FAQs about the change-over to Office 2007:

When will the computer labs have MS Office 2007?
The computer labs on the Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and Westchester campuses will begin installing MS Office 2007 this summer.

How do I get MS Office 2007 installed on my office computer?

Contact the University Help Desk to put in a request by phone (718-817-3999) or email (helpdesk@fordham.edu).  User Support will be notified and will schedule a mutually convenient appointment at the client’s location to install the software.
Can I get a copy of MS Office 2007 for my home computer?
If you are a full time faculty member, then you are eligible to download Microsoft Office 2007 for $9.95.
Stop by the Faculty Technology Center or Walk-In Technology Center on your campus and present a valid Fordham Faculty ID to have your license approved.  An email will then be sent to your fordham email address with a link to download Office 2007.  Payment via major credit card will be required at the time you download the software.

What if I need help using Office 2007?

Fordham IT Training is offering training classes this summer and fall semesters.  Visit the Fordham IT Training website or email training@fordham.edu.   We will also be posting tips, tutorials, and resources for the next several weeks on the ITAC blog.

Additional Information:
On July 15, 2009 Fordham IT began distributing to the University community Microsoft Office 2007 for PC users and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac users.  The new Office Suite will be delivered with new and replacement equipment or upon request.  Prior versions will no longer be distributed at the University, however support will continue until July 1, 2012.

New or Replaced Equipment:  All new and lease-replacement desktop computers will be distributed with Office 2007/2008.  Any existing computers that must have the operating system reinstalled will be returned to the client with Office 2007/2008.

Fordham’s Blackboard Learning Management System will be upgraded to version 8 for the coming academic year. To facilitate the upgrade, the system will be offline for 72 hours beginning at

12:00am on Friday, August 8th

To ease the burden on those teaching early-start classes, 08F courses will be in the system as of 9:00am Monday, July 28th, and faculty teaching this fall may begin updating course information at that time.

Blackboard has prepared Instructor Release Notes for version 8 of Academic Suite to help users get started quickly with the new features, and we encourage everyone to peruse this short document, which can be downloaded in PDF format at: http://tinyurl.com/59pstk

If you have any questions about the upgrade, please don’t hesitate to email blackboard@fordham.edu, or call 718-817-2289.

Over the Summer, Fordham will be upgrading to Blackboard Learning System 8.0. you can get a leg up on the new system–including the enhanced grade book–by taking a look at the Faculty Release Notes: https://behind.blackboard.com/s/sysadminas/refcenter/docs/details.BbDocumentID=3226&pid=100&rid=5759&dt=

08M courses have been uploaded to Blackboard. If you do not see your summer sections in your list of “Courses I am Teaching,” please contact blackboard@fordham.edu for assistance.

Just a quick reminder that the new Center for Teaching Excellence is having kickoff open houses today, 2/20, at Rose Hill and tomorrow, 2/21 at Lincoln Center. The open houses will be an opportunity to get to know the Center’s staff, and find out more about its mission and goals. The open houses will be held in the Faculty Technology Centers, and since we’re lending them our space for the event, this is a great opportunity to stop by and see what’s happening in the FTC, too! 

For faculty interested in using Wolfram Mathematica at home, the process for obtaining a home use license is now as simple as 1-2-3:

1. go to http://www.wolfram.com/siteinfo/homeuse/
2. enter Fordham’s site license number (L3144-0453)
3. choose “A New Home-use License,” enter the requested information,* and tell us how you want to receive the software.

Once your employment status is verified, you will receive an email with information on downloading the software or obtaining a CD.

* To speed the process of employment verification, please use your Fordham faculty email address when filling out the form.

The Faculty Technology Center at Rose Hill will be closed on the following days.

December 6, 2007
December 11-13, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Course materials for many of our Fall Group Technology Training sessions have been posted to the WIki.

If you have registered for technology traing this Fall and need your course materials, or if you have taken a course in the past and want to brush up, or even if you are just thinking about taking a course and want to see what will be covered, visit the Wiki and click the link for training coursepacks.

Yesterday, we re-launched the Blackboard support site in a new, friendly format. Among other changes, help is now divided into two sections, students and faculty, to help users find answers more quickly.

New look; same address: http://www.fordham.edu/blackboard.

A new plagiarism detection tool is a vailable to Fordham faculty this semester. SafeAssign is an alternative to Turnitin.com that integrates directly with our Blackbaord course management software. Instructors can create SafeAssign assignments in Blackboard, and any papers students submit will be automatically scanned before they are made available for grading in the gradebook. Instructors can also upload papers manually, one at a time, or in bulk.

Those who are familiar with Turnitin.com’s originality reports should will find SafeAssign very similar.

Mor information, including instructions on using SafeAssign and sample reports, is available at the SafeAssign support site: http://www.safeassign.com.