Cornell switched this past year, from a user perspective, it's been great having tons of storage and a useful web interface, as well as still having IMAP and POP, but I haven't been able to find anything on the freedom aspects of things besides general privacy agreement stuff that probably doesn't hold water.
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 11:45 PM, Matthew Senate <[email protected]>wrote: > I know UC Davis has done the switch as well: > http://www.dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=10587 > > Alex is right in that institutions (especially Universities) should be > critical of their own networks and email systems. However, this does not > mean Google is the best, or even necessarily a better option. In fact, my > argument is that University systems are better merely because they are > homegrown. > > All aspects of a University have the potential to become zones of > learning. Education does not take place in classrooms alone. Perhaps > administrations see running networks and, specifically, email service as a > financial and logistical burden, given that companies like Google can > provide similar services for much cheaper. However, what opportunity does > this leave for faculty, researchers, and students to change the system or > use it in such a way that facilitates their learning? > > An example at Berkeley is the Open Computing Facility (OCF, > http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu). It is an entirely student-run group that > provides FREE hosting and email for many student groups, individual > students/teachers/researchers, and even academic departments who are short > on funding! It does not make sense to me for a University to employ Google > when more support could be given to the members of the institution > itself--specifically to students--and effectively kill two birds with one > stone: education AND email. > > > Adi Kamdar wrote: > >> Hey folks, > >> > >> The Yale Daily News ran an article today about how there's > >> almost-definite talk about Yale switching to Google Apps for Education > >> and using Google servers/software to host our email. > >> > >> > http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2010/02/09/google-run-yale-e-mail/ > >> > >> I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts or good literature on the > >> issues with this (re privacy, data, costs, security, tech, law, etc.). > >> For the most part, the students are overjoyed about this since our old > >> email system is painful to use, so it'd be nice to address usability > >> issues as well. > > > > This was also under discussion at UF when I was there, and is a hot > > topic among the higher ed IT crowd in general. There were similar > > dynamics to the discussion: a lot of students familiar with Gmail > > interface and unhappy with the occasional issues of the local service. > > > > Background reading: > > http://www.educause.edu/Resources/Browse/Cloud%20Computing/27148 > > http://autonomo.us/ > > > > As others on the list have expressed, it's hard to draw an unambiguous > > conclusion about this development. I do think it's worthwhile for > > students to articulate their free culture concerns in this area, though. > > Regardless of who hosts it, students' email should have strong privacy > > protection, should be managed by free software, should follow open > > standards, and should be accessible regardless of disability. > > > > -- > > Gavin Baker > > http://www.gavinbaker.com/ > > [email protected] > > > > It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. > > Yogi Berra (attributed) > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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