A GO WUSTL pilot program has been underway since mid-January. Student Technology Services (STS) representatives said it has been a success.

“The feedback has been generally good,” Director of Student Technology Services Barbara Braun said. “There have been a few hiccups along the way that were Microsoft-related.”

According to Marcia Mannen, associate director of client support for Arts & Sciences Computing, most of the questions that students participating in the pilot have raised were not technical. There have not been many questions regarding the actual program, but rather addressing issues such as mail forwarding.

The Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) has been happy with the pilot.

“It’s going to be a good transition,” said sophomore Brandon Lucius, a member of STAC. “There are a lot of tools and applications that are going to make students’ lives more organized and efficient.”

Tools available with the new GO WUSTL program include video and text chat, an application similar to Google Documents, and a global address book.

According to Braun, the global address book is among one of the favorite applications of the pilot program participants.

Issues that have plagued the new e-mail service since the pilot started include backlogged e-mail and issues with the spam filters.

Sophomore Betel Ezaz, who is participating in the pilot program, has found some of its drawbacks.

“It seems inefficient right now, even compared to what we already have,” she said. “My main issue is that it loses e-mails and that the spam folder always has legitimate e-mails. I think they can figure it out. They’ve been really good about feedback.”

To remedy the issue with regular mail ending up in spam folders, all e-mails from Wash. U. addresses have been whitelisted.

“Overall I think it will be better because of the options that are available through GO WUSTL,” Ezaz said. “It’s just a matter of working out the small issues before we go live with it. I think it’s good.”

Arts & Sciences and engineering students are making the transition from Squirrelmail.

“From our perspective we know it’s something to be excited about,” said Kristen Hornberger, communications specialist for the Engineering Public Relations & Communications department.

The business school is transitioning from a less advanced version of Microsoft Outlook.

“It’s a very smooth transition,” said Sharon Yoon, associate director of MBA student affairs. “It’s very nice I think. Students are very savvy, and this is very intuitive.”

The old e-mail accounts will not be phased out immediately; their end dates have not yet been decided.

STS will be offering a series of hour-long workshops in early March to help acquaint students with GO WUSTL. In the meetings STS will discuss how to use specific applications and how to forward mail. STS is also encouraging students to look to the GO WUSTL Web site to find answers to simple questions.

Expectations for the program’s success are running high.

“If the pilot program was any indication, it was pretty smooth,” Braun said. “I don’t think it will be too difficult.”

GO WUSTL e-mail will be available for use by all undergraduate students and students in six of the University’s graduate schools.

The GO WUSTL system, created using Microsoft’s Live@edu, will offer students tools that are not available on SquirrelMail. These tools include live chat and video chat.

The system also includes a calendar and online storage space. The students will also have access to a full University e-mail directory. In the past, each school has had its own address book.

The new program will be implemented in two stages. A pilot program, which started on Tuesday, gives almost 500 Wash. U. students a chance to test out the new e-mail program. The pilot program will provide administrators the opportunity to iron out any problems with the system. In early March the program is slated to be expanded to all students.

“We do anticipate it will be smooth,” Barbara Braun, director of Student Technology Services, wrote of the transition in an e-mail to Student Life.

All e-mail from the obsolete SquirrelMail accounts will be forwarded to the new GO WUSTL accounts.

Some students are looking forward to this change. Freshman Kevin Liang, who finds SquirrelMail difficult to use, has had his Wash. U. e-mail forwarded to his independent e-mail account during his first year at Wash. U.

“I may switch back if the e-mail system is good,” Liang said.

The practice of e-mail forwarding is common among students. Junior Erica Cole also has her Wash. U. e-mail forwarded to her Gmail account. Cole said the new GO WUSTL program will have no effect on her.

“I don’t really care,” Cole said. “Either way I will get my e-mail forwarded to Gmail.”

Many students remain unaware of the imminent transition.

“This is the first that I’m hearing of it,” freshman Johanna Rudnik said. “It would be nice to be told that the program was going to happen.”

Liang suggests that the new program should be advertised better to the student body so that students have an opportunity to learn about it before March.

Many students are optimistic about the changes.

“I have no problem with it as long as my e-mails are forwarded,”  Rudnik said.

Liang said, “I think it is good. SquirrelMail was hard to use.”

To activate their GO WUSTL accounts, students need to have a WUSTL KEY and a password, as well as an alternate, non-University e-mail address.

The password for the GO WUSTL e-mail will be the same as the WUSTL KEY password.

Further information on the program, as well as instructions on how to set up and use the new e-mail accounts, is available online at http://go.wustl.edu.

We know that a pilot program will soon be launched that will allow a select group of students to test out the Microsoft Live@Edu system before the University decides to make the switch permanently. We also know exactly what the Live@Edu system includes, and it seems appropriate that Student Union (SU) is enthusiastic to promote it: Microsoft Office products, lots of storage space and connection with social networking sites will certainly be appealing to students.

