All go for Google

Only a week to go to the arrival of most of our new students, and then a week after that the returners come back. Over the last few weeks we've been making sure that our new Google mail service is in place. That's meant creating all of the new student accounts with Google, and then creating accounts for the returning students and migrating all of their mail over. In addition there's a lot of technical work going on with passwords and getting single sign-on through our portal to work. Had a catch up meeting this morning and so far, so good. One or two hitches but nothing too serious. Migration will be finished next week, and single sign-on turned on straight after. Given that we only took the decision in May, it's been a fairly rapid implementation. Should be a much improved user experience for our students - hope it's appreciated! Had an interview yesterday with Google's PR agency for a press release they're doing - apparently there's quite a few Universities moving to them this September (14 is the figure I've heard) - and in Sheffield both ourselves and Sheffield Hallam are implementing in the same timescale so we've been able to share experiences. Suspect a UK HE Google User group will be on the cards soon.