The BBC
reports that Google is now taking over the maintenance of the email systems of entire universities. The article focuses on students, who will now be able to keep their email address for ever (is this really such a good idea? What does it mean to have an email address from a university you graduated from 20 years ago? Will you also get a joe@thisuni.edu after having taken just a single course with the university?).
Since universities were some of the earliest adapters of email, many universities' email systems are slow and unreliable. I can see the huge temptation on all sides to accept the offer and move to Google. I too use gmail and most of the time I am very happy with it. Nevertheless, there are significant issues of privacy and commercialization related to gmail, and I would be very curious to learn how these universities are dealing with these issues. As a simple example, say that 10 years down the road one of these universities wishes to switch from gmail to another provider, how will that be handled? Will gmail transfer all of its archives in an orderly manner to the next provider?
Lastly, I am curious to see the intention behind the quote "
Mr Nowlan says that Google is making a serious effort to enter the international higher education sector". I believe international higher education is full of interesting opportunities for a company like Google, and that it has not yet scratched the surface of these opportunities.
