile phone, iPad, desktop, or laptop. This responsive design approach to making key UW information usable on all devices no matter what the size screen has been a collaborative effort of University Marketing and UW-IT. To view additional directories or to update your information, please use the links provided on the page.

Learn how to use the photo and video editing software in Creative Suite 6 (CS6) at free workshops with Adobe experts on May 23 at UW Seattle. Three CS6 sessions, hosted by UW-IT's workshop program, are being offered: Premiere and After Effects (9:30–11:30 a.m.), Basic Photoshop (2:30–4:30 p.m.), and Advanced Photoshop (7:00–9:00 p.m.). Current UW students, faculty, and staff can get details and sign up to ensure a place.

Looking for a broader perspective on your UW research or group project that can help you design for your audience? UW User Experience (UX) professionals offer a free, one-hour design review consultation at any stage in your development cycle (but the earlier the better). The UX team can provide feedback on everything from concepts and high-level workflows and processes to information architecture, usability, visual design, and beyond. Learn more.

UW-IT continues to expand the core UW Google Apps service (Email, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and Talk) by enabling new apps you can choose to activate. Those added recently include Chrome Sync, FeedBurner, iGoogle, Latitude, Map Maker, News, and Places. Earlier this year, Blogger, Google+, Google Code, Picasa, Voice, YouTube, and more were added. All undergo a UW enterprise risk review process first. These apps are not covered by the existing UW contract with Google that ensures certain student data protections. Support is provided by Google. Get more information.

MyPlan, an online academic planning tool in development for Fall, will provide UW students with a new option for developing a multi-year academic plan, searching for and tracking courses, assessing their progress toward a degree, and having more productive discussions with their advisers. In addition to conducting usability tests with students, the MyPlan team is seeking feedback from undergraduate and graduate advising staff and have scheduled live MyPlan demos for them on April 6 and April 11, and a Webinar demo for graduate advisers on March 29. Information on the demos and MyPlan is online. This effort is part of the UW’s 2y2d Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Initiative.

Now UW departments can list surplus equipment on the new uSwap online service, and also search for or request items before buying new equipment. Provided by UW Finance and Facilities, uSwap is for UW use only and is UW NetID secure. The site guides units through transferring UW-owned computers and accessories, audio/video equipment, and other items in compliance with UW rules, promoting reuse and saving money.

UW students can now access all the Adobe Creative Suite software—Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, and more—online 24/7 using ViDA (Virtual Desktop Access), right from the comfort of home, dorm, or coffee shop. ViDA works on laptops, iPads, iPhones, Androids—almost any Internet-connected device. More software is coming soon, thanks to UW-IT and the Student Technology Fee Committee partnership. This effort is part of the UW’s 2y2d Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Initiative.

UW faculty who report effort on a calendar-year cycle now are able to certify their effort reports electronically. This faster, easier, online certification replaces the paper-based process and meets compliance-based reporting requirements for grant research. (Those reporting on the academic cycle can begin online certification in April.) This latest phase of the Electronic Faculty Effort and Cost Sharing (eFECS) project improves timeliness, security, online status tracking, and integrated calculations for cost share adjustments. Feedback from user focus groups informed this effort by eFECS advisory groups and UW-IT.

Starting Spring Quarter, UW professors and lecturers can participate in a UW-IT electronic text (eText) pilot in one or more of their classes to experiment with this new technology, help improve student learning, and contribute to this research effort. Two eText platforms (CourseSmart and CourseLoad) are provided, allowing flexibility and side-by-side comparison. Attend an informational meeting on January 26 at 9:30 a.m. in Odegaard Undergraduate Library 220 or February 1 at 3:30 p.m. in Mary Gates Hall 241, both at UW Seattle, or send email to help@uw.edu. During the pilot, students will receive eTexts at no cost. Get details.

This quarter, UW instructors who teach with laptops can try out a new technology that supports teaching and learning. Tegrity, a cloud-based lecture capture service, lets instructors easily record lectures and other class activities from a laptop (or any device with a Web connection). Then students can review the materials online using a Web browser or mobile device. Learn more.

