Important Email Announcement for CI Students

(Editor's Note 7/29/2010: the launch date has changed to Monday, August 23, 2010 (was Monday, August 16). The message below has been updated to reflect this change.)
(Editor's Note: this message was sent to all currently enrolled students via Dolphin Email on 5/12/2010)

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During the summer the University will be migrating the Dolphin Email student email system to use Google Apps for Education and Gmail, in preparation for the fall 2010 semester. News and latest information on the project can be found at: http://www.csuci.edu/it/email/gmail

Google Apps is being used by thousands of schools, including more than 30 institutions of higher education. Gmail, as part of Google Apps for Education, provides greater storage capacity, integration points with key campus systems, a secure and stable infrastructure, and a user interface that is familiar to many current students.

Important Dates and Changes to Student Email

The cutover from the existing Outlook Web Access system to Dolphin Email powered by Google will take place Monday, August 23, 2010. On that date, you can continue to logon your Dolphin Email through myCI as you do now, but you will need to begin using your new Dolphin Email address immediately.

Dolphin Email for current students will change from "@dolphin.csuci.edu" to "@myci.csuci.edu" So, if your old Dolphin Email address was pat.jones123@dolphin.csuci.edu, after August 23, your Dolphin Email address will be pat.jones123@myci.csuci.edu.

Messages sent to your old Dolphin Email address will be automatically rerouted to your new Dolphin Email account.

You will continue to be able to forward your new Dolphin Email to any external/personal email account. New instructions will be provided on the Dolphin Email help pages in August.

Existing Dolphin Email will not be migrated into the new Dolphin Email system. Students will be able to use Google's available migration tools to move their existing messages into their new mailboxes. Links to these tools will be provided in August.

We look forward to these exciting changes and providing enhanced email features through our partnership with Google. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to visit our web site at http://www.csuci.edu/it/email/gmail or contact me at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu.

Regards,

Peter Mosinskis
A&IT Project Supervisor
Division of Academic & Information Technology

Project updates

We've had lots of activity on the Dolphin Email Migration Project over the past two months!

A survey was published in April to gauge current students' satisfaction with the existing Dolphin Email system. We learned that most students that responded are using it weekly, and that they don't forward to other email addresses! Also, a little over half of the respondents already have a Gmail account.

Two test domains have been configured in Google Apps for Education by our email system administrator: one domain for current students, one domain for alumni, to replicate our proposed production configuration.

The rules for who will get accounts accounts is about 80% complete:

• Current CI students will be provisioned with new accounts in Dolphin Email powered by Google according to existing business rules.
  
• Alumni will be provisioned in the Alumni Dolphin Email system according to a new set of rules which answer the question "who is an alum"? 

 A group of current students and alumni have been identified and contacted about helping to test the system before roll-out. The testing plan 80% complete. The test group participants will be notified in the coming weeks, and testing is expected to begin on Wednesday, June 2nd.

Single-sign on (SSO) and provisioning configuration is in progress, and is expected to be 80% (or more) complete for the beginning of testing on June 2nd.

A marketing meeting is planned for 5/25 to discuss further marketing for the project. Students were sent an email this week to notify them of the upcoming changes. Updates to brochures and signage, as well as further email and Web marketing will be discussed.

Updates to the project Web site, including a detailed FAQ, are in progress. Student Affairs has also drafted a policy and procedure (currently under review) for what kind of content the University should send to students using this system.

Stay tuned! If you have any questions, please contact IT Project Supervisor Peter Mosinskis at peter.mosinskis@csuci.edu.