MU creates lifetime e-mail usage for students
Catherine Couretas
Issue date: 11/13/09 Section: Front Page
Within the next year, Miami University students will not have to worry about their Miami e-mail address disappearing after graduation: they will last a lifetime.
"We're very, very excited about this," said Micah Cooper, director of advanced technology partnerships at IT services. "Half of the people working on this are Miami alumni."
According to Randy Hollowell, training and publications coordinator at IT services, new students will be added and current students transferred to the new system beginning in the spring. Any student confirming admission for next fall will immediately be put into the new system, and then current students will be transferred over. After, alumni will have the option of joining the system as well.
Cooper said the hope is to begin adding students in February 2010 and for current students and alumni to be added by October 2010. They hope to shut down the current mail servers by December 2010.
Hollowell said Google would sponsor the system so students will have more storage space.
"Right now for students we have one gig(abyte) of space," Hollowell said. "With Google, we can up that to seven."
Cooper said the new system is less expensive for the university.
"The cost to us from Google is free," Cooper said.
He added, though, the cost to the university would be in the staff working on the project. He didn't think spending money on student e-mail accounts was necessary when a free service was available.
"We could spend tuition dollars for more (e-mail) storage or we could spend tuition dollars on academic initiatives," Cooper said.
Hollowell agreed.
"There's no way we could afford seven gigs with what we have," Hollowell said.
Though Google will sponsor the accounts, the system will not be called "Gmail." The system will include a calendar, and according to Hollowell, a document feature would not be included just yet, but may be looked into in the future.
Cooper said these other features might elicit security issues.
"We're very, very excited about this," said Micah Cooper, director of advanced technology partnerships at IT services. "Half of the people working on this are Miami alumni."
According to Randy Hollowell, training and publications coordinator at IT services, new students will be added and current students transferred to the new system beginning in the spring. Any student confirming admission for next fall will immediately be put into the new system, and then current students will be transferred over. After, alumni will have the option of joining the system as well.
Cooper said the hope is to begin adding students in February 2010 and for current students and alumni to be added by October 2010. They hope to shut down the current mail servers by December 2010.
Hollowell said Google would sponsor the system so students will have more storage space.
"Right now for students we have one gig(abyte) of space," Hollowell said. "With Google, we can up that to seven."
Cooper said the new system is less expensive for the university.
"The cost to us from Google is free," Cooper said.
He added, though, the cost to the university would be in the staff working on the project. He didn't think spending money on student e-mail accounts was necessary when a free service was available.
"We could spend tuition dollars for more (e-mail) storage or we could spend tuition dollars on academic initiatives," Cooper said.
Hollowell agreed.
"There's no way we could afford seven gigs with what we have," Hollowell said.
Though Google will sponsor the accounts, the system will not be called "Gmail." The system will include a calendar, and according to Hollowell, a document feature would not be included just yet, but may be looked into in the future.
Cooper said these other features might elicit security issues.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 5
wilson23
Miami Alumna '08
posted 11/13/09 @ 9:19 AM EST
Will they be notifying/reminding alumni about the transition come October 2010?
RosePhoenix
posted 11/13/09 @ 3:12 PM EST
Wow, this is great. I've being hoping for something like this.
Josh
posted 11/15/09 @ 11:44 PM EST
Yeah, I hope they let alumni know what they have to do to get this set up. I was disappointed when my initial student email disappeared after I graduated, so I'm excited about this. (Continued…)
dunnkl
Miami '05 Alumna
posted 11/17/09 @ 6:14 AM EST
While I am super excited about this happening, I am wondering what took the university and IT so long to do this. There were numerous times in ASG where we would bring this issue to IT and they told us every time it was impossible. (Continued…)
Post a Comment