Campus prepares for e-mail browser change

 On Aug. 18 all current and incoming students as well as all Gonzaga alumni will face a substantial change in their communication activities; not only will each person have a new e-mail address, they will also be using a new browser, Gmail, to access their electronic mailings.

 "Our e-mail systems have been in need of an upgrade," said Christopher Gill, Gonzaga's chief information officer. "We determined that the best solution for students was to take advantage of Gmail's expertise in providing e-mail services on a large-scale basis."

Gonzaga's current browser, Zagmail, has been increasingly overburdened by the ever-growing size of the community's population. The speed and user experience of the current system was increasingly a cause of concern for the entire university community.

 "The switch will benefit students in significant ways," Gill said. "Students will get greater capacity, calendaring, group collaboration tools, tight integration with other University systems, and the well-known and easy-to-use Gmail interface."

The switch is neither sudden nor unexpected. Many universities have already moved student mail to outside sources, like Gmail or Microsoft live, according to Gill.  Despite seeing other universities make the switch successfully, Gonzaga had stuck with Zagmail.  However the cost of keeping Zagmail as a mail server as well as a plethora of other reasons convinced the university a change was necessary.

"We have been working on this change for over a year," Gill said, "including the time spent evaluating alternatives, planning for the transition, gathering input from stakeholders and securing approval."

Those who approved the switch were the board of trustees and, ultimately, the president of the university.

One of the biggest perks of Gmail is the fact that it essentially poses no cost to the university after its successful integration into university life.

"Google does not charge a fee for the service," Gill said. "However, our internal team is spending a great deal of time ensuring a smooth transition and will be dedicating ongoing resources to managing the interface between the Google site and our internal systems such as Active Directory and Blackboard."

Despite the need to keep using some university funds and resources to guarantee a transition free of problems, the switch will prove financially beneficial with savings of nearly $340,000 over a five-year period.

Though the switch will ultimately save time and money for the university as a whole, at first, there may be some confusion.

"Probably the biggest challenge that students and alumni will face is that their e-mail address will be changing from username@gonzaga.edu to username@zagmail.gonzaga.edu," said Greg Francis, the project manager for the switch from Zagmail to Gmail as well as the director of central computing. "We will do our best to ensure that Gonzaga communications are all directed to the new e-mail address but students and alumni will be responsible for letting external entities know about their change of address."

However, students and alumni need not worry about losing any e-mails just yet.

"Students' old addresses will continue to work, by forwarding to their new Google mailbox, until December 31, 2010," Francis said, "but after that date the old e-mail address will go away."

Other systems were considered, including Google Apps for Education, Microsoft Live@EDU, and Zimbra but ultimately Google Apps was decided on for its many benefits.

"We are excited to be able to offer students and alumni this excellent resource from Google," Gill said. "This is about more than e-mail, students can take advantage of Google's strong and growing set of calendaring and collaboration tools.  We believe this is a win for all involved – students, Google and the University."