From Literature to Linux, 'IT Fair 2005' to Showcase UB Technologies

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo IT Fair 2005, focusing on the myriad new technologies and innovations that UB faculty, staff and students have developed to meet challenges ranging from cyber security to online instruction, will be held June 28 and 29 in the Center for the Arts (CFA) on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

The event will be free and open to the public. Thirty technology vendors also will exhibit their products in the CFA atrium.

"The fair gives us an opportunity to showcase and share innovative approaches and strategies in the use of information technology, from new electronic ways to requisition equipment to helping faculty create computer-based instruction," said Voldemar A. Innus, UB vice president and chief information officer.

Innus will give the keynote speech at 8:30 a.m. June 28 in the CFA Screening Room.

"Here at UB, we are in the midst of significant change in the provision of information resources and services and that includes the University Libraries and Computing and Information Technology, as well as decentralized providers of IT services," he noted.

Innus credited UB's IT Culture Change Committee, in existence since 1997, with the successful development and integration of IT technologies in accordance with the missions and goals of units across the university.

Some of the innovative IT projects developed at UB that will be showcased at the fair include:

-- Online course software that allows faculty to focus on content rather than computer programming design

-- A training CD -- complete with deliberate "bloopers" -- designed to help students in the School of Social Work learn how to interact with clients

-- Software developed by the Center for Computational Research in UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences that provides researchers with access to genomics packages and software for DNA and protein sequence analysis and other bioinformatics applications

Presentations also will be made by vendors including Apple, Dell and others.

For more information on the fair, go to http://itfair.buffalo.edu.

The fair is sponsored by the IT Culture Change Committee. UB supporters include Computing and Information Technology, Law School, Science and Engineering Node Services, Office of the Provost, Health Professions IT partnerships, University Libraries, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Informatics, Office of the CIO, Center for Computational Research and the School of Social Work.