Case Study | Google Apps for Education

Loughborough University introduces a richer communication and collaboration platform for students with Google Apps for Education

At a Glance

What they wanted to do |Œ Deliver an improved user experience at lower cost with greater operating efficiency What they did  |Œ Place students at the heart of the process via focus group consultation |Œ Pilot Google Apps with a cohort of “tech savvy” users to iron out wrinkles before a full release |Œ Automated migration of users’ email, retaining user names, passwords and email addresses What they accomplished |Œ Hassle free transition with only around 100 Service Desk cases for 17,000 users |Œ Engagement with Google to develop ground breaking alumni service

Institution Founded in 1909, Loughborough University is one of the UK’s leading universities, with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research, strong links with business and industry and unrivalled sporting achievement. Today the university consists of 17,000 students, 3,000 staff and over 75,000 alumni and is renowned for providing an excellent student experience, having topped the “Times Higher Education UK league tables for student experience” every year since 2006. Challenge When Loughborough’s email system came up for renewal, a student focus group was consulted and various alternatives were explored. The old system provided only email, but there was substantial demand for a richer platform for the student body to communicate and collaborate on. It quickly became clear that very significant expenditure would be required in order to provide a more fully featured system with enough storage to satisfy today’s “digital natives.” This would have been a very hard sell to senior management even before the global economic downturn, government spending cuts, and carbon savings targets. Student feedback indicated that best of breed communication and collaboration tools are a key part of maintaining Loughborough’s excellent student experience. “We have to work hard to maintain our leading position in this area and so we always look to be at the forefront when providing new facilities and services for our students,” says Vice Chancellor Professor Shirley Pearce. “High quality IT provision is an integral part of students’ lives and an essential part of the student experience. We have to make sure we respond wherever possible to our students’ requirements.”

“The introduction of the full Google Apps for Education suite has underlined that we can indeed offer an expanded and improved service for our students at a reduced cost. The two need not be mutually exclusive.” —Will Spinks, Chief Operating Officer

Solution Having reviewed several options, the student focus group voted unanimously in favour of taking Google Apps forward, launching a pilot with 300 second year students in Autumn 2009. Feedback from the pilot was gathered in real-time using Google Docs enabling the pilot group to view and respond to each other’s comments. “The feedback from the Google pilot was hugely positive, and it was clear that Google Apps would be a huge success with students. We pressed the University to give us Google as quickly as possible!” said Robert Hulme, Students Union President for 2009-2010.

About Google Apps for Education

Google Apps for Education is a free suite of hosted communication and collaboration applications designed for schools and universities. Google Apps includes Gmail (webmail services), Google Calendar (shared calendaring), Google Docs (online document, spreadsheet, presentation, and form creation and sharing) Google Video (secure and private video sharing – 10GB free) and Google Sites (team website creation with videos, images, gadgets and documents integration), as well as administrative tools, customer support, and access to APIs to integrate Google Apps with existing IT systems. For more information visit: www.google.co.uk/apps/edu “The feedback from the Google pilot was amazingly positive, and it was clear that Google Apps would be a huge success with students. We pressed the University to give us Google as quickly as possible!” —Robert Hulme, Student Union President 2009-2010  

Following the conclusion of a successful pilot, the remaining students were migrated over to the Google Apps platform in December 2009 using Google’s IMAP based email migration tool. Loughborough students have their Google Apps account converted upon graduation into an alumni account. This means that students now retain their data on leaving the institution – including email, contacts, calendars and documents. The alumni email address is provisioned initially as an alias, so that students are always able to quote their alumni address in correspondence, job applications and so on. Transition to alumni status takes place transparently through a single API call when the student’s registration lapses. The alumni Google account has been an unparalleled success, with over 5,000 users since its inception. Results Phil Richards, Director of IT, notes that “In any organisation, there can sometimes be inertia against doing things in a different way. In this case, we were pleased that the pace of our move to Google was driven strongly by our fee-paying customers – the students. Strong involvement of students, right at the centre of this project, was the key to moving this work forward quickly and successfully.” Some immediate benefits as a result of switching to Google Apps include: t


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£250,000 saving on server hardware, cooling and power over refreshing the old in-house email system Enabling new services – notably 95% uptake of Calendar, 70% uptake for Docs Retention of the student’s digital identity on graduation, which would have been impossible to resource in-house

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Quantifiable reduction in IT Service Desk cases and improved first line fix rate

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Broader and deeper engagement between IT and the student body

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Feedback loop as ideas are fed back to Google and actioned

One of the key outcomes of this work is a whole new service for Loughborough alumni. Ron Gray, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, observes that: “Our alumni are key members of the community at Loughborough University and we were delighted at the ability to effect a seamless transition from student to alumnus through the use of Gmail. The benefits for graduating students to keep their university email address after they have left Loughborough strongly supports the University’s oft used statement that ‘Loughborough is for Life’.” According to University’s Chief Operating Officer, Will Spinks, the partnership with Google encapsulates the mission to operate with maximum efficiency. “The introduction of the full Google Apps for Education suite has underlined that we can indeed offer an expanded and improved service for our students at a reduced cost. The two need not be mutually exclusive,” says Mr Spinks. Head of Internet Services Martin Hamilton concludes that “We’ve been working closely with Google on a range of initiatives. Google are like no other large company I can think of, and I view our relationship very much as a partnership.”

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