N.C . State gave all incoming freshman a Google Apps account in Fall 2010, as the result of nearly two years of research and pilot programs the Office of Information Technology.
According to Stan North Martin, OIT Director of Outreach, one of the reasons for the move was to put students, faculty and staff on a unified environment.
“One of the goals we’ve had for a long time has been to get the entire campus on to one system that you can really create some great collaborative environments,” Martin said.
Martin stated that Google Apps for Education are made available at no cost to the University or students. Also, ads are removed from the interface.
Prior to G-Mail and Google Apps, email services were handled in-house by Webmail, according to Martin. This mail service shared space with each student’s K-drive. By default, 50MB of file space were allocated to the email inbox. Currently, G-Mail includes a 25GB inbox.
“It was pretty clear that there was no way that we could provide the kind of space that Google provides,” Martin said.
Webmail was hosted locally by the University. Martin said upgrading local systems to offer each student three GB of space would have cost “well over $250,000 per year.”
In addition to email, Google Apps include Calendar, Docs, and Sites.
The search process for the University’s new e-mail client ended in 2008. According to Martin, a lot of research was put into the decision by the next-gen e-mail team. In addition to Google Apps, Microsoft Live and other options were investigated. OIT ran a pilot program with both Microsoft Live and Google Apps, and got input from other colleges about their experiences with the services.
“The overwhelming majority were advocating going with Google Apps,” Martin said.
Another factor in the decision to go with Google was the archiving, anti-virus and anti-spam service. As a public institution, N.C . State is required to save all staff communications for public records requests. According to Martin, the service from Google is a good value for the University because staff G-Mail, WebMail, and GroupWise Calendar can all be archived. Martin stated that only staff communications are archived; students e-mail is not archived.
Martin stated that future plans for the next-gen e-mail team include a “Google Day,” to transfer the remaining staff and faculity accounts from GroupWise to Google Apps. New innovations are on the horizon as well. Despite a non-disclosure agreement with Google, Martin did say that “”Exciting things are coming” is the University’s IT future.
