News

To receive email updates, follow the DoIT group in myUMBC.

Take Control of Your Google Drive: A Guide to Freeing Up Space

Declutter your cloud storage and make room for new projects

Is your Google Drive running out of space? Don't worry, you're not alone. With a few simple steps, you can free up valuable storage and get organized for future documents and projects. These tips...

Posted: September 10, 2025, 10:38 AM

A graphic of the Google Drive logo in front of a black Maryland flag pattern with yellow graphics in the corners. The icons include a copied document icon (top left), a trash can (top right), a computer monitor (bottom left), and a shared folder icon (bottom right)

Ally’s New PDF “Quick Fixes” Empower Faculty in Minutes

Fix titles, language, OCR issues, right inside Blackboard

Imagine encountering a PDF flagged in Ally for having no embedded title, missing language metadata, or being a scanned-only image. Ally’s latest update brings a trio of PDF "quick fixes" that turn...

Posted: September 9, 2025, 3:28 PM

A human figure with outstretched arms inside a circle of two curved arrows, suggesting movement. Below the figure are two words: digital accessibility.

Repost: Announcing the 2025 AI Symposium

Join us for our virtual series this fall!

The original post can be found on myumbc at Announcing the 2025 AI Symposium! On the heels of the successful “AI, Privacy, and Ethics Symposium” of April 2024, we’re back with a new iteration!...

Posted: September 8, 2025, 1:18 PM

Decorative flyer of the AI symposium

First time login since downtime interruptions

To all HPC users, We wanted to remind all users that the change to redundant login nodes may cause some one-time issues for returning users to the chip HPC. Due to the additional login...

Posted: September 4, 2025, 9:53 AM

Fix This Fast! How to Use Ally to Instantly Improve Your Course

Use Ally to find and fix course issues in minutes

Need to boost your course accessibility but short on time? Blackboard’s Ally tool is built right into your course and gives you instant feedback on how to improve content for all students —...

Posted: September 4, 2025, 8:05 AM

A human figure with outstretched arms inside a circle of two curved arrows, suggesting movement. Below the figure are two words: digital accessibility.

Downtime Complete

To all HPC users, The DoIT Research Computing Team has completed the downtime scheduled for today. Over the course of the downtime, the team was able to accomplish the following: Created...

Posted: September 3, 2025, 8:13 PM

Organize Assessments and Speed Up Feedback with September's Ultra Update

Discover new AI tools, question titles, block styling

The September Ultra release introduces improvements to assessment creation, content formatting and an optional AI-powered virtual assistant. These enhancements are designed to help instructors...

Posted: September 3, 2025, 3:34 PM

Black and white robot dog running with the words "New to Ultra" written on light turquoise background