have no intention to do so. besides the fact that we want to teach our
students how to communicate with email, not everyone in the real world
uses the same system, they get to keep an email address long after
they leave our school. This also has practical and legal advantages.
1. We save on the cost of maintaing servers in house.
2. We require no staff time to manage server, making sure they don't
get spam and so on.
3. No legal entanglements. If law enforcement want to look email
records they will have to deal with Google, Microsoft or the local ISP
all of which are better able to deal with them than we are. So far we
have had only one request of this kind. We simply explained that we
have no mail server and thus have no email records to give them. They
went to the ISP.
4. We don't have to have a "Plan B' we don't care what the student's
an faculty's email provider does as far as advertising and so on.
We maintain a small set of groups using Google groups.
Greg
On Jan 15, 2008, at 6:26 AM, Johnson, Jason P Mr WRAMC_Wash DC wrote:
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> I think that last time I checked a 5 year ROI for an email system it
> was
> around $3000 per year and a month of technical support for 150 faculty
> and staff. That included an Exchange Server, Barracuda Spam Firewall,
> and backups. Google could make a lot of sense especially for the
> large (lower infrastructure costs) and small schools (reduced staff
> time). For those in the middle (like I was), it is not a tremendous
> amount of money or time so the advantages would need to be
> non-financial, especially if you recently made an investment in the
> system (i.e. bought a new server).
>
> Using Google has a number of advantages including off-site storage,
> easy
> mobile access, and broad browser compatibility. It has some
> disadvantages in terms of enforcing data retention policies, scaling
> attachment sizes, and integration with other local systems (e.g.
> Exchange integration with SharePoint).
>
> My only real heartburn (since I am helping a small school decide if it
> is right for them) is you must have a Plan B. With 60 days notice,
> Google could begin making this a paid service, add advertising, or
> make
> other substantial changes. As a free service, you really have no
> position to barging from. Having gone through this with Blackboard
> and
> WordPress (both free that converted to cost) you have to be prepared
> for
> that eventuality.
>
> _J
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
> Jason Johnson - Program Director
> Web Services Branch - Walter Reed Army Medical Center Ingenium (ISO
> 9001:2000 certified)
> Office: 202-782-1047
> Cell: 202-262-0516
> jason.johnson@ingenium.net
> jason.p.johnson2@us.army.mil
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for independent school educators
> [mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Wallis, Eric
> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 8:05 AM
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: Outsourcing email for free?
>
> IMAP would do just that for you, a recently added feature to Gmail.
>
>
> Eric Wallis
> Network Administrator
> Notre Dame Prep School
> 443-921-2777
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith E Gatling [mailto:kgatling@MPH.NET]
> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:43 AM
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: Outsourcing email for free?
>
> On Jan 12, 2008 11:49 PM, Tom Phelan <tphelan@peddie.org> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. For internal groups I'm just going to
> use a
>> listserv which we already host. What I was referring to is that, for
>> example, the Technology Department maintains a common email address
> book
>> with contact information for vendors, etc. This allows any member of
> the
>> department to have the most up to date contact info which is
> especially
>> important when someone is out sick, on vacation, etc.
>
>
> Hmm...couldn't you just create a webpage with that information? You
> could probably create on using Google Groups that only members of your
> group could access or edit.
>
>
>> Yes you can, [handle multiple sigs] if you use Firefox! I use an
> add-on
>> called "Signature"
>> (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/578) which allows me
> to
>> insert custom sigs with a simple right-click and then choose the sig.
>>
>
> Wow! Thanks, that was great. And I can probably also use it to
> generate
> "stationery" too. It just means that I have to switch over to using
> Firefox all the time now, and copy my "Signature" settings across the
> couple of computers I use regularly. Would I that these settings were
> storable online somewhere (like as part of my Gmail account).
>
> Cool. Now I just have to find a way to download *everything* from my
> Gmail account to my hard drive so I can always have offline access to
> whatever I've done in the past 24 hours.
>
>
> --
> keg
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> * *
> * *
> Keith E Gatling - Computer Instructor
> Manlius Pebble Hill School
> 5300 Jamesville Rd
> DeWitt, NY 13214
> 315.446.2452
> http://www.gatling.us/keith
>
> Some teachers teach subjects. Others teach students.
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> * *
> * *
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ] Submissions to
> ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ] Submissions to
> ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
> attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
