With special reporting from Brad Floyd and Tabitha Motley.
The Rainbird Irrigation System on campus – operated by longtime SMU employee and current Southern Botanical employee Brian Martin – has a weather station that provides weather data to control irrigation schedules across The Hilltop. The weather station was originally installed at Ford Stadium, but due to the construction of the new Weber End Zone, OIT Infrastructure Engineer Scott Rice had the station temporarily moved to an area just outside of the northwest corner of the Tennis Complex. Its final (and current) location is in an open area just to the South of the Fondren Science Building. This is where it caught the attention of Chris Hayward and Cathy Chickering from the SMU Earth Sciences Department. Continue reading Campus Irrigation System Doubles as Research Data Source
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Did you know that all SMU students, faculty, and staff have access to the Forrester research portal? Many of you know how invaluable these databases of research findings, including analyses, opinions, trends, leading practices, or case studies, can be. With the Forrester platform, users can access market data research, business operation insights, and more just by going to 
Data from government institutions and research can be a treasure trove for academic researchers. However, obtaining that data in a usable form hasn’t always been easy. That’s now changing with some new ways to obtain US government data from a central online portal! 