email

Wrapping up Google Apps

Welcome to Google Apps! Through May and June, more than 26,000 email accounts were migrated to Google Apps for Education.

“We had some minor delays with the migration, but all in all, it’s been a successful project,” says Chris Roberts, Information Technology Services (ITS)Project Manager. He adds that some administrative work, and a few loose ends still need to be tied up.

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Roberts says most people, students and alumni, had no difficulty changing over to Google Mail. “From a user perspective, it went very well. The vast majority are quite happy with the new service.”

From an implementation perspective, the project was a success. “We met our deadlines—in fact, even with the delays, we finished the migrations ahead of the June 30th deadline.”

If you would like to learn more about our new Google Apps service, please visit our “Welcome To Google Apps” site.

Questions? Contact the Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or at help@uleth.ca.

Student Email Survey Results

As part of the student email revitialization project, ITS along with the email project team, created and distributed a survey to determine what the students wanted in a new email system.  We received a very large response of almost 1500 students with approximately 30% of the surveys submitted with written comments.  It was a confirmation that this topic really matters to  students and we are are in the throes of conducting focus groups before making a solution recommendation.

The survey results revealed some interesting wants of the students, as well as areas that didn’t really matter as much as we thought they would.  For example:

1.  Storage capacity increases are considered a must.  Our current system does not meet the needs of our current population.

2.  Mobile device access to email is becoming a necessity.  The current platform does not support it sufficiently.

3.  Online productivity tools are a desired feature of any new email system.

4.  We need to consider privacy aspects of email, especially for students working in counselling or other sensitive areas of study.

5.  Video chat doesn’t really matter when considering an email solution.

This and other data will begin to shape our recommendations which we hope to have approved by the end of the calendar year.  Pilot projects will then be spun up during the spring semester, with full implementation being completed before the end of summer.

We would like to express our appreciation for all the feedback provided by the students, their participation in the focus groups and want to assure them that we are listening and paying attention to what they want in a new system.