NC State students,

The Student Email Task Force is looking for your feedback! How can we best support your current and future student email and related needs? Currently we're comparing the Unity email service with two hosted service options--Google Apps for Education and Microsoft's Live@Edu/Exchange Labs.

Come check out what the two hosted options have to offer at a demonstration on

Monday, Feb. 16
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Carmichael Recreation Center's Play Zone
Light food and drinks will be served!

We also have a limited number of test accounts available for these services. If you are a current student and have the interest and time to test these services and provide us with feedback, visit the student email initiative web site http://oit.ncsu.edu/student-email-initiative and sign up for an account.

If you are unable to attend the demonstration, we encourage you to leave us feedback on the web site!

Thanks,
NC State Student Email Task Force

2/4/2009 6:17:24 AM

OWA OR BUST

actually the google apps one sounds interesting, i wouldn't mind checking it out

2/4/2009 8:03:48 AM

you mean that the google one sounds scary

woot, lets data mine john_doe@state.edu!

2/4/2009 8:37:26 AM

to be fair it's not like the spammers and marketeers don't obviously already have all the information they need about State students, that was the only e-mail address I've ever had that got spam before I even used it

2/4/2009 9:24:17 AM

there's plenty of universities out there that use google for the email service

2/4/2009 9:24:57 AM

Don't mind Aficionado. He broke out his tinfoil hat the last time this was being discussed.

2/4/2009 9:39:55 AM

lulz

what does that say about you since you remembered?

post stalk much?

2/4/2009 9:57:25 AM

oh GOD that would be awesome.

i signed up for both accounts. i've deployed google apps on countless domains and been an admin of a few exchange enterprises, so count on some feedback

2/4/2009 9:59:05 AM

Quote :

"what does that say about you since you remembered? post stalk much?"

Dude, it's been two months. The only thing it says about me is that I have a functioning brain. Grow up.

/message_topic.aspx?topic=550920

2/4/2009 10:08:54 AM

lulz dude

lulz

you actually searched for that

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 10:26 AM. Reason : 

2/4/2009 10:25:53 AM

Most universities will be reluctant to relinquish email control to an outside source. UNCW had a chance to switch to gmail, 100 times more space than their standard 50 mb email space, students could keep their email after they graduated, and host of other options. I think it was even cheaper to run.

BUT they wanted to keep control, whether its job security, or because they consider it an official communication, they didn't do it. wish they did. Good luck trying to convince a state university to switch.



[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 10:35 AM. Reason : s]

2/4/2009 10:34:39 AM

Quote :

"Good luck trying to convince a state university to switch."

many do use it

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 10:42 AM. Reason : dumbass]

2/4/2009 10:37:16 AM

^^ UNCG, UNCP are two examples that are or have already done it.

2/4/2009 10:39:01 AM

I didn't say it couldn't be done nor did i say a state funded university would never switch because it has been done.

All i said was good luck trying to get them to switch because through personal experience i have seen a college turn it down. No matter how good the deal sounded to them.

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 11:13 AM. Reason : s]

2/4/2009 11:13:04 AM

^^add to that a lot of the community colleges

we just went to gmail at work because our hosted exchange server had horrible reliability. it works well, but i really miss the exchange server when it comes to keeping my life organized.

2/4/2009 12:21:27 PM

^^ there's a fair amount of momentum to consider it because of costs. maintaining an "in-sourced" mail system is hard to do when you're faced with superior outside competition. NCSU doesn't really have the resources to match what Google and Microsoft can offer. Especially not with budget cuts already having occurred, and the next fiscal year looking just as bad.

2/4/2009 1:23:17 PM

from the january 9th meeting notes:

Quote :

"Staying with exactly what we have now is definitely not an option Cyrus with 1gb storage is not sufficient. The economics and additional integrated feature sets available from no-fee providers keeps Cyrus from being an option. ? We need to find numbers for Cyrus with 5gb of differentiated storage types. The current cost calculations are based on our current storage type ($3,300 per TB/year) for all 5gb/user and these could be reduced. ? Have to list the ramifications of moving from Cyrus and be able to give the reasons why we are not considering it "

so we're switching to SOMETHING. now it's just between google and microsoft, apparently.

after reading the notes from jan 23, it looks like they're leaning towards google... at least from an administrative standpoint.

2/4/2009 4:59:33 PM

I don't think the charge of this group is to make a decision. I think their charge is to make a recommendation, based on feedback and testing.

2/4/2009 5:44:21 PM

Quote :

"This fall Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Marc Hoit announced the formation of a Student Email Task force "to review and evaluate student email services offered by the Office of Information Technology and determine the best path forward to support current and future student needs.""

why form a task force if you aren't going to listen to its recommendations?

2/4/2009 6:07:19 PM

Listening to a recommendation and implementing those recommendations are two completely separate things.

2/4/2009 6:36:14 PM

i'm well aware of that, but it's pretty pointless to assemble a task force if you already have a preconceived notion on what avenue you'd like to pursue.

2/4/2009 7:46:21 PM

Where did you get the idea that the university has "a preconceived notion on what avenue they'd like to pursue"?

They obviously don't, that's why there's a task force to explore new options.

I think you're missing the point.

[Edited on February 4, 2009 at 8:03 PM. Reason : ]

2/4/2009 8:02:32 PM

^

2/4/2009 8:40:03 PM

Quote :

"i'm well aware of that, but it's pretty pointless to assemble a task force if you already have a preconceived notion on what avenue you'd like to pursue."

to make it LOOK like they care??

2/4/2009 9:06:02 PM

Nah, figuring out what to do about student e-mail is actually something there's a big interest in. While a lot of things may be just for show, this isn't one of them.

Now, whether that means anything will actually be done about it any time soon, is still yet to be seen.

2/4/2009 11:52:45 PM

Quote :

"to make it LOOK like they care??"

People that work in IT at NCSU are amongst the people that genuinely care about what they're doing, and how it helps/benefits others.

2/5/2009 7:15:55 AM

Most of the IT ppl really do care about this, and havnt had the resources or time, because upper management wouldnt listen before now.

They are really asking ppl and listening. Ive been in about 2 different study groups for this already, and Im seeing a lot of stuff thats been said implemented.

2/6/2009 10:26:02 AM