Published: November 20, 2008

Nov. 3 marked the debut of Fordham’s new online portal, www.My.Fordham.edu. This portal is an extension of OASIS and, over time, will become a gateway to student e-mail, Blackboard, academic tutorials and other student resources, all in one location. Some of its features will include Ram Van schedules, library database access and online learning center tutorials. FCLC students seem to be generally pleased about the consolidation of several student Web sites into one comprehensive portal.

Using portals, or Internet pages that provide links to other sites, is becoming popular among colleges throughout the nation. An article in The Chronicle stated that the SUNY schools are very pleased with the results of this type of registration system and its retaining effects on freshmen.

A key feature that My.Fordham offers is the file sharing resource MyFiles, which offers “ubiquitous storage,” according to Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH)’s director of IT communications and training, Deirdre Dillon.

Rebecca Decker, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’12, said that she is “really excited about MyFiles because it will make collaborating with commuters much easier,” to complete group projects for class that require commuter/resident interaction. Decker also said that MyFiles will “eliminate bounced back e-mails and miscommunications in group work.”

Lauren Caminiti, FCLC ’11, said that she is “thrilled” that she “no longer has to carry a flash drive around” with her wherever she goes because of the development of My.Fordham.

While MyFiles and OASIS are features of My.Fordham that are already up and running, Charles Sanson, director of Internet services at FCRH, said that he is unable to provide an exact timeline for the availability of the remaining components of the portal. He anticipates that “e-mail [will] be accessible in time for [class] registration in March.” Sanson said that Blackboard, however, may take a bit longer to be ready since it is housed externally and is therefore more complicated to incorporate.

Luciana Taddei, FCLC ’12, said, “It will be nice to have all the resources we need available on one convenient, user-friendly site.” She said that she feels that knowing where to find all of the resources necessary for class registration, course selection information, e-mail and event information was very confusing and difficult with the old system and that the new portal would eliminate these issues.

Luca Vescovi, FCLC ’12, shared Taddei’s view, stating that “the new interface has so many great resources from weather to news, not to mention the lengthy list of academic support forums.” Links to all of these can be found on the My.Fordham homepage.

A concern voiced by Jenna Massey, FCLC ’09, was whether or not OASIS sessions would frequently time out and be inaccessible from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the new portal. Sanson said that “sessions would continue to time out after 55 minutes for security purposes.” While he was unable to give a definitive response about the system’s availability, he did say, “MyFordham is designed to be available 24/7, and unless there is some technical reason why OASIS can’t be, [my] educated guess is that OASIS will no longer have a time constraint once it has been fully integrated into the portal.”

Dillon encourages students to claim their AccessIT ID now. Claiming the ID will enable them to access My.Fordham and other features of the portal. Students must claim their  AccessIT ID by no later than the beginning of March, as the AccessIT ID will be required for course registration for the Fall 2009 semester forward. To claim this ID, students must go to: http://my.fordham.edu and follow the instructions listed.

Dillon stated that the portal is intuitive and quite easy to use; however, there are help resources available. The walk-in support center at FCLC is located in Lowenstein Room SL19A and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. The portal also offers FAQ’s, general information and a multitude of other support opportunities to help students familiarize themselves with My.Fordham.

As Dillon said, “Fordham is joining the rest of the world and now has its own Internet portal.”