After reviewing last spring’s pilot program, St. Thomas has decided the advantages of switching campus email to Gmail are not significant enough to warrant a change from its current Outlook Web Access system.
Between 35 to 40 students participated in a test program that went from April 5, 2010, to the end of the semester. Information Resources and Technology used the pilot to determine whether a switch would be cost-effective, and the deparment reviewed the program’s results this summer.
“The outcome was that there potentially could be some benefits for students, especially on the collaboration piece that Google Docs offers,” said Chris Gregg, director of information resources and technology. “I think there were some wins in there potentially for students, but they weren’t significant.”
Senior Taylor Smith has two Gmail accounts, one for his phone and one he uses for registering for websites. Smith said he is in favor of the decision not to switch.
He said, “Gmail just seems like a cheaper alternative to what we have now.”
Liz Houle, director of web and media services, said the security risks involved in housing email off-campus would have been a problem. The current services IRT provides would have been compromised with a switch to Gmail, she said.
“At the end of the day students still need someone they can call,” Houle said. “It’s not like you’re going to call Google for mail support, so we like to think that we’re providing a little higher quality of control and support over any issues or problems we might encounter in serving and delivering email.”
Junior Paul Jay uses Gmail for his private email account but said he doesn’t have a problem with staying with the current system.
“It’s not bad,” he said. “I mean, it works.”
Gregg said that while a number of schools have switched to Gmail, it is usually due to either a problem with their current system or a significant budget shortage.
He also said St. Thomas is fortunate to not have to switch over to Gmail.
“We have a pretty stable email environment, and we’re in a good position where I don’t think we had to make the move,” he said. “It didn’t seem like there was a large demand for it.”
Tom Graves can be reached at grav5886@stthomas.edu.
I think everything said by IRT in this article is a lie!
1. I was in that ‘pilot’ program, and almost immediately after it started it seemed as if IRT had given up on it. I received no emails about it, and was never asked what my opinion was of it.
2. It’s ridiculous if anybody at IRT actually think their servers in the basement of Aquinas are more secure than Google’s server’s across the globe which have security designed by the biggest geniuses in the world. In fact, Google has a whole article about how safe Apps for education is: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/privacy.html
3. If you have a problem with Gmail, you can still call the tech desk. They can be retrained to help people with problems on Gmail (which they probably already know anyways). Also, Google offers free 24-hour phone support for Education: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/static.py?page=contacting_support.html
4. A good portion of all the major universities in the country have switched, or are switching to Google apps. The University of Minnesota estimates they are saving $2-3 Million PER YEAR!
5. Gmail can be accessed via Microsoft Outlook, so most staff would not see a change.
If UST could save $1 million per year, there’s no reason not to change. Especially…
Nice comment Dan!
Are you insinuating that St. Thomas has more money to spend on this and that all other schools are cheap? That comment makes the entire university sound pompous. Just because the school can afford Outlook doesn’t mean it’s any better. My friend who goes to the University of Minnesota had her email switched to Google Apps and it actually is a really a nice service because you can use your email with other websites that use google apps. It seems like IRT doesnt want to make the effort to learn and deal with Gmail. I’ve been to IRT multiple times and they have rarely been any help in fixing my technology issues so I don’t know how much more different they’re help will be with gmail.
Very true Dan. I too was in the Pilot and wasn’t too pleased about how IRT went about conducting the test.
I completely agree with all of your points, Dan. Every time I contact IRT I run in to problems with people not knowing enough to actually help. I would rather “risk” (not much of a risk) my chances with google where they have trained people helping.
I think those that think Google apps is “cheap” or “not worth it” don’t understand the capabilities. It’s more than just a mail client. It allows for collaboration between classmates that no Microsoft Outlook could provide.
Furthermore, I can’t settle for something that “just works”. If I’m going to work with something, I want it to be exceptional in performance. Unfortunately, Outlook does not provide this type of performance.
I would have to agree with the comments above. I have had a Gmail account for 2 years and I love its security features. Additionally, I have yet to have to empty my inbox due to lack of space, which I have to do at least 3-4 times a year with my UST inbox.
