Information Technology Services Blog

Dear Colleagues,
The IT Steering Committee (comprised of the President, the VPs, and myself) on Monday approved the move of faculty and staff from GroupWise to Google Apps for Education. This comes after a two-year process of information gathering, peer institution comparisons, and the successful move of students to Google Apps. Thank you to all who gave feedback to us.

The main drivers behind the decision are:

1. The continued viability of GroupWise is in doubt, both in terms of support by the vendor and future capabilities.
2. The general consensus within Higher Education (and in industry) is that running your own e-mail and calendar system on site is no longer a best practice when comparable external alternatives exist.
3. The advantages of Google Apps over GroupWise are many, such as:

• Significantly more space (25gb vs. 250mb)
• Much better integration with mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones
• Highly effective SPAM filtering
• Better compatibility between Windows and Macintosh usage
• New feature releases far exceeding GroupWise
• Other “Apps” for image storing, document sharing, web sites, and chat

Information on the transition will be sent regularly from ITS. Here are a few important points:

1. Faculty and staff email addresses are not changing. We will still be [username]@holycross.edu. Students will continue to have the “g.” in their addresses.
2. We will move all of your email and calendar items over from GroupWise to Google for you.
3. The Holy Cross Google/Gmail account is separate from any personal gmail.com account you may already have (though they will work much the same).

What is the expected time frame?
No one will move prior to Commencement. We expect to move ITS and one or two pilot departments some time in June to solidify the transfer process. In July and early August we hope to begin with volunteer “early adopters” who use the basic features of GroupWise (e.g. just email and not shared calendars or proxy accounts). After the busy start of the semester settles down, we anticipate doing a department-by-department transition over the fall (Oct-Dec). When your department moves will be largely up to you and what works best for your department. We hope to have most people moved by the end of the winter break.

What should you do now?
There is nothing that needs to be done on your part now. It would be helpful overall if people cleaned up their email prior to moving. Feel free to do some of that. Detailed instructions will follow as the time approaches for your move to explain such things as getting email out of archives if you have them, saving personal address books if you use those, etc..

Will there be training on the new Apps?
Yes, ITS and our partners across the College will be offering training in a number of ways… through training classes, tip sheets posted on a web site, email, and in-person assistance. Our focus during the transition months will be on assisting with using the new email and calendar apps. If you find use for the additional apps that come with Google Apps for Education, such as for document sharing, image storing, chat, or web sites, these will be available to you. ITS will offer training and assistance with those after getting everyone up and running on email and calendar.

Many people have told me they are eager for this move. I am excited about it. While changes as big as this can and will be disruptive, we are hearing very positive feedback from the many other institutions that have gone Google. We will do our best to make it a smooth transition for Holy Cross.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any member of my staff with comments or suggestions at any time.
Take care–
–Ellen.

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Dr. Ellen J. Keohane
Director, Information Technology Services
College of the Holy Cross
1 College Street
Worcester, MA 01610-2395
ph: 508.793.2652 fax: 508.793.2711

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