An ITS workgroup formed during Fall term 2006 to begin the process of evaluating email and calendar systems for the College. During Fall term we looked at our current email and calendar systems and about ten additional systems. We narrowed our choices down to five in December, and then set to the task of how we would evaluate those systems.

In January, we identified a focus group to help us with the evaluation. The evaluation process includes our creating installations of all of the candidate systems, setting up accounts for focus group members, and copying all of the focus group members existing email into each of the candidate systems. Members of the focus group will see a demonstration of all of the candidate systems and then will be asked to spend the next ten days doing as much of their email and calendar work as possible in one of the five systems. They will also be free to explore the other systems during this period.

We also will be hosting a demonstration and Q/A session open to the campus:

Monday, February 5, 2:00-4:00 PM
Leighton 304

The next steps following the activities of the focus group are:

1. The ITS Email/Calendaring Project members will summarize and synthesize the feedback from the focus group (both written and the information gathered during the focus group’s wrap-up meeting.)
2. After the focus group wrap-up, ITS workgroup will do additional research on the candidate systems. We will spend most of our effort on the candidates that the focus group found most interesting. We expect to be able to have monthly updates to the Technology Planning and Priorities Committee, if requested.
3. The ITS workgroup will prepare a report of the findings from the focus group and its research, and will include a recommendation. User issues (features, ease of use, platform equity, etc.) will weigh most heavily in our recommendation. We will also consider other issues, including: cost; product and vendor roadmap; compatibility with existing campus infrastructure; and long-term vendor viability.
4. On April 25, the ITS workgroup will present its report and recommendation to a joint meeting with the ITS Leadership team, the Academic Computing Advisory Committee, and the Administrative Computing Advisory Group. The report is available as a Related Document on this page. We are challenging the joint advisory committees to make a consensus recommendation for the College on what direction to take with email and calendaring.

The different candidate systems have a range of costs and effort required to implement. We are hoping for a Summer 2007 implementation, but depending on which system is chosen, we may need additional time for implementation or to arrange for budget.