Alert! SBMI Information on COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus)
Effective March 21, 2022, courses for the spring 2022 semester will follow the same instructional format SBMI utilized prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means classes at the UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics will be taught both fully in-person and online for the remainder of spring 2022.
Students registered for in-person SBMI courses are expected to attend class in-person during the scheduled time and day each week. This means students must be on campus for all live, in-person class sessions for the remainder of the semester.
Students enrolled in web-based classes will complete all coursework 100% online. There is no requirement to visit campus during the spring 2022 semester for any SBMI web-based course.
Students with questions or concerns should contact the Office of Academic Affairs at [email protected].
The Educational Technology Team of McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics is dedicated to providing excellent information technology and support services to the MSBMI's students and faculty.
You can reach Educational Technology at [email protected]
Educational Technology is available during business hours (9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Central Standard Time). Requests sent in after 6 P.M. will be answered during the next business day. If you have an urgent technical problem please note that Canvas, Proctorio and Turnitin all have their own 24/7 support hotlines.
→ Educational Technology for Learning
Canvas is the official learning management system at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. All courses including those that are face-to-face must have an online Canvas course site with resources uploaded and ready before the beginning of each academic semester.
→ Canvas Basics & Quick Orientation for Instructors
Most, if not all, of the educational technologies mentioned below are covered in the Instructor and TA Resources Course in Canvas. All instructors have access to this resource.
Per UTHealth policies, all online assessments contributing to a student’s grade must be proctored. McWilliams employs Proctorio as its primary and only source of proctoring services for online assessments.
Proctorio is an on-demand online proctoring service integrated into our learning management systems: Canvas. There’s no need to create an account, schedule appointments, pay for individual assessment attempts nor to purchase hardware or software. Proctorio relies on the student’s computer webcam and microphone to monitor assessments on an on-demand basis.
→ Exam and written paper monitoring policy
→ Instructor and TA Resources
Turnitin is a plagiarism prevention tool that also facilitates rich, meaningful feedback that improves student writing skills, promotes critical thinking and streamlines grading.
Faculty can check originality reports for student submissions and view papers marked with the Turnitin paperless grading tool.
McWilliams faculty may optionally choose to request a private account for Turnitin to check the originality of their papers and other academic work. Please send an e-mail [email protected] to request a Turnitin account.
→ Turnitin Instructor QuickStart Guide
>→ Instructor and TA Resources
MSBMI provides students and faculty with free access to LinkedIn Learning, a great resource for technical training on a variety of topics.
For all users, activate your LinkedIn Learning account by going to https://go.uth.edu/linkedinlearning.
If you have trouble accessing your account, contact the MSBMI Educational Technology team at [email protected].
Symplicity CSM at MSBMI is a powerful platform that connects students with exclusive job and internship opportunities tailored to their academic pathways. Providing MSBMI-vetted and approved listings ensures access to high-quality employment opportunities in their chosen fields.
Faculty Advisors and Practicum Employers utilize Symplicity for practicum management, streamlining processes, and enhancing career development support. Faculty can also refer employers to Symplicity, enabling them to create employer profiles and post job opportunities that align with the skillsets of MSBMI graduates.
Symplicity is accessible to current MSBMI faculty—no registration is required for Faculty Advisor roles, while faculty acting as Practicum Employers will need to complete an employer registration to access the platform.
Office 365 Education is a cloud-based service which provides access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and additional productivity tools. Students and teachers at UTH can download Microsoft Office 365 Education for personal use on no more than 5 personal, non-UTHealth devices.
Using your Office 365 account, you can also access OneDrive which is managed by UTHealth and accessible via most browsers. With OneDrive, you can log in and access Office documents from any computer at any location.
→ Office 365 Login
→ UTH IT Office 365 Service Description and FAQ
→ For help contact [Office 365 Support] or refer to [Microsoft Office Support Site]
UTHealth Microsoft Teams speeds up communication via Teams chat and allows for collaboration between team members who are working remotely. Team members are limited to UTHealth students, faculty and staff only. If you need a Team to be created, please send a request to [email protected] with a team name (in the format of McWilliams-team name) and email of Team members.
