PLEASE NOTE: These are test pages published only to gather feedback about the design.
Send feedback to gpilot@umn.edu. See the Google Initiative site for current information.
Beginning fall 2009, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) will offer Google accounts to University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff. University members who choose to sign up for a Google account will have access to the Google Apps for Education suite of applications, including e-mail, personal calendars, and collaborative document sharing. Since faculty and staff have a different user profile than students, and because of the collaborative nature of Google Apps, there are several caveats and circumstances about which University faculty and staff members particularly must be aware.
Signing up for a University Google Apps account means that your e-mail is transitioned away from U of M hosting to being hosted by Google. Because OIT does not host Google's e-mail (Gmail), or any other documents created in Google, we are not able to maintain or secure the content in Google Apps. Individual users must be responsible for making backups of and securing any content they choose to place in the Google Apps domain. For example, OIT cannot recover an accidentally deleted file or e-mail, nor will Google provide this service.
Faculty and staff are responsible for protecting all intellectual property placed in Google Apps for the University of Minnesota, including that of students.
The University of Minnesota's Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources policy governs the use, transmission, and storage of highly sensitive information, such as social security or credit card numbers. Highly sensitive information, including student grades, should never be placed in Google Apps. Secure course management systems should be used instead.
Google Apps users can invite other Google Apps users, both within the University and outside the University, to view data, co-edit documents, and use other collaboration tools. Since OIT has no administrative access to Google Apps data, it is the responsibility of each user to ensure appropriate controls are used to prevent accidental or undesirable file sharing.
Google Apps for the University of Minnesota are separately-hosted third-party services that are not integrated with existing teaching tools such as Moodle or WebVista. Since OIT has no administrative access to Google Apps, if a faculty member chooses to use Google Apps for the University of Minnesota for class-related activities with his or her students, that faculty member must manually access privileges to Google Apps Docs or Sites.