Through a partnership with Google, University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff can access a suite of Google-powered communication and collaboration tools designed to enhance our ability to work together. The suite includes email, calendar, document sharing, instant messaging, and Web site publishing tools.
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The University of Minnesota has added Google+ to the list of Google apps that are available to students, faculty, and staff who already have a U of M Google account. In the coming days, users will begin seeing the link for Google+ in their list of available Google Apps. They will have the option to use Google+ to connect with colleagues, coworkers, and friends at the U of M and beyond.
The University of Minnesota is proud to be among a small handful of universities that are partnering with Google to make Google+ available to its users on its worldwide launch on 10/27/2011. The opportunity for the University to be early adopters of Google+ helps to enhance our position as a leader in institutional technology. Some of these include Arizona State, Boise State, the University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, as well as universities in Egypt, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Kenya, Mexico, and Italy. You can read Google’s announcement on the official Google Enterprise Blog: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/10/google-is-now-available-with-google.html
How Google+ can be used on campus
Students can share their thoughts with a project group, friends, or family circle; have a Hangout with up to nine classmates; keep up with their connections from their mobile device. Faculty can host virtual office hours in Hangouts; share information with their class circles; share published articles with those that might be interested. Staff can use Hangouts to meet with a distributed team; share information with a project circle; keep in touch with colleagues, students, and faculty. You are encouraged to explore this tool and learn how it might be useful to your college, department, or unit.
We hope that by opening up tools like this for the University, people will begin to innovate and discover new ways to collaborate. We hope you find value in the capabilities that Google+ provides.
New applications and enhancements to existing applications will be released on a continuing basis. Some Apps are vetted by the system-wide Google Steering Committee and turned on by our system administrators. Other features are released into our domain by Google on a schedule you can access here: Google Updates.
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As of 10/27/201, 15,302 UMD accounts are in Google Apps.
The following Units will be made eligible for opt in once a legally compliant HIPAA solution is in place for them (estimated timeline is early November, 2011):
Intercollegiate Athletics staff
Health Services
Human Resources
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Duluth School of Medicine
Duluth Pharmacy
*Alumni, Retired Staff, and those accounts subject to HIPAA-compliance issues will continue to have access to legacy UMD email until Google solutions are in place for them. A Google Apps domain for alumni and retired staff is in design and planned for a Spring 2012 implmentation - this is an estimated timeline and not yet firm.
Most departmental accounts have only existed in the local UMD email system in the past and you need to request a system wide (x.500) account first, then we can get your departmental account into Google. In some cases the local account you have been using may already be used in the system, so you may have to pick an alternative account username. The request form automatically checks to see if the local account you have been using is available.
Steps to get your departmental account into Google Apps:
We would like to migrate all of these accounts by the end of June 2011. If you are no longer using this account, please let us know so that we can close it out. If your department is subject to HIPAA compliance, we may not be able to opt you into Google Apps right away but you can still do steps 1-4 as detailed above.
Sheri Pihlaja is working on these account migrations. Please feel free to contact her with questions.
Please take advantage of our Training Workshops, or stop by the Tech Center in Kirby Plaza 165, or call the Help Desk at x8847.
Most email clients can be pointed at the Google Apps servers and be made to work. At this time ITSS strongly encourages users to use the default, browser-based interface. We find that it is very fast and intuitive and for the vast majority of users it will be the best choice. We will provide only very limited support for any other email clients, especially as we work hard to roll out Google Apps in its default. At this time, ITSS staff are only able to provide free technical support for the Gmail web client. If you wish to use a desktop client (Thunderbird or MacMail), please refer to the online instructions here: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/desktop/mobile.html#google
We recommend that you try just using your web browser to login to Google Apps. We find that this works well in many cases. If the browser doesn't work for you, there is great documentation that can get you started, but be aware that our support for this will scale up over time.
We are finding that the transition is surprisingly painless for many users. As you get used to the new interface, here are some tricks that will really help you move from new user to power user:
Mail Delegation can be useful for people who want others to have access to read or respond to mail on their behalf. For example, you can delegate email rights to up to 10 others, such as administrative and executive assistants, in your unit. This feature is recommended primarily to access a supervisor's email in order to complete correspondence on their behalf. For privacy and security reasons, it is not recommended for general use at the University.
Instructional information and a short how-to video on setting up Gmail delegation are available at the Google Help Center. For further questions or information, contact the Help Desk at 726-8847 or stop by the Tech Center in KPlz 165.
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