Mar, 2014

Student email moving into the 21st century

Google Apps for EducIf you had a parent attend the U of L, they may have used the same old email system that’s still in place today.  That is about to change, thanks to a new project that will be migrating students’ email service from the old email system to Google’s mail offering.  The highlights include 500 times more storage, a vastly improved user interface, address book as well as an integrated calendar system, just to name a few.

It has been no small project to undertake. To make this decision, ITS has spent the last year consulting with students, staff, faculty, legal advisors and other institutions in order to gather as much information as possible.

“The Google service being implemented is specifically for educational institutions and, unlike Google’s Gmail service that is targeted at the general public, this service will use the same @uleth.ca email addresses our students already have, and will not display any advertisements on student accounts,” says Darren Schell, Director of Transformation in Information Technology Services (ITS).

The migration of just under 10,000 accounts is expected to be complete by early summer.

Faculty and staff email accounts will not be impacted by this change and will remain on the University’s in-house Microsoft Exchange email system.