SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The University of Rhode Island is the latest local school considering switching its internal e-mail system to Gmail, part of Google Inc.’s Google Apps for Education.
A bill has been proposed in the URI Student Senate calling for the adoption of Gmail as the university’s primary e-mail service provider, The Good 5 Cent Cigar, the campus newspaper, reported. URI Academic Affairs Chairman David Coates told the paper that more than 450 schools nationwide have made the switch to Gmail since 2007.
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In addition, Coates noted that Gmail service is free for universities with a .edu e-mail address, and would provide almost 600 times more inbox storage space than the school-based Webmail URI currently uses. The transfer to Gmail is also anticipated to reduce the workload for URI’s information technology department.
Coates, whose conversation with Garry Bozylinsky, vice provost of IT services prompted the creation of the bill, told the student paper the IT department is “on board 100 percent” with the proposal.
Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are among the schools that have followed the cloud computing trend by transferring their internal communications infrastructure to Google Apps for Education.
Other schools, such as Bryant University, have opted for Live@Edu, a competing service offered by Microsoft Corp.