You can access Microsoft Teams using a web browser https://teams.microsoft.com, mobile device, or the Teams application that can be installed on your UTHealth computer. You will need to use your UTHealth email address and password to log in. The getting started guide http://go.uth.edu/teams is available online.
→ Login to Microsoft Teams (Use your UTHealth Houston username and password)
Grammarly is a cloud-based utility software that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes in English texts, detects plagiarism, and suggests replacements for the identified errors. All students, faculty and staff have access to Grammarly through the UTHealth license. Click on the link below to activate your account:
→ Login to Grammarly (Use your UTHealth Houston username and password)
After activating your UTHealth Grammarly account, you can use the shortened URL https://go.uth.edu/grammarly for easier access. Your license may be deactivated if not used for 90 days, but can be reactivated by clicking on the login link above.
Grammarly can be installed and used on common computer platforms and mobile devices. It also works as an extension for popular browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge. Its interface and features are self-explanatory.
→ First Time Login to Activate Grammarly Account
→ Shortened URL for easy access: https://go.uth.edu/grammarly
→ Grammarly Support Documents
UTHealth students, faculty, and staff can use Zoom free of charge, to schedule interactive online meetings. Users needing a new Zoom account can simply log into Zoom using this link, https://uthealth.zoom.us and will be instantly provisioned a license. UTHealth Faculty and Staff will receive upgraded licenses with no time limit for meetings and students will receive a basic license that has a 40-minute time limit for meetings.
Recordings of Zoom meetings will save to the Cloud as a default with the ability to download the meeting afterward. Zoom recordings will only be available to 15 days, after which the recordings will be purged. Please note the student license does not come with the recording function, however students can access recordings that are shared with them with a link and passcode.
→ UTHealth Zoom Login
→ Contact support
→ Additional Help Information
Panopto is an online platform for sharing lectures, classroom recordings and narrated presentations. It allows both instructors and students you to record, manage and share video content in Canvas courses. Panopto is available to instructors and students through their Canvas courses.
To record a lecture on your desktop or laptop computer, navigate to your course in Canvas and use the Panopto Recordings tool to start a recording. Once completed, your recording is automatically compressed, stored and made available to your students.
Virtual Campus in Second Life, a virtual environment for teaching and learning, contains the Virtual Health Clinic, a virtual linear accelerator simulation, classrooms, breakout spaces, information about our school and plenty of other spaces to explore.
Our school currently uses Second life for virtual class sessions, office hours and poster presentations.
→ Students can Join Second Life for Free
→ Click Here to Visit the Virtual Campus in Second Life
UTHealth students, faculty, and staff now have free access to QuestionPro, the web-based survey software, that allows users to create customizable online surveys with unlimited responses, and generate reports without programming knowledge.
To get an account, go to go.uth.edu/qp and log in using UTHealth Houston credentials.
For questions or more information, please contact the IT Solution Center at [email protected] or 713-486-4848.
Online training is available:
DE Team assembled the following quick reference page for data analysis software available for instructors and students. Several of these software titles are free and others may be purchased directly from the software publisher.
→ List of Data Analysis Software for instructors
DE also recommends the following free online tools that may be helpful to instructors and students for their academic work.
→ List of Free Online Tools Compiled by DE
Even when using third party tools, please continue to comply with the best practices and IT policies issued by UTHealth.
UTHealth offers instructors two options for file sharing and storage:
UTHealth SecureStor is a cloud based storage system that makes it possible to store, access and share files and folders from a computer desktop, web browser and mobile device. UTHealth students, faculty and staff can log into to SecureStor with their UTHealth ID and password. UTHealth SecureStor can store all data classifications including HIPAA.
→ More information about UTHealth SecureStor
→ Login to UTHealth SecureStor
UTH Share is UTHealth’s implementation of Google Apps for Education, excluding Gmail. HIPAA data is not allowed on UTH Share!
→ Create a UTH Share account
→ Login to UTH Share
Lucidchart, the cloud-based application for creating flowcharts and visualizations, is now fully integrated with Canvas. UTHealth students, faculty and staff can access LucidChart in any Canvas course by following the instructions on the following page:
→ https://uth.instructure.com/courses/14252/pages/lucid-canvas-integration
Please note that for MSBMI users, free access to LucidChart currently is only available through a Canvas course.
