Harvard University Information Technology helps shift to online
During the last week of February, as it was becoming clear that a novel coronavirus was spreading quickly around the world, University officials started preparing a contingency plan for the remainder of the semester that involved evacuation and turning Harvard into a virtual campus, one that could run without students, faculty, and staff on University grounds. The whole thing was unprecedented. There was no playbook for how to move approximately 5,000 classes online and keep the University’s operations running remotely without interruption. Anne Margulies, University chief information officer and head of the Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT), would be facing one of most complex, difficult challenges of her career. After the University’s decision on March 10 to send students home for the remainder of the semester and later to close down the rest of campus, HUIT staff worked around the clock to execute the plan’s key steps. It was no small feat. “We...