I activated my first Gmail account on Sept. 9, 2005. It was sophomore year of high school and time to move on from the “[email protected]” phase of my life.
Two weeks later, I invited two of my best friends to join. Reading the emails over six years later, the reason I sent the invitations surprised me: I wanted to use Google Talk.
The Gmail of 2005 was nothing like the 2011 iteration. It was HTML-heavy and cramped, with few extra features. While its innovative email program was quick to draw opinion leaders, my sophomore-aged self was after something else: collaboration.
Gmail’s knack for innovating collaboration remains true today. Google Apps such as Docs are among the most prevalently used cloud-based systems in existence, with uses that are relevant to both student and professional work. Having recognized its potential, the University of Wisconsin is among the institutions that offer members personalized Apps accounts.
Gmail was brought up as another possibility for the university on Wednesday evening when Huron Consulting released summaries of its findings. The review was brought on by the Administrative Excellence program in the hopes of pinpointing places the university can streamline and save costs.
Though the Huron publication mainly recommends that UW combine its 72+ email systems into one, it also notes the prevalence of Gmail at peer institutions and that the site is already used to provide email accounts to UW alumni. Considering it is free to higher education institutions, it would be an easy way to cut a sizeable chunk out of UW’s struggling budget.
But when it comes to Gmail, the UW Division of Information Technology is incredibly suspicious of Google. DoIT Communications Manager Brian Rust said WiscMail is important to the university for many reasons beyond simply processing the more than 1 million emails a day WiscMail users send and receive.
“When we manage the system, we can control things like uptime, data integrity, backups, things like that,” Rust said. “Cloud computing is great in that it’s free, but there is kind of a cost that comes with it in terms of losing control over not only the reliability of the service of the system, but also your own files and how they might use your information.”
With WiscMail, he said the university can be confident employees’ intellectual property is safe, and when the email system crashes in the middle of the night, DoIT employees are around to fix it.
When you are talking about Gmail, an email system that has 99.9 percent uptime and promises its education users exclusive ownership of their email content, this argument does not make much sense. Gmail has had its share of privacy mishaps, from the discovery of an enormous security flaw in 2005 to the ill-fated Google Buzz, but UW is not perfect either. There have been no public accounts of WiscMail security concerns, but in 2008-09 and 2010 there were massive hacks of university computers. Like in the case of Gmail, there is no guarantee WiscMail will always be safe.
UW trusts Gmail to provide email services to its alumni and allows students and employees to use Google Apps – a partnership in which they already negotiated a contract to meet their standards. Arguing the university should stick with WiscMail for peace of mind is ridiculous when Gmail is better in so many ways. Students need improved search, expanded storage, Chat, Talk and integration with Calendar and Apps not just to make their current lives easier, but to ensure they are prepared for working in a modern workforce.
Props to the university for understanding it is time to move to a single email system, but take it one step further and adopt Gmail. Maybe then some DoIT staff members will be freed up to work on a new Student Center system.
Signe Brewster ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in life sciences communication.
