[MD-L]

Dear McMaster Students, say goodbye to MUSS because Gmail implementation has a date!

Implementation of your new Gmail accounts will take place from February 19th and 25th (Reading Week) and your current e-mails will be migrated over to the new Gmail system.

This MSU project which began in February 2010 is nearing completion and if it weren’t for the 3500 students who voted in the online survey back in Oct 2010 this would not have been possible.
Good luck on exams, and I hope you enjoy the change from 15 MB of storage to 25 GB among other benefits!

The timeline for the launch is:

1) Opt-out option offered to students (December 19, 2011 – January 8, 2012)
2) Pilot group migration (December 19, 2011 – January 8, 2012)
3) Mass migration window (February 17, 2012 – February 26, 2012)
4) All eligible students on Gmail (February 27, 2012 onwards)

For more info please visit: http://www.mcmaster.ca/uts/gmailforstudents/index.html

I anticipate myself legitimately not even using this apart from redirecting mail.. this is a pretty huge thing though, lets hope it all works out!

lol now I can actually send someone a single powerpoint and not have it sent back because of a full inbox.

Engineer says: How do I get in the Beta?

Yay this is awesome !

Hey Mike, sadly UTS only wanted 5 people for the beta, I wish I could offer more spots for it but if one opens up just e-mail me your MACID and I will try to get you on.

I propose that as first adopters, we be allowed to choose our own username and be able to keep these accounts for life.

Matt...I thought I was on that list of beta testers :(

Sadly the issue with life long accounts is that McMaster currently has 38,000 MACID's and so they often recycle some of them after a student graduates. What I want to look into, however, is providing alumni Gmail accounts as well so you can keep it after you leave.

Finally! No more FULL INBOXES.

EDIT: Wait, we lose our MACID's when we graduate? D:

finally.. THANK YOU BASED GOD.

Feel like ive heard the whole "reading week launch" before......

Originally Posted by MD-L

Sadly the issue with life long accounts is that McMaster currently has 38,000 MACID's and so they often recycle some of them after a student graduates. What I want to look into, however, is providing alumni Gmail accounts as well so you can keep it after you leave.

Why can't they keep student number accounts for alumni?

Originally Posted by MD-L

Sadly the issue with life long accounts is that McMaster currently has 38,000 MACID's and so they often recycle some of them after a student graduates. What I want to look into, however, is providing alumni Gmail accounts as well so you can keep it after you leave.

I definitely support this.

Yay! It Took Only, What...a Long Time?

Here is a step by step (more or less) explanation of what took place.

1. Huzaifa brought up the idea to the Chief Information Officer of UTS in January of 2010
2. Huzaifa and I did some research, brought someone in from a company that did the integration of Gmail for schools and passed a policy saying the MSU supported a cloud based email system in Feb 2010
3. In May of 2010 began conversations with university admin about it with the new policy
4. Over the summer met with reps from Google/Microsoft
5. Held a survey in Oct of 2010 where 3500 students voted (70% for Google)
6. UTS then began contract negotiations between Google and McMaster
7. Google did not dedicate their legal team to the issue until August
8. McMaster and Google went back and forth over the contract
9. Contract was finalized this morning

Implementation will take place in February and yes reading week was mentioned last year, but without a signed contract by McMaster it was not possible.