Tag Archives: 201203

Gmail and Google Apps for Students are on the Way!

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At Simmons Technology, we are always looking for ways to provide our customers with the best technology and to do so in ways that increase efficiency and value. As part of these efforts, we are constantly assessing our current services and upgrading them when it is clear that we can improve performance and customer satisfaction. This is one of those moments.

In late May, following the conclusion of spring semester and graduation, we will be introducing Google Apps for Education (including Gmail) to all students as part of our Simmons Connection project. At that time, all student email will be migrated from Webmail to Gmail, including any email you have stored in Webmail. We recognize that this will be a big change and we want to take this opportunity to let you know what will happen, when it will happen, and how it will impact and improve your use of technology.

First, we’d like to tell you why we are making this important change. We’re aware that many students at Simmons already use Gmail for personal email and that many also forward their Simmons email to Gmail. This alone presents a distinct advantage over our current Webmail client. In addition, Gmail includes services like integrated chat, voice, and video conferencing, as well as simple syncing with mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, etc.). These are all significant upgrades to our current service. Google also provides a range of other services beyond Gmail, which will be useful to students, including Google Calendar and Google Docs.

On top of the direct benefits to students, moving to Google Apps represents an important organizational and budgetary improvement. Google Apps for Education is free and it is hosted and supported by Google. This means that we will be able to free up resources at Simmons for other significant technology initiatives and to refocus the work of our support staff on other services important to you. A practical example of the savings is reflected in the storage quota that will be included with Gmail. Students will soon have a 25 gigabyte storage quota. This is more than one-hundred times the amount of storage we are currently able to provide based on our budget and server capacity.

We do recognize that there will be many questions about this change and how it will work. To help answer those questions, we will be including more information in the April and May newsletters, creating an informative website that will help you navigate Google Apps, providing training sessions in April, June, and September, and having technology staff host information sessions on both the Academic Campus and the Residence Campus. Of course, you are always welcome to call or email the Service Desk to get answers to your questions directly.

Right now, we are in the process of testing Google Apps and we are looking for students to use the service and provide feedback. Clicking this link will take you to a sign-up form where you can volunteer to be an early adopter. Based on your availability in the coming months, we will choose volunteers from this list and help you switch to Gmail and begin using other Google Apps. It is very important to us that we get feedback from students before we open this new service to the entire student body. Your questions and comments will help guide us as we move forward. If you currently have a Gmail account for personal use, your new Simmons Gmail account will work alongside it and you can switch between accounts at any time without having to log out of one account and log in to the other.

Our goal is to make the transition to Google Apps on May 25th. Making this change between semesters will minimize any disruption in email services and allow students time to adjust before a new semester begins.

We hope you will also read the other two articles in this month’s TechNews. They will address data security and privacy concerns at Google and our plans for faculty and staff email and calendaring.

Online Privacy: How to Keep Control of Your Data

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In recent months, the changing privacy policies of popular websites have been making news. From Facebook to Google, there has been much warranted concern among users of these popular online services about how their data is being used. We’d like to address the value of privacy and data security for all Simmons users as well as privacy concerns during our transition to Google Apps for Education.

On March 1, Google implemented a new privacy policy that allows the company to collect and combine user data across their many services (Google.com, Gmail, and YouTube, among others). While Google has stated that the policy is a logical step and will create a more unified and targeted user experience, including better search results, watchdogs have expressed concern with an increased lack of privacy when using online services.

As we increasingly rely on commercial services as part of our everyday, online lives, it is important to remember to be vigilant about your data and how it is used. Services frequently change how they collect data, so it is important to be aware of this and to update your settings as necessary. If you are interested in checking your privacy settings on Google and Facebook, you can get started with the links below.

Google Dashboard – On this site, you can view and change your settings for all Google services.

Search History Personalization – Here, you can get answers to questions about how Google tracks your search history and personalizes its results.

Ads Preferences Manager – You can choose to opt-out of personalized ads, and learn more about how Google collects data to display relevant ads, by going to this site.

Facebook Privacy Settings – From here, you can manage who sees what you share when you’re on Facebook.

Lastly, you always have the option to not sign in to certain services when using them. For example, you do not need to be signed in to run searches on Google or to view videos on YouTube. You can also clear your cookies regularly so that stored data is purged before the next time you use these services. These steps require the most work (logging into and out of accounts) but will track the least amount of data.

We would also like to take this opportunity to address Google’s privacy policy and data collection in relation to our upcoming switch to Google Apps for students. Fortunately, the policies that apply to Google’s commercial services are superseded by the individual contracts signed with colleges and universities that use Google Apps for Education. These policies stipulate that we own our own data and that Google cannot use it for any commercial purposes.

Other schools (including Brown University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Delaware) that are currently using or implementing Google Apps for Education have also reviewed their contracts to ensure that their data is secure and unaffected by Google’s commercial policy changes. If you would like to learn more about Google Apps for Education and its privacy policies, you can read this guide provided by Google.

The Simmons Technology staff will continue to monitor all services and we will be proactive in making sure our data is safe.

Faculty and Staff Email Changes

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As you have probably noticed in the articles above, the switch to Google Apps for Education is happening for students only at this time. While we recognize that Google’s products, especially Gmail, are immensely popular, we also recognize that different users have different needs.

Because faculty and staff at Simmons require smooth integration of calendaring with meeting and project planning tools, we are still working to assess what products will best meet these needs.

Currently, we are considering moving faculty and staff email and calendars to Microsoft Exchange (including Outlook for email). As we continue to get feedback from you and assess your needs, we will work with you toward an appropriate upgrade solution.

For the time being, we will continue to fully support our existing email services for faculty and staff. Thank you for your patience as we conduct due diligence on this very important and complex service change.