The Educational Technology/Distance Education (DE) Team at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston is dedicated to providing excellent information technology and support services to the school’s students and faculty.
You can reach DE at [email protected]
DE 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.
Canvas is the official learning management system at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The majority of McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics courses will be hosted out of Canvas including the New Student Orientation.
→ Canvas Basics & Quick Orientation for Students
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics students, by their enrollment at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics, have agreed to meet the following minimum hardware and software requirements:
→ McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Hardware & Software Requirements list
All McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics students are responsible for making sure they have access to the required computing resources to attend McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics classes.
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
Per UTHealth policies, all online assessments contributing to a student’s grade must be proctored. McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics 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 system: 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.
→ More Information on Proctorio in the New Student Orientation
Turnitin is a plagiarism prevention software that is integrated in Canvas. Turnitin automatically analyzes, scores and provides originality reports for submissions to assignments in Canvas. McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics instructors also access the same originality reports during the assignment grading process.
Turnitin training videos and manuals for students are available at:
→ Turnitin Student Quickstart Guide.
Panopto is an online platform for sharing lectures, classroom recordings and narrated presentations. It allows both instructors and students to record, manage and share video content in Canvas courses. Panopto is available to all UTHealth students and faculty.
→ Log into Panopto (Sign in Using "UTHealth login" or "UTHealth Canvas Server")
Students can also access Panopto through the "Panopto Recordings" link in a Canvas course. Please refer to Panopto documentation in both the New Student Orientation and the introduction modules of your Canvas courses for more information.
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.
→ Register your UTHealth "Office 365" account
→ UTH IT Office 365 Service Description and FAQ
→ For help contact [Office 365 Support] or refer to [Microsoft Office Support Site]
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Virtual Campus in Second Life, a virtual environment for teaching and learning, contains the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Virtual Health Clinic, a virtual linear accelerator simulation, classrooms, breakout spaces, information about our school and plenty of other spaces to explore.
Second Life may be used in some courses for virtual class sessions, office hours and assignments.
→ McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Students can Join Second Life for Free
→ Click Here to Visit the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Virtual Campus in Second Life.
QuestionPro is web-based software that allows the user to create online surveys that are visually appealing and 100% customizable, and generate reports without programming knowledge. It is similar to Qualtrics.
UTHealth Houston has purchased a university-wide license that includes:
To get an account, go to go.uth.edu/qp and log in using UTHealth Houston credentials.
Short videos are available to help users get acquainted with QuestionPro:
For online training, go to https://www.questionpro.com/help/create-survey.html
For questions or more information, please contact the IT Solution Center at [email protected] or 713-486-4848.
DE Team assembled the following quick reference page for data analysis software. Several of these software titles are free and others may be purchased directly from the software publisher by students.
→ List of Data Analysis Software for McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics instructors
DE also recommends the following free online tools that may be helpful to McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics students for their coursework.
→ 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 students two options for file sharing and storage:
UTHealth SecureStor
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 SecureStor
→ Login to UTHealth SecureStor
UTH Share (Google Drive)
UTH Share is UTHealth’s implementation of Google Apps for Education, excluding Gmail. HIPAA data is not allowed on UTH Share!
→ Learn More about the Google Tools - UTH Share - UTHealth
→ Login to UTH Share
IT teams have carefully reviewed and allow-listed the most commonly used Google services, applications, and Chrome extensions. See the list here: UTHealth Approved Google Requests
If an extension, service, or application you need to learn, teach or conduct research at UTHealth is not listed on the approved list, please use the following link to request it for vetting by IT Security Risk Management & Consulting.
Students can find software programs such as Microsoft Office and Adobe products at discount prices at the UTHealth Bookstores.
This presentation introduces all of TMC Library's services and resources, including information about where to find research databases and how to locate full text articles. All McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics 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
UpToDate is available to all staff, faculty, and students at UTHealth Houston at: http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search
Users may access the system via any internal computer as well through phone/tablet app or from home computer. Once logged in to the UTHealth Houston domain, users will be able to register with UpToDate, receive their UN/PW from UpToDate and activate the mobile app with it. While in the UTHealth Houston domain, UTHealth Houston employees and students can just click on the login/register button to set up UpToDate.
Register for a username and password to get mobile app for iOS, Android or Windows 8 devices. To register an account, visit: https://www.uptodate.com/login-register
To access from the web, visit : http://www.uptodate.com/contents/search
For iPhone App, visit: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/uptodate/id334265345?mt=8
For Android App, Visit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uptodate.android&hl=en
Many McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics 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 McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics learning and research community. Posters with the best content and presentation are awarded a prize.
→ Information on McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Poster Sessions
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics offers free plotter printing services to our students presenting in McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics 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 DE 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
Updated: 6/28/2024