Project update

Over the past few weeks, a select group of students, alumni and University staff have been testing the new Dolphin Email powered by Google system. So far, it appears to be working well.


The planning team continues to meet weekly to discuss issues related to the project. Here are some important updates:

1. One domain to rule them all: the University will have a single Dolphin Email domain, which will include both current students and alumni. Email addresses for both current students and alumni will end with "@myci.csuci.edu". This will enable students and alumni to have a seamless experience. 
2. A student directory...finally! After weighing several options, the planning team has recommended creation of an web-based, opt-out student directory, to enable students to find each other's email addresses more easily. Development of the directory is in progress, and we anticipate its launch within myCI in November 2010. 

In the next few weeks we'll be updating the Dolphin Email Migration FAQ with additional details about the upcoming changes to Dolphin Email. 

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)

---

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.

Domain names

We will be using the following domain names for our Gmail systems:

@myci.csuci.edu for current student email
@alumni.csuci.edu for alumni email

Alumni email; project team

We had our second project team meeting yesterday. Much of it was spent on a preliminary conversation on how the alumni.csuci.edu email domain will take shape, including:

• What is the campus definition of an alum?
• Which alumni should receive Gmail accounts? 
• When should they receive them? 
• What will happen to alumni's prior student email accounts?

Meeting notes are being distributed today to the core team.

Also, the core team for the project is made up of the following campus representatives:

1. Mosinskis, Peter (project lead) (IT)
2. Aquino, Herbert (IT)
3. Berman, Michael (IT)
4. Blue, Damon (Records & Registration)
5. Craig, Kevin (IT)
6. DuBransky, Marc (IT)
7. Evans-Taylor, Genevieve (Associated Students)
8. Fisch, Neal (IT)
9. Garcia, Tania (Alumni)
10. Powell, Cris (Housing and Residential Education)
11. Rice, Toni (Student Communication)
12. Scamardo, Peter (IT)
13. Swanson, Judy (IT)
14. Whitesell, Douglas (Associated Students and student representative)

We've only just begun...

The Dolphin Gmail project just kicked off yesterday with the first team meeting.

Although the meeting was short, we covered a lot of ground, including:

• why we're going with Gmail (more storage, better features, reducing cost)
• who will be involved in the project, and their roles (to make sure we're not missing anyone important!)
• scheduling a good recurring meeting time (we'll probably meet every week, at least to begin)
• choosing our domain names

This project will likely have an intense implementation schedule; the goal is to roll out Gmail for students for the start of the fall 2010 semester. Fortunately Google has provided a fairly comprehensive technical and marketing roadmaps on which we will base our project plan and timeline.  

Choosing domain names: this seems to be pretty easy. We're creating a few DNS entries today and setting up a test domain for our pilot group. It's likely we will use "@my.csuci.edu" as the production domain. The only gotcha is that the domain my.csuci.edu is currently in use by our quasi-portal, myCI. We're going to check with our Google account rep to see if this will cause any conflicts (hopefully it won't!)

We're on our way to Gmail!