A seemingly sudden move to Microsoft 365 serves as a reminder that universities need to do a better job of understanding student opinions in a pandemic

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Change is hard. That is a fundamental lesson every McMaster University student has learned throughout this once-in-a-lifetime year. While we can all appreciate our ability in being able to personally overcome the transformative changes life throws at us, more often than not, our everyday lives yearn for little moments of stability.

Even though we all have our own individual definitions of what stability looks like for us, there are some facets of our life which we completely take for granted. We might only realize with great annoyance how detrimental their loss was to our day-to-day routine.

For example, when you lose your favourite metal straw, or your AirPods somewhere in your house, this seemingly small hindrance often does a remarkable job in souring your day. In a time where the fundamental truths of being a university student — such as enjoying an in-person year on campus — are under attack by our time of uncertainty, McMaster at the very least could soothe some of the unprecedented student anxiety by maintaining a small modicum of stability.

In a time where the fundamental truths of being a university student — such as enjoying an in-person year on campus — are under attack by our time of uncertainty, McMaster at the very least could soothe some of the unprecedented student anxiety by maintaining a small modicum of stability.

How can Mac do that you ask? By staying in touch with student opinions? By being aware of the actual, unfiltered realities of its students (especially new ones)?

Aside from the obvious cases of proctoring and online education, Mac in subtler ways has implemented some systems this year which greatly annoyed students, solely because they were so small, yet so infuriating. Mac plans on switching its primary student hub in Google over to Microsoft — as in students will no longer have a Google Drive, but an OneDrive, and instead of a Gmail, they will have an Outlook. 

While the reason for this change was announced via Mac Daily News, it nonetheless faced controversy from the student body due to the impracticalities associated with accommodating the changes (like having to move several gigabytes of data from Google Drive to OneDrive), but also with the disastrous performance of Microsoft Teams this year.

In my experience, the Microsoft Teams application was so functionally inefficient with large class sizes, that instructors often took up class time in switching to alternative platforms such as Zoom. Some went as far as switching instruction to taking place only on Zoom.

This is discounting the fact that countless students heavily relied on Google services such as Gmail and Google Drive in middle school, throughout high school and university until these new IT changes were approved. For many Gen Zs, (who will soon inevitably comprise the majority of Mac’s student demographic), anything Microsoft-related is a draconian relic of the past and many of us strongly believe there are much sleeker, easier to use and more compatible options are already available to us, right at our fingertips. 

For many Gen Zs, (who will soon inevitably comprise the majority of Mac’s student demographic), anything Microsoft-related is a draconian relic of the past and many of us strongly believe there are much sleeker, easier to use and more compatible options are already available to us, right at our fingertips. 

This is particularly worrying as there is a very real possibility that fall 2021 might be online and if not, it may shift online in accordance with health guidelines. Online workspaces are our way of life now, and we have already made enough changes than we expected, for better or for worse.

Students have earned the right to retain one simple facet of online school, which allows them to retain some semblance of their previously normal life. A change that might seem little and from the outside appears to be nothing more than technical difficulties, could have drastic real-life implications for students in their online environment.

Mac, once again, please be mindful of the choices you make on behalf of the student body. Listening to students might surprisingly help with that.

McMaster to shift student emails and calendars to Microsoft 365 starting in May

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On March 8, McMaster University announced that all student email platforms will be changed from Gmail to Microsoft 365 cloud in May 2021. 

On March 8, McMaster University announced that all student email platforms will be changed from Gmail to Microsoft 365 cloud in May 2021.

All faculty, staff, retirees, and medical students have already made this transition in 2020.  

“The feedback that we've had so far from staff, faculty and our medical students has been extremely positive,” said Gayleen Gray, chief technology officer at McMaster.

This change comes from the McMaster IT strategic plan that was launched in 2019 to improve the digital tools that the institution uses.

“There's a number of initiatives to bring the institution forward into what we call a 21st-century university,” said Gray.

These initiatives include more modern digital toolsets, collaboration tools and projects that will help McMaster work, learn and teach. The overall goal is for the university to work more creatively and collaboratively.

“There's a number of initiatives to bring the institution forward into what we call a 21st-century university,” said Gray.

Although students already have access to Microsoft 365 products, the conversion to Microsoft will streamline communication and online collaborative tools to one platform.

