|
|
| Welcome to Google Apps | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||
 |
Google Apps helps the University of New Delhi's Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) to overcome email storage problemsIntroductionThe Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) is part of India's renowned University of New Delhi. The school offers management training via full-time and part-time MBA and other degree programs. FMS's educational approach combines fieldwork, case studies and instrumented feedback with a strong emphasis on concepts and theory. The school has a worldwide network of more than 9,000 alumni. ChallengeFMS was using a locally hosted email system to serve its community of students, faculty and staff, when it began to experience problems. The system offered limited storage space -- just two megabytes per account -- which resulted in full inboxes and bounced emails. When the school learned that many students were responding to the problem by forwarding their email to Gmail accounts, they knew it was time to make a change. Solution
FMS chose Google Apps for many reasons. One was Gmail. "One of the essential reasons why we chose Google Apps was the large inbox size we could give users " says the Secretary of Media Relations at FMS. "Also, features like IM and mailing lists are exclusive to Gmail and are required by students." Because so many FMS students were already using Gmail, the school knew transitioning would be easier than with other solutions. Additionally, FMS liked the fact that Google Apps would allow them to give students custom accounts on the school's own domain. Finally, FMS was attracted to a solution hosted by Google, instead of a locally hosted solution, because it would lower costs for servers, technology licenses, and administration. It took FMS three months to deploy Google Apps. The staff spent the first two months testing features, and getting familiar with the administrative console, account-creation, and security features. The school then ran a test with a small number of students. In July 2006, at the beginning of the new academic year, the school opened access to Google Apps to its entire community. To help new users get acquainted with the system, the school offered presentations and demos on the new services. ResultsAbout 70 percent of current FMS students use Google Apps, and more are transitioning each day. Because so many of its community were already using Gmail, they were eager to give Google Apps a try. "Students are more than satisfied using the new system, and appreciate the increased email storage space," says the Secretary of Media Relations. "The school's management is happy with Google Apps, too, especially because it allows us to maintain the FMS brand identity by offering email on our own domain." In addition to Gmail and Google Talk, which students have embraced wholeheartedly, the campus community has also started to use Google Docs as a way to make group projects easier across the FMS community. "Students find the collaborative features of Google Apps very useful, as they allow them to work on assignments as a virtual team. They can create and share documents, which can then be reviewed and edited by multiple team members simultaneously. They can also chat about a spreadsheet as they review it and make changes," says the Secretary of Media Relations. "This is a much better approach than sharing the document with the team via email, then trying to track changes as multiple versions of the document are created." About Google Apps Education EditionGoogle Apps Education Edition is a free suite of hosted communication & collaboration applications designed for schools and universities. Google Apps includes Gmail (webmail services), Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Talk (instant messaging and voice over IP), Google Docs (online document creation & sharing) and a Start Page for creating a customizable homepage on a specific domain, as well as administrative tools, customer support, and access to APIs to integrate Google Apps with existing IT systems.
|
