Google Apps for UMM

The Google Apps for the University of Minnesota implementation remains on schedule.

The University will use the Google Apps for Education Edition, which includes the following applications:

• Gmail (e-mail)


• Google Docs (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations)


• Google Calendar


• Google Talk (instant messaging)


• Google Sites (web pages)

Students will not see advertising while they are active students. However, once a student leaves the University, their account will revert to a regular Google account and they will be subject to advertising like any other Gmail account. Faculty and staff accounts will not be subject to advertising.

Google Apps will be available for retirees who maintain their Internet ID access.

IMPORTANT: Google Apps for Education are not hosted by U of M OIT. 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, OIT is 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, document, or e-mail, nor will Google provide this service.

Gmail accounts are provided with 7GB of e-mail storage.

You can retrieve your Gmail messages with OIT-supported clients or devices that support IMAP, such as Thunderbird, Outlook, or Apple Mail, as well as with your mobile device, but you will need to set a Google desktop/mobile client password if you want to use either of those options. To read your Gmail with another e-mail client, you will need to use your Google Desktop (IMAP)/Mobile Client password to access your e-mail in that other client.

While the Google Calendar will be available for use with the University's suite of applications, at this time it is not the official University of Minnesota calendar system. You will be able to use Google Calendar with your iPhone. Complete information about Google Calendar, including a link to Google Calendar for Mobile can be found at www.google.com/support/calendar/?ctx=ausers&hl=en.

Google Talk with video chat will be supported.

Here are a couple of other links that may assist you as you consider the change to Google Apps:

OIT's Google Apps Page: http://oit.umn.edu/google/

Getting Started: http://oit.umn.edu/google/getting-started/index.htm

Video Tutorials and Handouts for Learning how to Use Google Apps: https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/glearning/

As always, please contact me if you have questions!