UWM Prepares for Office 365

The University Information Technology Department has reached the decision to begin implementing Office 365 software for students, faculty and staff by summer 2014. Students and staff will have more storage space for calendar appointments, email and will be able to use IM and video chat with teachers.

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based server with over 50GB of storage for email and creating appointments by calendar is faster and more efficient. Office 365 will include the ability to have web conferences, instant messaging and the use of Office Online. Office Online will allow students to edit and share documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and notes using a web browser instead of the application itself which does not have to be installed to function.

The results from the evaluation proved that price played the biggest factor in reaching a final decision to choose Microsoft Office 365. 51 percent of students preferred Google Apps based on familiarity and the ability to access the service with smart phones. Microsoft Office 365 will take time to get used to but the increase of storage and low costs of maintenance helped in choosing 365 in the end.

Bobby Jo Morse, the manager of the UITS department, began leading the project between late August and early September of 2013. There are currently five teams and 100 people involved in the project. “We’re trying to do as much as we possibly can, given the resources we have,” Morse said.

Other steps involved in alerting the campus are hanging up posters throughout various campus buildings, offering hands on classes and posting notices on the UWM Learning TECHniques Facebook page.

Email and calendar migration appeals to staff and faculty more as that is the primary way of communicating with students or setting up meetings. Morse does face some challenges as to how to make Office 365 more appealing to students. “Part of the challenge is we have different audiences with different needs,” In order to appeal to students and their needs, Office 365 also has instant messaging and the ability to hold web conferences and video chat with classmates and professors.

Norma Ortiz, a senior at UWM, said she wouldn’t mind using Skype or sending an instant message to her teacher. “I personally wouldn’t feel awkward skyping with my professor, especially during finals,” Ortiz said. “It would alleviate the awkwardness of raising your hand in class.”

The idea of holding web conferences and instant messaging opens up a new path for students and professors to easily communicate. Associate Professor and Chair of the UWM IT Policy meetings, John Jordan is one of the many professors who teaches online courses. Being able to put a personality and a face to papers would allow him to professors to get to know his students and in return, students will feel comfortable asking questions.

Jordan sees the implementation as a way to encourage students to communicate with him more often and to feel comfortable to do so. One of the online courses Jordan teaches is Communications 335: Critical Analysis of Communication and he never gets to meet those students. “Sometimes I don’t see my students,” Jordan said. “Just an email name.” With the new video chat feature, Jordan will be able to get a sense of the student and their appearance if they are comfortable with it.

Jordan is looking forward to the new software and has a lot of confidence in the tech people working on the project. “We need something new, bigger and quicker,” Jordan said.

Another offer for students is the access to the cloud service and being able to access documents and messages from up to five mobile devices. Microsoft Office Mobile is currently only available for free on iOS 7 devices and Android phones with at least a 4.4 update.

Interim Director Jim Kavanagh from the Letters and Science IT Office said that using Microsoft Office 365 will be much easier on mobile devices than pantherLINK. “It should do everything that pantherLINK does and more,” Kavanagh said.

According to a summary posted on the UWM Campus IT Project website, an email and calendar evaluation took place on UWM Campus to decide between using Google Apps for Education or Microsoft Office 365 in 2013 between September and January. Google Apps for Education had the advantage of being a familiar tool among students and staff while Office 365 had new features that were unfamiliar and would take some training to get used to.

557 participants composed of UWM students, staff and faculty were allowed to have hands on experience with both types of software according to the summary. 51 percent of students preferred Google Apps while Microsoft Office 365 was preferred by 42 percent of the staff.

On March 27, 2014 Microsoft also released the Office app for iPad users but lacks the editing feature. When UWM migrates to Office 365, students will be able to take advantage of that opportunity.