By Amaya Morales
Video Editor
Back on Nov. 18, 2019, FDU students and faculty members received an email from Stuart Alper, the director of Office of Information Resources and Technology (OIRT), stating that the University Systems and Network Systems would be migrating all student email accounts from Google to Office 365 before the start of Spring 2020.
In the email, the director wrote that new benefits will include 50 gigabytes of mailbox storage in addition to enhanced security features. It also stated that it will be easier for both students and faculty to collaborate online, and there is more access to better tools. The email also included a section for “Frequently Asked Questions” such as “Why Is This Change Occurring?”
While most of the information in the email is important and answers a lot of questions, many issues remain unresolved.
One belief was that there was a security breach last semester in October. Students and faculty members from both New Jersey campuses and Vancouver had received an email regarding “a Denial of Service attack.”
However, this rumor was proven false by Alper, in which he says that a denial of service attack “is vastly different than a security breach” because it is when a network is overwhelmed with traffic. Therefore, it will slow down the network, or even disable it.
Another cause for concern is whether students and faculty would be able to easily transfer their documents from the GSuite archive to OneDrive.
According to Alper, this will not be the case as “students will not need to transfer their documents to over, unless they wish to.”
Even though students must visit Office 365 to view emails, there will still be access to GSuite for all current students, as new students will only be able to use Office 365.
Nonetheless, Alper says the school is “simply phasing GSuite out, not forcing students off of it.”
Still, the change is permanent as “this was a huge, strategic endeavor,” Alper wrote.
“I was not a fan at first but now I really like it, because it let allows my emails to become much more organized,” junior John Aboky said.
By Amaya Morales
FDU made the switch from GSuite to Office 365 at the beginning of this year.
