SGA: Accelerating the online experience

VCU Technology Services has implemented many changes this year. In this article I will try to provide a reflection on what I think about these changes and what we expect in the coming years ahead.

VCU is Virginia’s largest and fastest growing university. Students need the best available technology to supplement their education. Over the last couple years, students have expressed concerns over the e-mail client (IBM’s Lotus Notes). VCU’s Student Government Association was at the forefront of getting a new e-mail client for our fellow students. We were invited to provide our input on which e-mail vendor to select. The university was considering Microsoft and Google.

The SGA conducted a survey on its Web site in spring 2009. About 2,100 students out of 2,200 who took the survey selected Google as their primary choice for the new email vendor. I will admit at this point that I was myself leaning toward Gmail. I had the opportunity to speak with Eric Schmidt, founder and CEO of Gmail, after his speech at VCU in support of then presidential candidate Barack Obama, in the last election. I was impressed with his vision for Google and the company’s support for open source technologies. People around the world respect Google for its commitment to open source technology.

After having long debates/surveys and opinion polls, we felt that getting the Gmail cloud application would be the best option for students. Over the summer, incoming students were given access to VCU myMail (popularly known as VCU Gmail). Returning students are currently being migrated to the new service.

This new service, powered by Google Apps for Education, provides students with an easy to understand, Web-based interface with more than seven gigabytes of storage. VCU myMail also gives students access to Google’s easy-to-use collaborative tools such as Docs, Talk, and Calendar.