Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice...

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Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) [email protected]

Transcript of Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice...

Page 1: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Dare to Change:Gmail and Why it

Matters to YouJonathan Schaeffer

Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT)[email protected]

Page 2: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

IT at WestVAC?

• Why should you care about IT?• …under the covers• …should just happen• …out of sight, out of mind• …someone else’s problem

• Wrong!

• IT, more than ever, requires your attention!

Page 3: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

IT World is Changing

• Fast network connections

• Social networking

• Cloud computing

• Ubiquitous wireless access

• Software as a service

• Fundamental paradigm shifts that will dramatically impact how a modern university deploys IT

Page 4: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Where Are We Today?

• My generation• Desktop computers• Wired connections• Telephones• Local computing infrastructure

• New generation• Laptops• Wireless connections• Cell phones• Non-local computing infrastructure

Page 5: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Where Do We Want To Be?

• IT world is changing rapidly but universities are usually slow to change

• We run the risk of offering an antiquated IT environment to our faculty, staff and students

• Universities are all about change; we should embrace it, not fear it

• Can we change the way we think about IT, so that we can free up resources to change IT?

Page 6: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Today’s Student…

• …is very different from the student of even five years ago

• …is comfortable with and quick to adopt new IT technology

• There is a significant (and growing) generation gap

Page 7: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

The GapStudents Faculty/Staff

Mobile computing Desktop computing

Texting & twittering Memos & email

Social networking Face-to-face meetings

Google apps Microsoft Office

Real-time All in “good time”

Open source/freeware Proprietary/commercial

Digital media Print media

Open Private

Page 8: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Philosophy

• Core mandate of a university is research and teaching

• IT is an enabler

• Some IT components have become utility computing

• Where appropriate, you should consider getting out of the utility computing business

Page 9: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Typical Situation

• Decentralized fragmented community• One large central IT department• Numerous mini IT groups on campus

• Duplication of many services

• Uneven quality of service

• Non-uniform (even non-existent) policies

Page 10: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Dare to Change?

• Are we prepared to challenge the status quo?

• Can we think about doing things differently?

• Can we move towards deploying modern IT technology across the entire campus?

• If not, we run the risk of providing core IT that is seen as irrelevant

Page 11: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Case Study: ASU (1)

• Outsourced student email

• Outsourced learning management systems

• Outsourced all computer networks

• Outsourced help desk

• Outsourced desktop support

• Outsourced PeopleSoft infrastructure

• Consolidating server rooms and then outsource“If a service is core, then it should be out-sourced.”

Adrian Sannier (CIO, ASU)

Page 12: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Case Study: ASU (2)

• $15M in IT savings/year reinvested back into IT• Mobile computing• Application development• Using IT to improve student engagement• IT support for teaching• IT support for research

• Brave new model that ASU claims reaps dividends

Page 13: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

University of Alberta

• Our mantra: don’t waste a good crisis

• Over 30 independent IT groups on campus

• Institutional cost of IT as a percent of the operating budget is disproportionately large

• In general, student dissatisfaction with our IT offerings

• We can’t make incremental changes; we need to leapfrog forward

Page 14: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Email at the UofA

• At least 47 independent email systems on campus

• Each has their own hardware, software, and people resources

• No central calendaring

• At least 37 Blackberry servers on campus

• Does this make sense?

Page 15: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Centralize Email Because:

• Simplifies IT infrastructure

• Enables university-wide calendaring

• Addresses user concerns

• Addresses auditor’s concerns

• Improves security

• Frees up valuable IT personnel time

• Simplifies emergency response

• Supports green computing

• Enables cost savings by removing duplication

Page 16: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

People

• Centralization of email is NOT an excuse to eliminate jobs

• IT personnel are generally overworked

• Let’s get out of the mundane task of email

• Free up precious people resources to further our research, teaching, and administration agenda

Page 17: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Solutions?

• In-house?• Too expensive

• Local provider?• Too expensive

• Get out of the email business entirely

Google!

Page 18: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

The Google Solution

• Gmail: Email provided by Google• Large default email box (7.4 GB)• Email integrated with calendaring• Google apps (including docs and tools)• Backups and disaster recovery• Cost is $0 for Google’s service, but there is a

cost for increased network access

• We will leapfrog forward in the quality of our service and the richness of our offerings

Page 19: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Education Edition

• Education Gmail is not Public Gmail

• We own the ualberta domain: [email protected]

• We control CCIDs and passwords on campus

• We own the data

• No advertising

• No data mining

• All this is guaranteed in a contract with Google

Page 20: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Privacy

• Gmail is hosted on servers around the world including the U.S.

• The Patriot Act applies

• COIPC and AOIPC have ruled that it is acceptable to have email housed in the US

Page 21: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Status

• Gmail deployed for 250 pilot users

• High user satisfaction

• Legal contract with Google not complete• 99.9% compliance with Alberta privacy laws,

but nothing less than 100% is acceptable

• Nine Canadian institutions have indicated that if we jump, they will jump as soon as practical

Page 22: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Dare to Change?

• These are difficult times for the university

• The Google project is not about email

• It is all about…• Opening the dialogue for centralization where

it makes sense• Providing leading edge tools to faculty, staff

and especially students• Changing the way people think about IT

Page 23: Dare to Change: Gmail and Why it Matters to You Jonathan Schaeffer Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (IT) jonathan@ualberta.ca.

Want to Know More?

www.vpit.ualberta.ca/email