UTHealth Houston users now have free access to Coursera's Career Academy, featuring career-focused courses such as:
→ Login at https://www.uth.edu/coursera/
→ For support, contact [email protected]
A generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) is a large language model (LLM) and a prominent framework for generative artificial intelligence. It is an artificial neural network used by machines to process natural language. GPT models are based on the transformer deep learning architecture and are pre-trained on large datasets of unlabeled text, enabling them to generate novel human-like content. The first GPT was introduced by OpenAI in 2018, and subsequent models have been released with increasing capabilities, such as GPT-4, which is currently in use. These models are widely used in various applications, including chatbots, content creation, and more.
Warning: All GPTs owned and operated by organizations other than UTHealth should be considered unsuitable for inputting Intellectual Property(IP) or copyrighted information such as dissertations, research data/findings, or other IP owned by UTHealth. There is no way to extract/recall data input into a GPT owned and operated by entities other than UTHealth.
Please refer to UTHealth IT’s GPT Comparison Matrix before using GPTs for coursework and research at UTHealth.
The free version of MS Copliot is available to UTHealth students and provides essential document assistance with grammar, spelling, and formatting. UTHealth faculty and staff can purchase a full license version through UTHealth. Students can pay to obtain their licenses. Only licenses purchased by UTHealth for staff and faculty are FERPA and HIPAA compliant.
ChatGPT is designed to generate human-like text in response to user questions or prompts. Specifically, ChatGPT operates as a chatbot or conversational system, trained on a large dataset primarily up to 2021. This AI tool currently utilizes GPT-4, similar to other AI tools that employ one of these language models. Only licenses purchased by UTHealth for staff and faculty are FERPA and HIPAA compliant.
Installed on UTHealth hardware, Meta’s Llama 3.2 GPT is available for academic and research purposes for MSMBI students, faculty, and staff. FERPA and HIPAA compliant and locally hosted at UTHealth. Your information and data do not leave UTHealth premises. Meta Llama is only available to MSBMI students, faculty, and staff. MSBMI AIChat is owned and operated by UTHealth IT and, therefore is a safe resource to use for IP sensitive information. Please note: users must use VPN while accessing the MSBMI AIChat off-campus.
This presentation introduces all of TMC Library's services and resources, including brief information about where to find research databases and how to locate full text articles. All students with a TMC Library card can use the free InterLibrary Loan Service to request photocopies and materials from another library for free.
→ A Complete List of UTHealth Library Resources
Many classes culminate with a poster presentation at the end of the semester. Every semester, the poster session gives students the opportunity to present their projects with both their fellow colleagues and learning and research community. Posters with the best content and presentation are awarded a prize.
All faculty will be contacted via email near the end of each semester to confirm which classes will require or recommend poster presentations for students. This will help MSBMI Web staff to anticipate the number of participants for the poster session.
→ Information on Poster Sessions
Our school offers free plotter printing services to our students presenting in poster sessions. Additional posters for other occasions may be printed for a fee.
Posters are 40 inches wide on a heavyweight matte poster paper or a semi-gloss poster paper. Large-format posters will be created with the poster template rather than separate PowerPoint slides. To schedule a print, contact [email protected].
Please allow MSBMI Web staff 24 hours to print your poster.
To discuss poster dimensions and for template questions, email [email protected]. For consultations or special print jobs, students must schedule a time with media lab staff the week before the scheduled poster session. Posters are printed on a first come, first serve basis.
→ Poster Template (horizontal)
→ Poster Template (vertical)
→ Plotter Cost Calculator
| Name | Title | Location | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emin Saglamer | Director, Educational Technology | UCT E.655G | 713.500.3916 | [email protected] |
| Tingting Lu, PhD | Assistant Director Informatics Education | UCT E.655C | 713.500.3475 | [email protected] |
| Camelia Addison | Instructional Developer | UCT E.655B | 713.500.3413 | [email protected] |
| Darren Keesee | Instructional Developer | UCT E.655A | 713.500.3414 | [email protected] |
Updated: 9/3/2024