University Information Technology and Communication will begin outsourcing all student e-mail accounts to third-party providers Google and Microsoft by the end of the semester. The migration to these private vendors is a result of growing student concern about the WebMail system. Once completed, students will have the option of selecting either Gmail or Microsoft Live to manage their e-mail accounts. In both cases, students will retain the University's virginia.edu domain.
This overhaul of student e-mail will also provide the University with the option of offering alumni e-mail for life, through a vendor of their choice. According to James Hilton, ITC vice president and chief information officer, both the University Alumni Association and Development Office have vested interests in this plan.
"We want a life-long commitment and connection with students," Hilton said. "Part of what concerned me was [that] I watched people migrating off of our e-mail platform because they had a better experience elsewhere."
Though ITC officals said both vendors will offer better service than the old WebMail system, some in the University community have expressed concern about student e-mail accounts being stored in a non-University infrastructure.
"There are some well-known concerns that some people have about Google," said Computer Science Prof. Thomas Horton. "They keep all of the data. They use it in certain ways. They explain how, but they claim it's still private. Certain people are nervous about one company controlling that much information."
According to Hilton, ITC anticipated some of these security concerns and made the effort to provide at least two options from which students can pick. He said the University is the first institution to have a contract with either company that permits users to choose between the two vendors, Microsoft and Google.
"We know that with both of these vendors, they are loved and they're feared," Hilton said. "We want people to be able have a choice. One piece of advice I would have, in deciding which one you were going to sign up for, would be to read their privacy policy. Make an informed choice going into it."
Some students, however, already make use of services like Gmail to manage their student e-mail accounts. Fourth-year College student Victoria Ingenito already has her University e-mail account forwarded to Gmail. She cited better reliability, faster service and more storage in her decision to use Gmail.
"I don't know how significant this change is considering how many students use Gmail anyway," Ingenito said. "If students want this, we can now just give them this through U.Va."
The initial migration of student e-mail accounts to these two vendors will cost the University a currently unspecified amount of money, explained Hilton. He added that the ongoing service itself will not cost the University anything.
"Google is not charging us to host our e-mail," Hilton said. "They're counting on the fact that you're going to choose them -- Microsoft is making the same bet -- you're going to choose them while you're a student here. You're going to fall in love with the service because it's a great service. Then, when it switches to ad-based, they're going to continue to provide the same service."
This migration will free up a significant amount of University resources, both financially and in terms of manpower.
"In the computer science department, a shockingly large time of the computing staff has been devoted each week to keep e-mail running," Horton said. "If that time was available for other tasks, [ITC] could provide a better service to students"
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