Though some colleges across the country are wary about switching over their college e-mail servers to free e-mail servers such as Google or Microsoft, AU students have nothing to worry about when it comes to e-mail information security, according to the Office of Information Technology.
Lawyers representing top colleges have expressed concerns that outside companies would not be tied to the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Act requires colleges and their internal e-mail servers to protect the records and personal information on students’ e-mail accounts, according to the Chronicle.
AU uses Gmail for student e-mail accounts through Google’s Apps for Education service, according to Ed Martin, the deputy chief information officer for OIT. This free service provides users with a Gmail account as well as with Gchat, Google Documents and a calendar.
Google’s Apps for Education service has been adopted as a primary e-mail server by over fifty colleges across the country, including George Washington University, according to the Google Apps Web site.
The only link that AU Gmail accounts have with Google is the e-mail address itself, Martin said. He said that Google is bound to an academic agreement with AU which puts constraints on Google’s hosting of university accounts and data. Only AU IT professionals monitor the e-mail files and personal information on the Google server, as if the entire system was AU’s own internal system, according to Martin.
Martin said the switchover to Gmail last year was a logical choice for AU because Gmail is reliable and easy to use both for students and OIT professionals.
“The move to Google Apps for Education services provided more consistency to how AU was able to manage and support the student e-mail service,” Martin said.
OIT made the Gmail switchover for three major reasons, according to Martin: many students were already using Gmail for their personal e-mail accounts, the student government requested the switchover in 2007 and the financial value of switching to Google’s free e-mail service was dramatically greater than keeping AU’s former e-mail system powered by Lotus Notes.
Some AU students said they are more concerned with AU’s handling of information security than the possibility of Google getting their hands on the students’ personal information.
“I would actually trust Google more than AU to safeguard my e-mail account,” said Lauren Lee, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Google is a major corporation, but AU is just a college. Someone could very easily hack into our e-mail system.”
You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.
