You’ve Got Mail (Or Not): Outsourcing Student E-Mail
College and university administrators have been discussing the pros and cons of outsourcing student e-mail for years. (See Andy Guess’ comments from Inside Higher Education.) To make a bad pun, this discussion would most likely not be a hot mail topic at all, were it not for the fact that we have only recently started to see large numbers of educational institutions entering agreements with Internet Goliaths Google (Apps Education Edition) and Microsoft (Live@edu).
Given the current economic pressure to cut costs, coupled with the increasing expectations of students, one wonders why the shift to outsourcing of student e-mails has not been faster. Currently, only 19 percent of senior information technology leaders surveyed for a report released in March by the EDUCASE Center for Applied Research said they use a commercial provider to host their primary student e-mail system. As one source puts it, “Half a million dollars versus free … It seems like a no-brainer.”
This hesitancy on the part of higher education administrators to embrace student e-mail outsourcing is not unjustified, as some of the issues being debated have yet to be resolved. For example:
- Financial — What is the real bottom line? This is the easy question. Student e-mail systems are definitely cost-intensive and the savings from not owning them (upwards of $500,000) are significant. However, information technology outsourcing often starts out wonderfully, but loses its luster when the loss of direct oversight of staff and services takes hold making the process feel like a greater risk than a locally-controlled environment.
- Staffing — What happens to the professionals previously in charge of overseeing the college’s or university’s e-mail system? What happens to service levels, if there is no one on deck to respond quickly to technical glitches?
- Security and Privacy — This is the big question. Legally, colleges and universities are bound by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) to protect student confidentiality. If internal university messages are handled by an outside corporate entity, will security and privacy be compromised? Another key question: What do Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Hotmail and the like do with the e-mail addresses they manage? Do they sell them to marketers? Are these vendors in the business of seeking out opportunities to hook students (post-graduation) on their own products or on the products of their advertisers? To be fair, most of these campus e-mail systems keep the ads at bay — at least until students graduate and take their “.edu” addresses with them.
- Bells & Whistles — Capacity and options are the chief reasons students are arriving on campus and insisting that their e-mail provider be at least as sophisticated as whichever one they have used previously. Many incoming students were raised with an e-mailbox virtually unlimited in size, and view anything else as a downgrade leaving them with few options for downloading files or dressing up e-mails. There’s a reason why the Google Apps Education Edition lists “Students will love you for it” as the number one selling point for their service.
- Safety/Emergencies — What happens when there is a natural or other disaster or emergency and a college or university has to alert all students immediately? As one online commenter writes, “Can we deliver e-mail to all of our users in a matter of minutes with an outsourced system?”
- Innovation — Finally, there is this provocative question, raised by a Wayne State University systems analyst, “To innovate, universities need control over their own sandbox. By passing control of campus technologies to third parties, the universities that are outsourcing are signing away their creative rights to a third party…
Despite some or all of these reservations, switching from a propriety campus e-mail system to an outsourced alternative remains an attractive and compelling option, in spite of the risks. The cost savings alone are undeniable, and provide ample justification for the switch.
One suggestion to those administrators considering a move to outsourced e-mail is that the decision to do so — as with other IT cost-cutting measures — be made with a clear plan in place. Experience shows that careful and proper planning for IT investments can yield results that not only show a positive return on the initial investment, but improve the organization’s ability to support its core mission, vision and goals.
For more information:
When E-Mail Is Outsourced
Colleges Get Out of E-Mail Business
New Study Sees Surge in E-Mail Outsourcing
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Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker (BDMP) has been serving higher education institutions for more than 30 years. We have a dedicated team of management consulting professionals devoted to staying abreast of a wide spectrum of management and information technology subject matter and best practices. We are 100 percent independent and objective as we maintain no partnerships and sell no hardware, software, or management products. We are accountable to the clients we serve, and not third parties.
