Current Position and Past Experience
John Fritz is the senior academic technology officer responsible for UMBC's focused efforts in teaching, learning and technology, including the campus' Learning Analytics Community of Practice. He is also responsible for tier 1 (basic) IT user support including knowledge management and the New Media Studio. He leads the Instructional Technology & New Media group consisting of 16 full-time professionals and 20 part-time student staff. More info: doit.umbc.edu/itnm.

As a learning analytics researcher and practitioner, Fritz focuses on nudging student responsibility for learning, and identifying course designs that help. He attempts to do so by leveraging student use of technologies as a plausible proxy for engagement that can also shine light on pedagogical innovation. By looking for positive outliers in quantitative data patterns, he helps identify effective practitioners for qualitative interviews that might yield and reverse engineer effective practices in teaching and learning. In this way he attempts to find, show and tell stories in data that can inspire change. Fritz also focuses on knowledge management and user self-service as an effective approach to IT service management.

Education, Honors and Achievements
Fritz holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Language, Literacy & Culture from UMBC. He also holds a Master of Arts in English from University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts in English & Religion from Columbia Union College.

Personal Details and Community Involvement
Fritz swims one mile three times per week and finished the 4.4 Great Chesapeake Bay Swim in 1998 and 1999. He’s a bass vocalist for area churches, was a member of the Baltimore Opera Chorus in 1996 and sang the National Anthem at two Baltimore Orioles Major League Baseball games. He’s been volunteering at the Rt. 1 Day Center for Homeless of Howard County since 2008 and is an avid Audible fan, listening to two unabridged books a month.