What we do not know, however, is when the pilot program will begin and how many students will be able to participate. We are also unsure how the University plans to collect and use feedback from the pilot group. Will students be required to fill out surveys or attend focus groups? What sort of reaction from students would cause the University either to adopt or to reject the program? These details need to be made available to students who are considering participating in the pilot program.

It is troubling that this mass communication has failed to address these critical and pertinent questions.

With SU’s new commitment to being as open and as communicative as possible, there is a real risk of information overload. While we appreciate SU’s efforts to keep us informed, SU needs to ensure that its student body e-mails are brief, concise and contain the topic’s most significant details. Given the prevalence of new forms of communication—we can follow SU on Twitter and connect with them on their Web site—it seems unnecessary to enumerate new policies in an e-mail, especially when the e-mail itself provides the links to these online forms of communication.

In his latest e-mail to the student body, Student Union President Jeff Nelson addressed this concern and said that he did not want to clog the student body’s inboxes with unnecessary e-mails. We encourage Student Union to follow through on this message throughout the year.

Our aim is not solely to protect the student body from an unnecessary flood of messages. More importantly, we worry that the effectiveness of SU’s communication is diluted when the student body receives too many unnecessary and long e-mails and begins to hit ‘delete.’ The lack of awareness regarding the pilot program is one clear example of this effect. Although students received the information, it was not presented in a way that got the point across.

Given the enthusiasm we have observed from this year’s SU officers, this phenomenon is unfortunate. In order to ensure that its important messages are received, SU ought to link to online content instead of including large bodies of e-mail text and aim to make all communication as concise and relevant as possible.

Over the summer, Student Union President Jeff Nelson announced in an e-mail to the student body that Washington University would be moving undergraduate e-mail accounts to Microsoft Live@Edu. Students can now register to participate in the pilot program that is slated to begin early fall.

Who it will affect
Only those who wish to participate in the pilot program will be affected this semester.

Although the University has yet to specify a start date for the pilot program or the number of students that will be allowed to participate in it, Nelson said he hopes that everyone that signs up will eventually be allowed to participate.

After the semester-long test drive the University will evaluate the program and whether or not the program provides adequate service to the University.

“I think right now we’re looking to see that there are no showstoppers.  The deans of the schools have made a commitment to improve their e-mail systems and online communication tools and Microsoft is something that we think will work here and this pilot program is just to make sure that’s the case.”

Nelson is hoping that at least all the undergraduate schools will be on the same system.

What has been done so far
Last semester, the University invited both Microsoft and Google to make presentations for their respective e-mail systems. Representatives of the University selected Microsoft Live@Edu to be the e-mail system piloted this fall.

“Going into the presentation, Microsoft definitely surprised a lot of us with the features that it’s offering. If you look at it, on the surface, 10 gigs of space is more than what Google is offering,” Nelson said. “So I think it was less about Microsoft being better than Google but more so about Microsoft being a better fit for Wash. U.”

Features of Microsoft Live@Edu

The basics of Microsoft Live@Edu will include an @wustl.edu email address with Microsoft Live@Edu services. Microsoft Live@Edu will greatly increase the amount of storage space currently offered by WUSTL e-mail programs—up to 10 gigabytes of e-mail storage space with another 20 gigabytes of online storage space offered by Windows Live SkyDrive for files. Furthermore, the e-mail system will have a fully integrated address book with all University contacts, so finding the e-mail of a group member becomes easy with the auto-complete function.

Microsoft Live@Edu also has better e-mail organization.  Conversation view keeps track of long, complicated e-mail conversations by listing the replies to one e-mail in one thread.  There will also be categories so that e-mails can be color coded for quicker identification and access.

Finally, Microsoft Live@Edu will offer tools specific to Microsoft, such as built-in IM with Windows Live Messenger and online versions of Microsoft Office products.

This new initiative will provide the means of what Student Union (SU) calls a “unified communications platform,” where all students, faculty, staff and administrators can share information with the same tools.

The decision came after a yearlong evaluation of Live@Edu and the similar application Google Apps for Education and numerous surveys, town hall meetings, product demonstrations and focus groups.

Though many students opted for Google Apps in their surveys, Nelson said that Live@Edu will offer all the features that Google Apps offers and “much more.”

Each student’s Live@Edu account will provide a 10-gigabyte e-mail inbox, 25 gigabytes of file storage space, a sharable calendar, online workspaces and direct integration with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

With the new application, students will be able to search the e-mail addresses of classmates, arrange appointments with advisors and complete other functions all within the same system.

Visit studlife.com throughout the week for more updates on Live@Edu.