Gmail.edu

I know that a lot of schools are looking at outsourcing more and more services to save money – both physical services like facilities maintenance and technological services. I liked this student perspective in a recent Yale Daily News on Yale’s plan to transition their email to Gmail. Besides enumerating some of the privacy and accessibility concerns that such plans have raised, the article argues for an open process when making such a significant change. It seems, from these students’ perspective at least, there are questions they would like to have answered about the services Gmail will provide before a switch is made. I cannot comment on what types of opportunities for information and feedback Yale may have provided. But taking this article at face value, these types of open conversations can be time consuming, but particularly at a college or university I think there is so much value to helping students practice being part of complex decisions where multiple factors are being weighed, that the type of transparency being called for has a strong connection to the educational goals of these institutions.