Santa Clara University

As the TF pursues vendors, Google is one we wish to learn more about.   The Google representative passed on some initial information she thought might be helpful to us.

• For an overview of Google Apps for Education, you can visit our landing page. At a high level, our EDU offerring is similar to our consumer offering (Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sites, Groups, etc.), but there are a few key differences.
  • Customizable Domain (@scu.edu instead of gmail.com)
  • No Advertisements (i.e. your data is not scanned for any relavent advertisements)
  • Customizable logo (no Gmail logo in the left-hand corner of inboxes)
  • 25GB of inbox storage per user
  • Completely free for students/faculty/staff/alumni (and no limit on the number of accounts you can provision) with no need to purchase software, deploy patches, manage on-premise servers, etc. because everything is stored/managed in the cloud.
• I also recommend looking at the Guide to Going Google, which outlines technical integration, data migration, user provisioning, etc.
• This link provides additional information on the collaboration tools offerred in Google Apps
• Here is a link to commonly-asked questions on Security and Privacy
• Team Accounts occur when a student signs up to use Google Docs/Sites/etc. as a consumer with their @scu.edu account. I've included step-by-step instructions on how to transition from a Team Account to an Education Account.
  • I show that scu.edu is currently registered under Team Edition. Google Apps Team Edition can be used by anybody with an active email address at a domain and is designed to help students and co-workers collaborate using Google Apps. No one has taken control of the domain. Rather, there are just some users who are using their scu.edu address as a way to authenticate into Google Docs, etc.
  • Since you own this domain and would like to administer Google Apps for your users, you'll first need to create an account under the Team Edition. You can do this by visiting http://www.google.com/a/[domain.com] and clicking 'create an account here.'
  • Once you've created a Team Edition account, you can verify domain ownership to begin managing Google Apps by following the instructions at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=86647.
  • After you've completed these steps, let me know and I will make sure that you've been upgraded to the Education Edition.
• Postini is a paid, additional service and offers added levels of Security (Google Message Security) and Archiving (Google Message Discovery). You can find more information at this link, and it's important to note that it's sold at a 66% discount that is not reflected in the pricing listed on that site.