News and Updates
Dear MassArt students, faculty, and staff,
Over the last few years you've probably heard rumors that we've been investigating the possibility of migrating our email and calendar system to Google Apps. I'm writing today to tell you that it's official: we're doing it.
Many more details to follow, but the important things to know now are:
- All of your mail and folders will be migrated to the new system;
- You will continue to use an @massart.edu email address - although the system is run by Google, it is customized specifically for MassArt;
- There are no advertisements, and our contract with Google explicitly maintains that all of our email is confidential to us, and may not be read or utilized by Google for any purpose other than technical troubleshooting.
- If you currently have a personal gmail account, nothing changes. Your MassArt account will remain totally separate.
Our first groups of test users are beginning to use the system. Our target date for the remainder of the community is the beginning of the spring semester.
As to why we're making this shift:
- We believe that Google's services provide equivalent if not better functionality than the system we currently run in-house (in particular-the web interface is vastly superior), plus we'll have the opportunity to deploy other Google Apps services such as Google Docs and Google Drive;
- Google offers these services to colleges and universities at no charge;
- It is rapidly becoming best practice for colleges and universities not to manage their own email system internally. Thousands of other colleges have already migrated to Google (or its competitor services), including several of our peers in the state university system and the AICAD consortium.
Like any system migration, there will be some bumps and each of us will need to deal with some changes. So, much more information will follow -look for emails from Maribeth Macaisa over the next few weeks with further information. We're also developing a website with comprehensive information about the migration as well as a training program for those who may not be familiar with the gmail interface.
In the meantime-best wishes for the remainder of the semester!
Eric
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Eric Bird
Vice President for Technology and Chief Information Officer
Massachusetts College of Art and Design