Wolfram will be on campus on the 22^nd of November to introduce Mathematica v11, their powerful technical computing platform. The University has acquired unlimited licenses for this system which allows users to perform data analysis, text and language processing, geographic data visualisation and more. In addition Mathematica also provides neural networks, machine learning possibilities and audio, image and signal processing capabilities.

The Data Science Institute invites submissions for proposals with the potential to develop successful interdisciplinary data science activities at The University of Manchester. Joint applications from researchers developing collaborations across different disciplines are encouraged.

Two Avizo courses will take place in the Photon Science Institute (PSI) at the university in December. An introductory course will take place on the 6^th followed by an advanced course on the 7th. The courses are free to students / members of staff at the University of Manchester but external attendees will be charged.

Registration has now closed for these training events.

Two members of Research IT are co-authors on a recently published paper in BMC Ecology. The paper describes the development and implementation of "BioVeL" - a virtual laboratory for data analysis and modelling in biodiversity science and ecology.

We are launching a new bimonthly club which aims to keep researchers at the University of Manchester up to date with the activities of Research IT. This will be our opportunity to share with you announcements of new services and training opportunities and give you the opportunity to feedback to us. The club will also provide a platform for researchers to share their knowledge and best practice in research IT with others from across the university and to promote cross-collaboration between research groups.

Introducing "R at University of Manchester" (R.U.M.), a group open to all staff and students using R at The University of Manchester. The R.U.M Group exists to bring together R users of all levels, with interests in diverse fields from across the University to exchange tips, ideas and knowledge for the benefit of all.

From November, Research IT will be holding Drop-in sessions in different locations around campus. There is no booking required, just drop by to have a chat about any research-related IT problems you may have.

The moment has arrived. Dropbox for Business has landed and accounts are ready to activate.

If you signed up to the University’s Dropbox for Business service you will start to receive your accounts from this week. Don’t panic if you’re not one of the first to get your account, IT Services will be working hard throughout November to get you all set up.

LinguaSnapp is a project to create multilingual landscape maps of cities round the world by crowdsourcing data from the public. Last year Research IT created a mobile app and web application for the project to focus on the city of Manchester.

Do you use the statistical language R? If so there is a new university wide user group for those interested in learning and applying statistics in the program R.

On the 12^th – 13^th Dec, Research IT will be hosting a course on “Writing Scalable Parallel Applications with MPI”. The course will be hands on and is an opportunity to learn how best to use MPI.

Research IT is pleased to announce that a replacement system for the existing Research Data Storage platform (Isilon) has been procured. The new tiered platform will offer researchers greater data storage capacity and will also be faster and cheaper.