I agree that email serves some role in the "branding" of the student
experience at MSU. However, the football stadium is something physical, so
to complete your analogy, you'd have to compare it to the MSU email
SERVERS... While I can imagine students having their photo snapped with arms
draped around two 42U racks in cap and gown, it's probably not going to
happen. @msu.edu can be hosted externally for the students with the same
[branding] effect as current - hosting location is independent, unlike the
stadium.
About the targeted advertising: Read Bob Kriegel's post where he states "In
order to comply with FERPA's privacy regulations Google crawlers don't
traverse student e-mail messages and do not display targeted ads to
students."
Further, I think there's a lot of arm flailing going on about the whole
topic without cause since nothing has been presented to the University yet
AND the TOS that is presented can vary from what the public gets for a TOS.
In fact, I don't believe that anyone has pointed out yet that there's a
"Google Apps Education Edition" TOS which differs from the "general public"
TOS. To that end, I don't foresee that University would sign an agreement
with anyone on such a grand scale without the lawyers reviewing it... What I
mean to say here is that the legal pros and cons will be weighed at a
different venue, but we can still focus our positive energy on
functionality, technical needs, etc...
One more point that I'd like to make is in regards the expansion of mail
storage and pumping money into the UI\features: These things all cost on a
grand scale. As I understand it, the majority of the reason prompting the U
to look elsewhere for student email is simply COST - not stability, usage
stats, or features. Dumping more money into the system isn't going to help,
and in the worst case, it costs the students more money through tuition and
fees to support.
-Tony
|
