14 October 2009
Australia's largest university is going Google with Monash University set to offer customised Google Apps for Education to all of its students.
Monash University Vice-Chancellor Professor Edward Byrne said the University's 58,000 students would be given sign-up details for their opt-in Monash gmails next month, along with information about how they could use other online tools available through Google Applications.
Professor Byrne said adopting Google email and applications was a clever solution to the ongoing challenge of providing accessible, user-friendly and cost-effective e-communication tools to a growing Monash community.
"Online communication is one of the dominant mediums through which our students and staff exchange information, build knowledge and interact with the global community. So naturally we want to adopt the technology that will best ultilise this medium," Professor Byrne said.
"We want to give students the best online tools on offer in order to boost their communication and information sharing capabilities and in terms of our e-technology capital, we are giving the University plenty of room to grow in the future."
Monash University Vice-President (Administration) Peter Marshall said the move reflected the University's commitment to using the best technology available and to continually find better ways to facilitate quick, efficient and versatile communication and information-sharing capabilities.
He said advantages of switching to "Google Apps" from the current in-house email system included increased storage capacity (up to 7GB from the current 40MB for each user), instant chat functionality, the integration of email with online calendar and the ability to work collaboratively on shared documents.
There was also the potential to spread the benefits of the new email system to Monash alumni.
"We are investigating the potential of email for life and email-forwarding services for our global alumni community," Mr Marshall said.
Monash University is Australia's largest university with 58,000 student and 7,000 staff. The research intensive University is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and has a strong international focus, with campuses in Malaysia and South Africa, a graduate school under construction in India and a research and teaching centre in Italy.
Monash University is consistently ranked in the top fifty universities in the world by the prestigious Times Higher Education Supplement.
For more information, contact Tim Mitchell, Monash University Media and Communications Manager, on +61 3 9903 4840 or 0437 457 780.
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