Did you know that individual UW faculty and staff can purchase computer services through UW-IT’s Nebula Managed Desktop service even if their unit is not subscribed? Nebula provides a centrally managed, supported Windows environment for UW faculty, staff, academic and administrative units for a monthly fee. Pay-as-you-go, on-demand user support and secured file space also are available. In addition, Nebula provides group access to your secured file space with UW Groups, and Mac users who upgrade to OSX Lion, the UW-licensed Apple operating system, will find it easier to access Nebula’s protected file server drives. See the UW-IT Service Catalog for details.

WebQ now provides greater participant management features so you can track who has started, viewed, or submitted your online survey, and when. You can use WebQ to quickly build and administer online surveys and quizzes, and either view results online or download them for further analysis. WebQ is one of the Catalyst Web Tools, designed to aid communication and collaboration in teaching, learning, research, and everyday work for anyone in the UW community. Learn more about tracking survey participation.

Beginning Summer Quarter 2011, all UW faculty and instructors are required to submit final grades online and can do so quickly and easily with a new Catalyst Web Tool, GradePage. For those not already using Catalyst GradeBook, available since 2009 for optional online grade submission, GradePage provides a simple alternative. It was developed by UW-IT with the Office of the Registrar, and instructors can access GradePage from MyUW.

Going on vacation? Looking for a good book? Graduating? Searching for work? Get summer tips from UW Libraries on how to renew your books online and continue borrowing, including thousands of DVDs and audio books available.

This May, the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) saw a 32 percent increase in election votes, over its previous high in 2010. The ASUW has used online voting via Catalyst WebQ for the last ten years, since 2002. The convenience of online voting and the proliferation of devices enabling 24/7 Internet access, as well as a rise in student engagement, likely all played a part in the upsurge this year.

A new financial aid status self-service helps current UW students track their financial aid progress. The service, launched by the UW Office of Student Financial Aid and UW-IT in late April, provides messaging that alerts students to actions they need to take and documentation they need to submit. Improved site navigation makes it faster and easier to find critical information. UW Financial Aid Counselors and students collaborated on designing this service, and further enhancements are planned for late summer.

With UW Groups you can manage lists of team members and collaborators in a single place. Now, if you can view the membership of a UW Group, you can use UW Groups in Catalyst Tools in WebQ, QuickPoll, Collect It, CommonView, GoPost, ShareSpaces, etc. You can also now activate UW Groups for use in UW Google Apps to share Google documents, sites, calendars, and other resources with members of UW Groups.

Do you need to analyze UW financial data to answer multi-faceted questions? The UW Financial Activity Cube is a data analysis tool that allows quick and easy manipulation of complex data. Each cube contains data from one UW biennium that can be sliced and diced in many combinations, for example, to find out how much money was spent by fiscal year, by organization, by budget, by expense object, etc. Best of all, you don’t need to know about database structure or query languages to get your answers.

Using Catalyst CommonView to keep everything you need for your class or project in one convenient location? You also can embed Twitter or Flickr feeds into your CommonView workspaces to display tweets or photos posted by colleagues, or links shared via Delicious. Learn how to add RSS feeds to your workspace.

The newest release of MyUW now provides a personalized set of resources for you, relevant to what you do at the UW. Based on your UW affiliations (such as student, faculty, staff, alumni), you will see tabs for Academics or Working or Teaching, etc. If you are a student and staff, for example, you will see relevant tabs for both. You can add and remove tabs, too, to make MyUW a more powerful portal to your UW resources.

Now you can reconcile your UW budget transactions in real time with Financial Desktop Initiative’s new online reconciliation tool. Part of a collaborative UW effort, this enhancement to MyFinancial.desktop (MyFD) eliminates the need for printed copies because all online reconciliation information is kept according to UW records retention policy.

Learn about Web publishing, digital audio/video, document creation, computing fundamentals, spreadsheets, graphics, presentations, and more. UW-IT is offering seventy free workshops Autumn Quarter. Most are walk-in; just bring your UW NetID and Husky card. See details and schedule.