Members of the Fordham community may have noticed recent updates to their MyFordham homepage due to upgrades from IT. Most noticeable is the redesigned “My Apps” page; however, that is not the only renovation to the system.
On Nov. 9, the IT department sent an email detailing the changes, focusing on RamDocs, a more secure network, a new HPCC Magis Cluster, a major/minor declaration form and an employee action form.
“The initiative, outlined in our annual email, reflects the university’s commitment to reimagining education through technology,” said Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the Office of Information Technology, Anand Padmanabhan. “One of the central goals of the IT department at Fordham is digital transformation, a commitment to providing impactful tech tools that elevate efficiency and propel the university forward.”
The main focus of these updates was to increase practicality and avoid unnecessary roadblocks within the system. One of which was to upgrade the Fordham Student Hub, a service accessed via MyApps. It allows students easy access to academic advisors and other individuals within Fordham that are assigned to assist them.
Notably, this resource offers the ability to schedule appointments with advisors in person, by phone, or via Zoom. Students can also easily contact advisors through the Hub.
“This semester, we did a significant redesign based on valuable feedback from students and advisors — the Hub now offers an intuitive and streamlined experience,” said Padmanabhan. “The updated interface makes it easy to schedule appointments with advisors and key services.”
New features in MyApps and the Hub will be rolled out in 2024.
A similar resource called Virtual Academic Space allows students to easily access software applications that are offered in the university’s campus computer labs.
“Think of this as your computer lab in the cloud, which is accessible by you wherever you are with an internet connection,” said Padmanabhan.
This service includes tools like R, Microsoft Office 365, SPSS, Banner, Hyland OnBase and PowerFAIDS. It is accessible from any device via MyApps.
The Office of Information Technology has also done work to increase research computing capabilities at Fordham.
The Magis Cluster, a high-performance computing system, was introduced to address the needs of faculty and student researchers.
“[It boasts] a 56 Teraflops cluster with dedicated GPUs featuring 64,000 CUDA cores. The Magis Cluster enables rapid parallel processing of computationally intensive tasks,” said Padmanabhan. “As a testament to its commitment to cutting-edge research, Fordham is set to integrate Grace-Hopper GPUs as early as Feb 2024, further elevating the Magis Cluster’s capabilities.”
Additionally, a Learning, Innovation, and Technology Environment center in Walsh Library has been updated. It now holds virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing, podcasting rooms and resources offered to educate students on these technologies.
“The ambitious changes were not implemented overnight. Fordham University’s Office of Information Technology has been working tirelessly behind the scenes, planning and executing these initiatives to ensure a seamless transition,” said Padmanabhan. “We have taken an approach to bring new services and functionality faster to the students and employees.”
As these enhancements go forward, students have hope that certain aspects of the Fordham systems will be updated.
The Fordham class registration system is among these.
“It needs to be able to handle more students registering at the same time,” said Christina Lopez-Letsi, GSB ’27. “I waited like half a minute for it to load, and by the time it was done most classes were already gone.”
As more internal updates occur, the Office of Information Technology will inform the student body.Curious students can stay aware via Fordham’s Info Tech News Blog, which posts about updates and workshops for the Fordham community, or follow them on Twitter, @FordhamIT.
