College Email Solutions

Why ?

Michael NowlanInformation Systems ServicesUniversity of DublinTrinity College

With thanks to the staff of IS Services, TCD

Why ?

Definitions

Undergraduate Students Postgraduate and Research Students All staff

Millenials & Digital Natives

Students today have never known a time without computers

Universal ownership and usage of mobile communications devices

Totally at home with the “new” digital world Soon will be displacing the Digital Immigrants on

the job market – totally at home with the always-on internet

Instant Everything

Survey! How many people sent or received an IM

in the last 24 hours ? How many people sent or received a Text

message (SMS) in the last 24 hours ? What is the difference ?

Presence

Telephone Tag Instant message with Presence is the

future

Email

Email is an unsatisfactory communications tool

Email is for “old” people Email is on its last legs…

CAO 2007

84% or applications online 16% foreign or “old” people Of the online applicants 97.8% supplied an

email address – even though it was not required

Email for Students

Why do we go to the expense of providing an email service for students ? If 98% of our incoming students already have an email address and service.

In November 2007 – I cannot think of a single reason for 3rd level Colleges to provide email for their students!

Marketplace in November2007 for Email storage

DIT: 40MB Ireland.Com: 100MB – you pay for it UCD: 500MB

Google: 2GB – now 4.5GB Microsoft: 5GB Yahoo: Infinite

Costs - Gartner

College home grown: $4/user/month Microsoft old offering: $3/user/year Exchange service: $10/user/month External service: $1.5/user/month “Free”: $1/user/month

TCD Undergraduate Costs

Internal €43K / year Exchange€109K / year Hosted €16K / year “Free” €11K / year

Why Replace TCD’s email system?

Hardware at end of life Software very labour intensive Limited future

TCD Email Review

Define requirements Look at market Segment service components Select Products

Segmentation of services

Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Staff Mobile and Fixed users Email Management, SPAM/Virus Select best point solutions at the time

SPAM/Virus Filtering

In-house too costly Lack of responsiveness Use a service which is dedicated to this

function

Exchange Hosted Services

Easy implementation, no requirements for Exchange

Few problems Massive payback Eliminate SPAM/Virus overheads Only processing 20% of email … no need to replace email systems!

Enhanced Student Service

Familiar interface Storage Seamless access at home and abroad Retain address format: @tcd.ie Retain email address after graduation

Hosted Solutions Considered

Google - Gmail

Microsoft - Live Environment

Google Apps for Education

2 GB storage – now 4.5GB Applications: Gmail, Google Talk, Google

Calendar, Google Docs, Page Creator and Start Page

No ads for registered students Price: no charge by Google

Microsoft Live @ EDU

5 GB storage Applications: Hotmail, Calendar, Address

Book, MSN, SkyDrive No ads for registered students Price: no charge by Microsoft

TCD Selected Gmail

Conceptual issue of hosted service Fears of loss of control Privacy concerns, data hosted off-island Don't be evil ?

Implementation so far

Most students have moved voluntarily and with problems – largely password related

Privacy concerns Accessibility issues Yet to face legal issues over logs and tracing

nefarious activities Uncontrolled interface changes

Some Numbers on 1st November 2007

Students would have been using a maximum of 750GB in TCD

22,297 TCD Gmail accounts Using 309GB, up from 164GB on 1st

October, 1 person using > 1GB Gmail quota 45,641 GB which does not

reflect the increase from 2GB to 4.5GB

The Future for Students

Integrated Calendars Online shared documents, collaborative

editing, spreadsheets Online storage for files Integrated access in a mobile environment Access facilitated through an Identity

Management system/service

Staff Email

In November 2007 – I can think of many reasons for 3rd level Colleges to provide email for their staff and research students.

Intellectual Property (IP) Privacy Control

TCD Staff Email

Exchange Service Outlook on the desktop OWA for mobile users 2 GB resilient storage Enhanced service rolling out in late 2007

Lessons Learned

Think Latterly May be more than one solution Beware of dogma Beware of the capabilities of the Digital

Natives – they may not live up to the expectations – limited narrow expertise

Illustrations by Ken Coogan

www.kencoogancaricatures.blogspot.com