“[University Technology Services] also learned that when people have their email and calendaring integrated into the Microsoft suite of tools, they tend to be a lot more curious, a lot more interested in and more embedded in the opportunities that are available there,” said Gray.

The change was partially made to improve the accessibility of the email and calendar systems.  International students will have easier access to Microsoft than Gmail. According to the Office 365 Hub website, the university hopes to prepare students for professional environments through an early introduction to Microsoft 365, as the majority of workplaces utilize Microsoft services.

The email migration will occur in May 2021, after the winter 2021 semester is over. A communication plan and strategy will be announced in April 2021 to explain this process. The email migration will be managed by the project team and all existing emails, calendars and contacts will be copied to students’ Microsoft Exchange/Outlook account.

Students will have access to their Google Apps for Education environment, such as Google Drive, for both the fall 2021 and winter 2022 terms, according to Gray. Students will also be notified before their McMaster GSuite account is fully terminated in 2022, to allow them to manually back up and save any data they wish before this happens.

This change will allow the university to avoid the costs that they would have faced in 2022 due to the recent announcements of the changes to storage policy that would reduce the amount of storage available for institutions using Google for Education environments. The switch to Microsoft will allow McMaster to avoid costs in upgrading to additional storage

“We were looking at the opportunities and weighing them out and the reality is, it won't make sense for us to stay within that Google for Education environment, explained Gray.

Due to the high amount of data that students currently store, the transition was inevitable. Some McMaster students have expressed concerns anonymously on social media, while others have started a petition against this transition.

This decision was made with the input of the IT student advisory committee and the multidisciplinary project steering committee. The project steering committee includes two undergraduate students, two graduate students, a faculty member, chief librarian, the McMaster Students Union president, along with the chief technology officer and a few other individuals.

“Our biggest goal is to ensure that this is as smooth a process as we possibly can make it. We're very interested in the feedback that we've been hearing because it's helping us to ensure that we're gearing the project to make it as smooth as possible,” said Gray.

“We've heard from students who had concerns and [who are] feeling uncertain about it . . . we're always happy to hear from students, we're taking that information and we'll use it to help us improve the way the project rolls out,” Gray explained.

For students that are unfamiliar with Microsoft 365 tools or want to learn more about them, training and one-on-one sessions will be held throughout the migration to provide support. These can be accessed through the Microsoft 365 Hub as the change occurs. They can also access the frequently asked questions list, which will be continually updated.

“We will have lots of time come the end of the semester to focus on this and to support students and answer all of their questions . . . rest easy and we've got your back,” said Gray.

Rachel Faber
The Silhouette

The recent popularity of cloud email systems has some Canadian universities concerned about the level of security of their email servers.

Discourse suggests that with these U.S. based companies, the U.S. government or NSA may be able to gain access to secure information and intellectual property through American cloud services such as those offered by Google and Microsoft.

Richard Godsmark, the senior manager of Security, Technology and Risk at McMaster University pointed out that this is a security concern, however it is a difficult issue to address due to a lack of information on the subject.

To improve customer service, Google is attempting to sue the U.S. government, to ensure that they will have to go through actual court proceedings before accessing information. However, in order to really address Internet security, Godsmark believes that it will require a global policy on the matter.

Godsmark believes that unauthorized monitoring is always going to be a concern.

“[Information] crosses borders without any kind of passport, and so traffic is always going to end up in other countries,” said Godsmark.

However, there are a lot of policies in place to ensure that people are not violating privacy for unnecessary reasons.

It is highly unlikely that the NSA would look into a person unless they were considered a real threat, such as suspicion of terrorism. In this instance, it would not matter if you were a U.S. citizen or not. The U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain are all members of the “Five Eyes.” This is an intelligence agreement meaning that each state has agreed to release information that is considered dangerous.

There are, of course, benefits for universities being on larger cloud email systems. This allows people from different universities to collaborate with one another. If each school had a different system, this would become more difficult to do.

In terms of McMaster’s email system, it is just as secure as any email system. Godsmark suggests that if you have really confidential information or academic property, not to be sending it in email format, but instead have it password protected.

“Email in general shouldn’t be considered a really secure medium, because as soon as you send out that email you lose control of the information in that email, “ he said.

Godsmark is more concerned with Internet criminals than the government. This is because Internet criminals impact a larger number of people at a personal level, stealing identities or credit card information.

At McMaster, University Technology Services is focusing more on these types of Internet crimes as they are more prevalent and present a higher risk.