on april 14 this year, ua president johnsen announced his desire for all ua campuses to begin using google apps for education for email and calendar within a short time 30 days. due to the complexities of transitioning an institution as large as the uaa, concerns about the proper handling of personal health information (phi) that may transit through our information systems, and to ensure no data is lost, leadership of the uaa requested an extension. ever since, the IT staff has been diligently researching and planning a path to successfully meet our collective goal.
At this point, we have established what we believe to be the best way forward, while also minimizing disruption to faculty and staff. however, due to the limited time we have available to perform the migration, the process required that we strike a balance between convenience and convenience. I want to assure everyone that no data (email items, contacts or calendar items) will be lost or deleted without your consent.
at a high level, this is what you can expect:
- uaa will start the transition process on June 26.
- When it’s your turn to move, you’ll receive an email when the automated process begins and another email when it’s finished. the process should not take more than a day.
- During this time, you can still use email as normal.
- 90 days email
- exception: gmail will not accept attachments larger than 25mb. we are developing information resources that you can use to help you manually move larger attachments to other services.
- Instructions on how to use gmail and google calendars are available in the resources tab above.
I acknowledge the fact that a move of this nature is an unexpected disruption to an already busy summer and fall class preparation season. the plan outlined above strikes a balance between our need to join the rest of ua in a unified email and calendar system and a sincere desire to minimize any interruptions in service or inadvertent exposure of protected information. uas has already transitioned its staff and faculty to gmail and google calendar services. as “early adopters” they discovered a significant number of issues, some of which have been resolved and solutions adopted as part of our transition. we thank the people at uas and ilo who have worked with us over the past month to find the right balance.
if you need help or have questions, contact the uaa service center at 786-4646 or toll-free 1-877-633-3888.
thank you for your patience as we move through this process.
information technology services university of alaska anchorage