“Live@edu is a platform that allows students to get creative. They are using the services to learn how to operate in a world where virtual collaboration is going to be the rule, not the exception.”

Professor John H. Shannon, Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University Seton Hall University in New Jersey is the oldest diocesan university in the United States. Though its computer systems are leading edge, its on-premises e-mail service did not live up to student expectations. Instead of an expensive upgrade, Seton Hall implemented Microsoft® Live@edu hosted collaboration services, including Windows Live™ SkyDrive™ online storage. Now, students have the tools to be successful on campus and in the workforce.

Business NeedsFounded in 1856 by Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, Seton Hall University is a private Catholic university in South Orange, New Jersey. Its campus in Newark houses the Seton Hall University School of Law.

Seton Hall has long used technology to augment the academic experience of its students. In 1998, it began providing laptops installed with Microsoft® Office software to its students, and, in 2000, it became a wireless campus. Yet, the IBM Lotus Notes 7 e-mail service that it provided for faculty and students had not evolved in pace with its other IT services.

“We mandated Lotus Notes e-mail for all campus communications; yet, at 250 megabytes [MB], students complained that their inboxes were insufficient,” says Paul Fisher, Director of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center at Seton Hall University. “Each student had a 250-MB storage space on our network, but this didn’t meet students’ requirements. They thought the Lotus Notes user interface was outdated, so they forwarded messages to their own Web-based e-mail services. The Alumni office offered a Web-based e-mail service for alumni; but it did not integrate with the student/faculty e-mail service.”Nor was the service reliable. “We had stability problems due to inbox quota

issues,” recalls Stephen Landry, Chief Information Officer at Seton Hall University. “We needed a more stable, cost-effective e-mail service with an interface similar to what students were using off campus.”

SolutionWhen the Seton Hall University IT team learned about Microsoft Live@edu from its Microsoft account representative, the university decided to look into replacing Lotus Notes with the hosted solution. Live@edu, a free* Microsoft-hosted communication and collaboration solution, delivers a Microsoft Office Outlook® Live webmail account to each student and alumni member of an institution. Other Live@edu services include Windows Live™

Microsoft Live@eduCustomer Solution Case Study

University Offers Students, Faculty, Hosted Collaborative Services to Enrich Learning

Customer: Seton Hall UniversityWeb Site: www.shu.eduCustomer Size: 1,500 employeesCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Education

Customer ProfileSeton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, is home to eight schools on two campuses that offer more than 60 majors to approximately 10,000 students.

Software and Services Services

− Microsoft Live@edu

Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies

SkyDrive™ storage technology, which provides 25 gigabytes of online storage to each student, and Microsoft Office Live Workspace, which students can use to access and share documents.

The university chose Live@edu for its students after comparing the services with Google Apps for Education. Some faculty had used Google Apps previously, but preferred Live@edu for its potential to prepare students for the workforce, where most people use Microsoft Office programs. The students who tested the service agree. “Our students liked the interoperability of the Live@edu offerings with the Office programs on their laptops, which Google didn’t offer,” says Fisher. “We were amazed at the reaction of the 100 students in our Live@edu pilot in March 2008. They were so ecstatic with the service, they almost refused to give it up at the end of the project.”

The IT staff liked that Live@edu is interoperable with the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 e-mail messaging and collaboration software. The university began deploying Exchange Server 2007 to faculty and staff in December 2008.

During the fall of 2008, the IT team provisioned approximately 15,000 Live@edu accounts for faculty and students. At the same time, it promoted the Live@edu services on the student portal. On January 6, 2009, all student mailboxes were moved over to the new service. The IT department continued to store old e-mail messages for students and faculty for the next three months.

Seton Hall is currently rolling out the Live@edu services to its alumni. “When we deploy Live@edu to our 70,000 alumni, we can bring them back as active and engaged members of the community,” says Landry.

BenefitsLive@edu hosted communication and collaboration services quickly became essential, productivity-enhancing tools

for students and faculty members at Seton Hall, and are now a key component of its IT services. “Today, we have rich, reliable communication and collaboration tools that students and faculty are using to create a vibrant academic environment,” says Fisher.

Professor John H. Shannon in the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall uses Live@edu to better communicate with students and other faculty members. “I now have the option of texting with students, which is their preferred method of communication,” he says. “And I’m introducing faculty members on the Undergraduate Education Policy Committee to the convenience of online document storage using SkyDrive.”

Michele Russomanno, a fourth-year student in the Center for Leadership Development honors program in the Stillman School of Business uses Live@edu to collaborate with fellow students. “I have group projects in four of my six courses,” she says. “We are using SkyDrive to store all our documents, and we work together in Office Live Workspace using a [Microsoft Office] Word document that will become our final project. We never have to worry about version control, and we can access our data from anywhere at any time, even using our smartphones. I don’t think it would be possible to produce these projects without Live@edu. I certainly can’t imagine how we did it before.”

Professor Shannon believes Live@edu helps students innovate in the use of technology. “Live@edu is a platform that allows students to get creative,” he says. “They are using the services to learn how to operate in a world where virtual collaboration is going to be the rule, not the exception.”

Russomanno used her experience with Live@edu tools to impress her employer where she is working as an intern. “They were having problems

with e-mail, so I suggested they adopt Microsoft Office Live Small Business, and they were thrilled,” she recalls. “Having Live@edu as a resource at the university is a great advantage for us when we enter the workforce.”

* Access to and use of the Internet may require payment of a separate fee to an Internet service provider. Local and/or long-distance telephone charges may apply.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published October 2009