> Hi, changed the subject in the hope to clarify what I think the topic is
> about. Let's walk down the logic on application service providers (like
> Google) and their value vs. in-house systems.
>
> Is this due to a lack of service with what you have in-house? Lack of
> support or cost considerations mainly? I am new the education environment
> so
> just trying to get a sense of the expectations of the service-levels,
> functionality, etc. that is 'standard' with schools on the list.
There are a number of reasons for considering this.
Back in the "old days," there was really only one way to do email, and that
was to have a piece of desktop client software like Outlook or Eudora use
POP and SMTP to receive and send your email. In addition, it involved either
subscribing to an ISP that provided you with email (among other services) or
setting up your own institutional email service. Then, if you ever left the
institution or switched ISPs, you had to let everyone know your new address.
Recent changes, starting with an upstart called Hotmail a few years back,
mean that you're not tied into the email address your ISP, your college, or
your job gave you. Or rather, it means that when you sever your association
with one of them, your email identity doesn't evaporate, since Hotmail,
Yahoo, and Gmail addresses go marching on.
Similarly, it's become possible for an organization to have all of its email
and web stuff hosted off-site by a third party for *much* less than it would
cost to own the equipment and have the technical staff needed to make sure
it was running properly. Sure, it would still mean having someone administer
all those email accounts, but that wouldn't be a real biggie.
But anyway, the big deal here is that I don't know about the rest of you,
but we're finding that larger and larger proportions of our students don't
use, or perfer not to use, our email system and the MPH email addresses we
give them. I think that part of this can be attributed to how hard our
system is to use. We've been encouraging students to use the web interface
for it, but it's OWA, and I'm sure that most of you have heard your share of
complaints about OWA. There's always the option to log into our Citrix
environment, but that's no piece of cake either just to check your email. As
a result, I've been teaching increasing numbers of them how to POP their MPH
email into the Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail accounts they already own and check
regularly.
Back in the "old days" a student likely didn't have an email address until
we gave one to her, but now they generally come to us already having one,
and one that's easier to use than what we've been using for years and are
still using. So with that in mind, the question has come up of whether or
not we really need to be doing this anymore.
One answer here has to do with how our networked PCs work (and how we hope
to have our Macs working in the future). You need to supply your school
username and password to get onto those systems, and it's the same
combination as you would use for email. So at some point, they're going to
have to learn and memorize that combination anyway, be it for email or just
machine access on campus.
A similar answer has to go with keeping in contact with students. It's much
easier to contact the entire 9th grade class when *you've* created all of
their email addresses and maintaint he database of what address map to which
class group. Conversely, it's much harder when you have to collect 52
different email addresses from 12 different ISPs for all of the current 10th
graders...and then revise that information in a year.
So, with that in mind, I see the Google option as providing us with a much
easier to use email interface that's actually already familiar to many
students. I also see it as perhaps freeing up our one tech person to do
things that really require his attention once he doesn't have to deal with
maintaining the physical mail server anymore. But I could be wrong. And
that's the whole point of my question in the first place.
I know that I must've forgotten something somewhere, but does that answer
your questions?
--
keg
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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.
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