http://listserv.educause.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0902&L=CIO&P=177022
Subject: Re: Google Apps for facuty/staff
From: Walter Matystik (MC1972 MCstaff)
Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:32:13 -0500
Manhattan College made the full transition to Google Apps over the January intersession for all students and employees. We’ve already avoided capital expenditures this fiscal year for server and storage upgrades we would have needed had we kept our in house system. I’ve also been able to cut next FYs capital budget that would have continued with those upgrades. And, with Google, we ramped up storage way beyond what we could have done on our own.
Our next move will be to add alum e-mail over the summer converting legacy account and transitioning the May graduates to an alum pool. Google apparently can’t yet segregate user groups so the alum accounts will initially remain free of ads (same as students/employees) until Google sorts that out.
The synchronization with PDAs/cells and the shared calenders have been appreciated and, overall, the transition has been well received so far especially by the students. We did have to deal with some of the same issues already addressed in Theresa and Ted’s responses. What helped was getting the proposal to make the move approved by our IT Advisory Board (comprising faculty, administrators, board reps & consultors).
I’m still a bit concerned over what will happen cost-wise down the road after the “free phase” expires and needed to make a strong financial case that any potential impact in the future would have been offset by years of savings. Time will tell.
Walt
On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Kubb, Rick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Greetings,
> For those that have already gone down the path of Google Apps for student
> email is anyone considering doing the same for faculty/staff email or
> perhaps already implemented it? What issues are you dealing with (e.g.
> privacy issues, political issues, cultural, technical such as integrating
> VOIP unified communications with Google Apps)?
> Regards,
> Rick.
> Rick Kubb
> Director of Administrative Technology
> Maryville University
> St. Louis, MO 63141
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