OUCC 2015 Inspiring Innovation Ryersons Adoption of Google Apps
For Education Presenters: Jennifer Parkin, Clara Guo, Restiani
Andriati Date: Tuesday, May 5th, 2015
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Overview Where we started Consultation Request for Proposal
Implementation Challenges & Successes
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Ryerson maintained 2 separate email systems: Student/Faculty
System branded RMail Administrative Staff System, Novells Groupwise
Limited Collaboration Tools Available at Ryerson: Blackboard Tools
(LMS) Confluence Active Directory Shared Network Storage
(Departmental) Where we started (Before Google..)
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R-mail for students and faculty Email system (Oracle)
@ryerson.ca email address No calendaring capability 500mb - 1G
storage per user depending on role Rmail outages due to SAN Outages
/ hardware upgrades and maintenance
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Novell Groupwise for Administrative Staff Administered by a
separate team within CCS Calendaring platform for staff only
@gwemail.ryerson.ca Desktop & web version looked completely
different Archives stored on users hard drive Went offline each
night for backups. Yearly software licensing renewals, maintenance
and upgrade projects, and hardware updates Per user licenses to use
on mobile
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We were not competitive! (Rmail vs others in 2011)
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Google Apps Quota in 2015: Google provides its Educational Apps
Clients UNLIMITED STORAGE for Email and Google Drive for each user.
We definitely could not compete!
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We didnt have the resources (human or otherwise)
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January 2011: The Advisory Committee on Academic Computing
(ACAC) and Computing and Communications Services (CCS) initiated a
consultation process with the Ryerson community regarding the
future of E-mail and collaboration systems for Ryerson. Community
Consultation
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The consultation was a result of: Difficulties Ryerson has
experienced in maintaining a competitive E-mail system (costs,
storage, maintenance) Lack of a university-wide calendar and
scheduling system The need for modern collaboration tools Community
Consultation - Why?
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Another example of why we did this...
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One more reason... Hi Team, Can you all review this Word
Document, make your suggested changes, email it back to me and Ill
merge it all into the final version. Sincerely, Jane
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There must be something better!?
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But what will the Ryerson community think? Negative perception
of outsourcing email and hosting data in the cloud Patriot Act US
& Foreign Jurisdictions Privacy Concerns Communication was key
as well as mitigating risk!
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Community Consultation Launched a consultation blog:
email.blog.ryerson.ca/ email.blog.ryerson.ca/ Conducted a community
survey Held a symposium with the Ontario Privacy Commissioner to
talk about privacy and the risks of cloud hosting Later: held town
halls, privacy workshops and sessions
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Privacy By Design February 24, 2011: Symposium on Exploring the
Future of E-mail, Privacy, and Cloud Computing at Ryerson. Privacy
Commissioner (IPC) of Ontarios presentation impacted how we
approached assessing risks of cloud-based and locally hosted
systems. With the assistance of the IPC, Ryerson developed its own
PIA methodology based on the principles of PbD.
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Project Timeline
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The Request For Proposal (RFP) Process Based on Community
Requirements, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was drafted 50+ pages of
requirements Significant sections devoted to IT requirements,
accessibility, security, privacy, ownership of data, legal
jurisdictions Posted on August 22 - closed October 3rd, 2011
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The RPF Process The evaluation team was made up of subject
matter experts of each category. Evaluation led to ACAC unanimously
voting to recommend Google Apps for Education for use by students,
faculty and staff. January 2012, Recommendation accepted
Negotiations began with Google, plus further assessment on: privacy
impact, financial risk, integration and security of Google Apps for
Education.
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The Winner!!!
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Despite our best efforts... Still some left with a negative
perception of cloud hosting Patriot Act US & Foreign
Jurisdictions Privacy Concerns We needed a solution for concerned
students and faculty. But whats the biggest threat to users
privacy??
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The Agreement & Our Promises to the Community No
advertising No data mining Google does not own any data
Authentication and additional mail filtering done by Ryerson Follow
PbD Principals - ensure privacy An option for concerned students
and faculty will be provided
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Challenge #1 The Opt-In Students and faculty had to choose to
opt-in to Gmail (or continue using Rmail) Staff was migrated from
Rmail and Groupwise, to Gmail. No opt-out. Groupwise service was
decommissioned after migration Everyone was provisioned in Google
Apps with an account to use the Calendar and Drive Keep Rmail
running
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The Opt-In: How we implemented it Pop-out Opt-In screen on the
Ryerson u-Portal upon login for students and faculty Review of the
options & our privacy terms Make a choice to opt-in to Gmail
Opt-In process still continues for new users and existing users who
have not made a choice.
