Why is the university undertaking an email consolidation project?

The university, UAF in particular, has a vast number of disparate email systems. We are first looking at consolidating Statewide and UAF email.  Once that is complete, we will look at consolidating with UAF department-specific email servers.

There is a business need for a single, official, reliable email address that can be used for university business communications.

In addition, user demand for increasing email storage and platform and location independent mail services has necessitated a look at what we currently are doing for email.

What options did the university look at to meet these needs?

There were really three main options: we looked at beefing up our internal email system, outsourcing email functions to a third party, or keeping email options the way they are currently. We quickly moved toward outsourcing.

Why would the university look at outsourcing?

Efficiency and cost savings. To streamline functions, reduce overall cost, to free up internal resources to focus on other areas. The university cannot afford the cost of providing the increased email services comparable to those provided by third parties.

What outsourcing options has the university looked at?

We explored two major providers of email services to universities: Microsoft.edu and Google Applications for Education. Each of these services is free to the university. MS Live was taken out of consideration having failed several key requirements: No SSL, No IMAP, Forced co-branding, shared apps require MS Office license (UA students are not currently licensed...) and MS Live only provided accounts for students, not faculty or staff. That left Google in the running.

I like people knowing I am affiliated with the university. Will my official university email then be an @gmail address?

No, Google allows the university to select its email addressing. Your address will become @alaska.edu. This domain decision is on based on the feedback from 1300+ students, faculty and staff who completed the online email survey (conducted in June, 2008) feedback from the active pilot, and a decision by the Chancellor’s Cabinet to move to that domain.

Are there any other features/benefits that I would get by outsourcing to Google?

Yes, Google provides a larger storage capacity than the university can provide. For example, Google currently provides over 7GB of storage per user. They have online collaboration tools and calendaring/scheduling options as well as SPAM filtering, personal web space, collaborative web sites, etc... Google tools are free. Additionally, Google Premier, which may be desirable by some staff members allows the user to pay $50/yr/account and receive 25GB of storage and the full Postini email services.

Also see: Google Applications for Educators

If we go with Google, will I continually be bombarded with advertisements?

No, Google has eliminated advertisements from their education offerings for all active students, faculty and staff.

What about branding?

Branding is the process by which a vendor uses its logos and trademarks on the products they support or provide. Google actively encourages all of your school branding to be the predominant visualizations on your customized site and actively discourages the use of their logos.

I hear that Google reads my email. Is that true?

They do not ‘read’ your email per se. For use in targeted advertizing on their other sites, and if your mail is not encrypted, software (not a person) does scan your mail and compile keywords for advertizing. For example, if the software looks at 100 emails and identifies the word “Doritos” or “camping” 50 times, they will use that data for advertizing on their other sites.

What if I have confidential email or research data?

You can always (and should) encrypt email that is confidential, sensitive or proprietary in nature. This will prevent it from being scanned and indexed.

What about if the Internet goes down?

That is always a concern. If all Internet connections to the lower 48 go down, we will be temporarily without email access. While we have had a few outages in the last couple of years, they have been temporary. As part of our business case, we weighed the likelihood and length of a possible outage with that of any cost savings we may see by outsourcing. The survey results indicated that most individuals could go a full day without email before business practices were impacted.

What will the cost savings be to the university?

Once fully converted to Google, the savings will be significant with an initial savings of approximately $90,000 in software costs and longer term hardware cost … in the neighborhood of $150,000. We expect the savings can be redirected toward other projects that have been backlogged due to lack of resources and manpower. The assumption is that the university will no longer need to maintain this software and equipment. Personnel will still be responsible for all account provisioning, maintenance, and deprovisioning, but time previously allocated to hardware and software maintenance can be reallocated other projects needing attention.

Security-What if the University needs to track an email for emergency or legal reasons?

The University still retains all ownership over the account. So, current procedures for tracking email in the instance of, say, a bomb threat or illegal or improper activity will still be in place.

What other Universities have outsourced their email to Google? (This is only a partial list-there are hundreds to date, with over 2 million active education users as of Aug-08.)

Clemson University
Northwestern
Abilene Christian University
Arizona State University
Lakehead University
Utah State
George Washington University
Notre Dame
University of San Diego
San Jose City College
Arkansas State University
University of Texas, San Antonio
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Also See: Google Applications for Education Customers

When will we know what the university has decided?

The University has decided. (See the UAF Grapevine Archives for September 2008.)

Our Technical Proof-of-Concept was completed this past spring, with Phase 2 and 3 pilots completed over the summer, in preparation for a phased, parallel deployment during the Fall of ‘08. The University will be outsourcing to Google.

Current plans are to invite UAF email account holders to opt-in at their convenience within the October/November/December 2008 timeframe.

Will we have to switch over immediately?

No. The parallel deployment will give you time to move your existing mail over to the new account. Migration services and tools will be provided. At this time, we expect to give everyone the full academic year to migrate their mail over to the new service and announce their new email address.