If Gmail was indeed a “cheaper alternative” to what we already have, I would perhaps question the switch. However, Gmail is higher quality, can still have proper HTML formatting on all browsers (not just Internet Explorer), and provides for a better user experience all around. It is not just a bargain, but a wise decision, and a decision that IRT clearly did not invest enough time in properly researching.
In my opinion, it sounds as if IRT doesn’t want to be forgotten about. If we did go with gmail, they would lose their purpose somewhat or some could even lose their jobs. That’s what this sounds like to me.
I was initially part of the pilot program. I had problems with the switch at word go. GMAIL could not recognize my email and for some reasons non of my emails were getting forwarded.
I did inform IRT but never got any help from them. IRT seemed not to be in the program and solving the issues I had with it.
I don’t think they tried to solve the problem at all being that they never contacted me after I expressed my problem.
The only concern I have is about privacy and how secure our data would be.
I just link my UST address to my gmail one so I receive all my UST e-mails on gmail anyway.
I already forward all my UST email directly to my personal Gmail account. I wouldn’t dream of condemning myself to that ancient webmail interface Outlook still uses. (It doesn’t even have a mass delete? *What?*) It handles attachments poorly, the quota is miniscule, it strips links and turns carefully-formatted emails into heaps of html-less gook. It’s a mess, and I hate it.
On the other hand, I understand the desire to keep email stored locally. Gmail has problems — outages, accidental account deletions, a *boatload* of questions about privacy — and Gmail is not really accountable to us in the same way that IRT is. Plus, let’s be honest, it’s only a matter of time before there is a major security breach somewhere in the Cloud that’s going to compromise the security of literally millions of people. Like as not, Google is going to be the victim of that.
So, I understand a decision to stick with Outlook, but it’s a bummer. And, like some other commenters, nothing IRT said in this article made sense to me. Certainly, I’ve had better support experiences with the professionals at Google Help than with my student colleagues at the IRT front desk. This is no slight against our IRT workers; I’d hardly expect them or anyone to be as amazing as…
Glad to hear other people agree with me! Just because we can afford to pay Microsoft for outdated software and it ‘works fine’ doesn’t mean we should. Google apps for education are actually better than personal Gmail. First of all, it’s totally free. They’d even help IRT implement it (correctly) for free. Secondly, there are NO ads meaning they do not scan your emails with their ad software, meaning all the privacy issues are gone. Thirdly, you get UNLIMITED storage (regular Gmail users get like 7gb or something). Fourthly, as someone else already mentioned, you’re getting way more than email, you’re getting Google docs which is essentially Microsoft Office on the web.
On the topic of IRT wasting money, let’s not even start talking about the impending ‘upgrade’ to the new (worse) version of Blackboard. Again, the U of M (and all other responsible schools) use Moodle, which is a FREE version of Blackboard which, based on all internet reviews, is a MUCH easier to use and better software package than Blackboard. The problem with IRT is they basically have no supervision and if they ask for more money they can always get it because they sound smart….
… continuing… I believe that most other non-academic departments are managed/supervised by the ‘auxiliary services’ department which doesn’t allow the spending of millions of dollars without good reason, but for some reason UST has set IRT basically as their own division which means they have little-to-no supervision and since they are thought to be smart, they can basically get whatever funding they want.
Correct me if I’m wrong on how the department is organized, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. The board of directors should either get some more tech-savvy people who can vote down requests for extra money when appropriate, or they should more closely supervise how IRT is spending money. I’d hate to think how many hours were spent by IRT employees developing Portal (which nobody uses, and everybody agrees sucks, sorry to the folks who made it :( ). If you’re going to waste the time and money making in-house software then you should actually make sure it works and not just release one version of it before calling it quits.
I think the long and short of this whole issue is that if IRT chooses to go Google, it is essentially firing half of its staff. And that is a hard decision to make, especially internally, which is why you get all these silly excuses for not switching that people are commenting on. That doesn’t mean we should or should not be switch, but perhaps IRT should not be the ones deciding if we do…
Please explain how going Google would take away “half of IRT’s staff.” The only thing moving off campus would be email. I can’t imagine it takes very many people to maintain the current email servers. The only thing we’d be losing as far as I can tell are the large software fees that we have to pay Microsoft for Exchange Server or whatever we’re running.
I think that Tom is the bees knees for bringing light to this subject very interesting!