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Challenge #2 with Privacy by Design & Settings Due to
inadequate privacy controls Disabled a core App: Google Chat
(Talk)
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Challenge #3: Our promise that mail will be scanned and
filtered by Ryerson Email sent from Web (example) Incoming Email @
Ryerson: Email Scanning / Sophos Email Routing Gmail Rmail Emails
sent to Gmail users Emails sent to Rmail users
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What Apps are available in Google Apps for Ryerson Core
Services enabled in our domain GMail (Optional) Google Calendar
Google Drive Google Contacts Google Sites Google Groups (Summer
2014) Core services are under agreement between Google and Ryerson
with no data mining & no advertisements
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What Apps are NOT available Consumer Products: Inbox By Gmail,
Youtube, Picasa, etc. Marketplace Apps Add-ons Google Chat (Due to
Privacy Concerns)
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The Implementation Project Ryerson Partnered with SADA Systems
was a third party integration partner The Plan - Migrate to Google
in 3 phases: Alpha Testing: move CCS staff to Google Beta Testing:
move early adopters (volunteers) from across the University to
Google (Pilot) Full Implementation: Migrate faculty, staff, and
students
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Communication Strategy: Awareness News ads in 2 campus
publications, interviews Emails sent from Ryerson Today, and our
own CCS news and mass mailers to target various groups Digital
signage, posters, flyers Pop ups on lab computers Opt-In collection
on uPortal (my.ryerson.ca) Whats changed? Comparisons you used to
do this in GroupWise
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Migration Planning 2 systems into 1 Several teams in CCS were
involved What will and will not migrate? We migrated email,
folders, contacts (address book), calendar appointments gwemail
addresses needed to be replaced in contacts Set up Calendar Sharing
solution (keep students private) and faculty and staff in the
directory
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The IT work involved by CCS Groupwise to Gmail Migration -
Cloud Migrator tool (a licensed tool) Rmail to Gmail Migration -
Python/Perl Scripting/ GAMME Tool (Google Tool) Python Scripting -
ongoing controls the rolling migrations (any new opt-ins) and does
it in real-time
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Migration - What couldnt migrate to Google Emails/ Attachments
over 25MB Attachments in calendar events GroupWise Rules (filters
in Gmail) Delegation or Proxy rights Email Signatures Tasks
GroupWise Shared Folders Drafts/Work In Progress Junk Mail (Spam)
& Trash Folders with Special Characters !@#$%^&*()_+
Password-protected zip file attachments
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Continue the Communication Strategy Weekly emails with a
countdown to Go-Live Date (Oct 9th) Instructions to prepare for
migration
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Example of our scheduled communications
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Gone Google October 9th, 2012
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Opt-In Flyer Information
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October 9, 2012 - Ryerson Goes Google Migration started Friday
of the Thanksgiving long weekend and the bulk completed Failed
migrations or missing mail continued through the following week
Most recent messages first, past messages last Provisioning was
immediate so users could log in and send email before their
messages migrated Intense training sessions offered for that week/
and months to follow.
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End-User Training Challenges Labels vs. Folders Threaded
conversations Searching vs. Sorting Using Google Drive for storage
and collaboration Using Google Calendar
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Continued Challenges Google constantly makes changes!
Incremental upgrades to service New Feature roll outs API changes
Training and support becomes a challenge to stay on top of
changes.
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74,164
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Ryersons Gone Google October 9, 2012 - Ryerson went live with
Google Apps 130K users provisioned in Google
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Ryersons Gone Google Today:
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Successes: User accounts Provisioned in Google through RMS
Calendaring sharing among employees; all employees are in the
domain directory Course schedule integrated in Google Calendar
Adoption of Google Drive for Collaboration: Example: Presidential
Search Committee Project Other RFPs done completely collaborative
in Drive Users embracing the real-time collaborative features
limiting the merging of work & eliminating sending large email
attachments
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Adoption of Google Docs for Collaboration
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Successes continued: Helped to integrate Google Calendar with
individual scheduling application (Google APIs) Launched Google
Groups, replaced our existing majordomo mailing list service.
Migration project Summer 2014. Built request form on our my.ryerson
portal. 1,200 Groups. Some controlled by RMS (course & program
groups)
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Google Apps Usage
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Success: Google Docs Usage
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Successes: Google Drive Usage
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Whats Coming Up Next? Process for requesting Marketplace Apps
Improvement of Calendar integration(s) and adoption moving many
coldfusion applications onto Google Develop skills in Google
Scripting (Java) to enhance features in Google Forms, etc. Develop
strategies for Google Drive to be promoted and used further.