Student Union

STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT JEFF NELSON:

Today I am proud to announce a new initiative that will greatly improve the way that we use technology to communicate.

For the past year, Student Union has worked with representatives from across the University to improve online communication tools by outsourcing them to a third party vendor. We have been evaluating two leading products: Google Apps for Education and Microsoft Live@Edu. Based on student feedback from surveys, test groups, town hall meetings, focus groups, product demonstrations and blog posts, we are ready to move forward in tangibly improving the way that the University provides online tools to students.

Starting this fall, we will begin offering undergraduate students email accounts powered by Microsoft Live@Edu [through a pilot program].

This move will accomplish several goals. First, it will introduce a unified communications platform. This means that students, faculty, staff and administrators can all seamlessly share information using the same tools.

For example, If you are looking for a classmate's email address, you will no longer have to go to a different website to find it. Now, you will be able to simply type their name and watch their email address automatically load from a built in global address book. Of, If you need to schedule an advising appointment with a professor, you will no longer need to walk to the office and sign your name on a sheet of paper taped to the door. Now, you will be able to view their calendar online and schedule a meeting from the same place.

These are just a couple examples of ways in which Live@Edu will make communication easier for everyone.

Live@Edu will also cut costs associated with providing online communication tools. The University will be able to provide robust online tools to students while eliminating hardware, software, and licensing costs. And since Live@Edu is built from Microsoft Exchange, the same architecture that is widely used by businesses, government agencies and our own faculty and staff, it will integrate seamlessly into the current environment with minimal implementation costs.

Now, many students expressed a strong preference for Google Apps and I personally understand why. Gmail is already used by many students because it comes with a large email inbox, online document editing tools, document storage space, an integrated calendar, and an intuitive user interface. Well, Microsoft Live@Edu offers each of these things and much more.

Using Live@Edu, each student will have a 10 gigabyte email inbox; 25 gigabytes of file storage space where they can upload documents, music and videos; an integrated and sharable calendar; online collaborative workspaces; direct integration with social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter; and access to full-featured online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

This is an impressive list of features. And when students graduate they will still have access to these same resources as alumni of the University.

If you have more question about Live@Edu please check out the SU Website or send me an email.

If you are interested in being an early adopter and signing up for the fall pilot program, please go to http://su.wustl.edu/TestLiveAtEdu.

If you want to help develop the branding for the Live@Edu service for Wash.U. please go to http://su.wustl.edu/NameLiveAtEdu.

It is clear that Live@Edu will improve the way that students use online tools to communicate. We are very excited about this accomplishment and even more excited to see it implemented starting this fall.

Thanks for watching.

###

Attachment: 

1 July 2009 Online Communication Tools Go Live.pdf