About

The College of New Jersey has signed an agreement with Google to provide Google Apps for Education to our students and alumni.  Beginning on May 18, 2011, we will convert all student email from Zimbra to Google Apps for Education.   Many schools are moving in this direction and we feel that the time is right for TCNJ to do the same.

We think it’s really important to keep a connection to our alumni and Google Apps for Education will allow us to do that as well.  With this change, our alumni can keep a tcnj.edu email account for life.  If we continue to add our alumni to our current method of doing all email in house at TCNJ, we will be adding $1.50 for each account so roughly $1500-$2000 per year, every  year.  This transition to Google Apps will help keep our costs down as Google will provide this service to our students at no charge to us.

Moving to Google for our student email is also beneficial to our students because they will have more storage capability than we could ever afford to give them.  And freeing up this space during this transition will allow us to expand faculty and staff email storage at no additional cost.  In a recent survey of our students (Spring 2010), out of the 500 students that responded to the question “Which of the following email accounts do you currently have besides your tcnj.edu account?”,  sixty-four percent already have a Gmail account so many are already familiar with the way Google handles email.

The transition will be relatively seamless to students, faculty and staff and we would like input and suggestions throughout the process.  Under the direction of the IT Planning Council, we have a subcommittee in place called the “Policy and Communications Committee” with representation from faculty senate, the student government as well as some administrative areas that will help guide us through transitioning student emails to Google apps, but we want to hear from you.  If you have questions regarding this, send them to Pat Pasinski and we will respond to your questions and use these questions to add to our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Why is TCNJ moving students and alumni to Google Apps?

  • Improve collaboration with calendars and documents (also includes spreadsheets, presentations, forms and drawings)
  • More email space
  • Keep email after graduation

When are current TCNJ students moving to Google Apps?

  • At the end of the Spring 2011 Semester

When are TCNJ alumni going to be able to use Google Apps?

  • Summer 2011

Why are TCNJ faculty/staff continuing to use Zimbra accounts?

  • There is no plan in place to move TCNJ faculty/staff to Google Apps due to legal concerns (e.g. FERPA and e-discovery for subpoenas and audits.
  • TCNJ faculty/staff will have more space for email, when students are moved to Google Apps.

How will students access Google Apps?

  • You can navigate to apps.tcnj.edu (e.g. mail.apps.tcnj.edu, calendar.apps.tcnj.edu).
    Google Apps will use TCNJ username and password.
  • Student email addresses will stay the same (e.g. astudent@tcnj.edu)
  • The College’s home page and the portal will contain links to distinguish between Student/Alumni email and Faculty/Staff email

What will TCNJ do to move my account from Zimbra to Google Apps?

  • TCNJ will move your existing emails to Google Apps. There may be a delay of a day or two after switching to Google Apps before your old emails arrive in your INBOX.  Also, you may need to organize your Zimbra folders to meet the criteria needed for Google’s sync program to work.   You will have access to both Zimbra and Google Apps until all mail is copied to Google Apps.

What do TCNJ students need to do to move their address book and calendar from Zimbra to Google Apps?

  • TCNJ IT will export your existing calendar and contact data. This information will be sent to your new Google Email account and you will then have to import it. See support page for Moving Address Book and Calendar for more information.

What is the difference between Gmail and Google Apps?

  • Google Apps is a suite of applications hosted by Google.  It included Google Mail (Gmail), Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc.  Google Apps for Education allows institutions to brand and individualize their own copy of Gmail, etc. to their institution. Basically it is like having our own Google community.
  • Google will disable Ads in Google Apps.

Is my email (calendar, docs, etc.) backed up by Google?

  • Google maintains backups for disaster recovery and legal discovery needs.  Neither Google nor TCNJ can restore individual emails/files if they are accidentally deleted.

What level of privacy do I have with Google Apps?

  • There is language in the contract that protects the privacy and confidentiality of user information stored on the Google Apps system.  Google will not use (e.g. data mine) or divulge any personal information without consent from The College unless required to by law.  They will honor FERPA and NJ OPRA (NJ Open Public Records Act) requirements.

Who owns what I put on Google Apps?

  • Our contract with Google states that Google does not own any of the data stored with them.

What happens if Google goes down?

  • While there have been reports of outages with the Google service, the College feels that the overall uptime of the Google products is excellent.  As a leader in providing email services, Google takes great strides in minimizing any outages.

Who do I call if I have a problem with Google Apps?

  • Call the TCNJ Help Desk 1-609-771-2660.  If the Help Desk cannot resolve your problem or point you to the appropriate Google documentation, the call can be escalated to Google via the TCNJ liaison with Google.