Ensemble: New email, calendaring, other tools for Cornell students, faculty, and staff

STUDENT SERVICES

What
Google Apps for Education and Microsoft Live@edu with Exchange Labs will provide email, calendar, collaboration tools, instead of the current Postoffice (Cyrus) email system.
Notes:

• The Johnson School will continue to provide Exchange service for its students.
• Students will still have an @cornell.edu address

When/How
Pending completion of contract negotiation, services should be avialable starting in April 2009. Current students will be encouraged to switch their email to Google Apps or Microsoft Live@edu, and will be able to copy email they had stored in their Cornell account to their new account. New students will choose which service to use for email when they activate their NetID.

Why

• Better services and more space than Cornell’s budget allows. (7–10 GB email storage space, file storage, calendar, collaboration tools)
• Most students already forwarding their Cornell email elsewhere
  

Task Force for Student Personal Productivity Services commissioned by vice president for information technologies Polley McClure at end of 2007 to evaluate options; details and final report: www.concluence.cornell.edu/display/SPPS/Home

Who
Managed by Cornell Information Technologies (CIT), with input from campus advisory boards and consultants.

• Chris Lyons, overall project lead, cp17@cornell.edu
• Greg Menzenski, lead for Exchange, Googel Apps, and Microsoft Live@edu, gm228@cornell.edu

FACULTY/STAFF SERVICES
Microsoft Exchange will become the campuswide system for email and calendaring for faculty and staff, replacing the current Postoffice (Cyrus) email and Oracle Calendar systems. Migration will begin in September 2009. Specific timing for each college and major unit is to be determined.

Why?

• Better integration of email, calendar, and contacts
• More efficient ways to keep email and calendar data synchronized and accessible through multiple computers and through BlackBerry, iPhone, and other mobile devices
• More units asking for Microsoft Exchange and active Directory services: already being used by several departments and units
• Cost savings/efficiencies if all units adopt the campuswide services

Cross-campus Task Force on Personal Productivity commissioned by vice president for information technologies Polley McClure in late 2007 to evaluate options; details and final report: www.confluence.cornell.edu/display/TFPP/Home