Student Gmail and Box accounts are slated to be deactivated this coming summer semester, while student Microsoft accounts will be the primary account students will use. Here is how students can prepare for the change.
The transition process began nearly three years ago when outlook accounts were given to all students with their “myUVU” accounts. Since then, UVU’s portfolio management team and digital transformation team have been working to make the transition easy for students.
Recently, students have begun to receive emails from D.T. recommending actions students should take before the accounts are deactivated permanently.
“UVU will be shutting down [Google Workspace] (formerly called Google Suite),” a D.T. email read. “This includes your [Gmail] account and any files you may have stored on [Google Workplace].”
The current timeline for transitioning to student Google accounts is as follows: Come May 6, student Gmail accounts will stop receiving new messages, and further file creation in Google Drive will be deactivated. Students will have access to their accounts to export any important documents and emails until the accounts deactivate permanently on Aug 11, 2023.
“In doing this, it may feel like that this came out of the blue,” Brett McKeachnie, senior director of product portfolio management at UVU, stated in a previous student council meeting on Feb. 23. “We are not alone in this; we have seen schools all across the state, and all across the nation, have to do very similar things when faced with these new vendor restrictions.”
In the emails sent out to students, further explanation was offered in why these changes were being made. The email cites that the primary reason was changes in Google’s policies regarding higher education institutions. Security matters, according to McKeachnie, were also a concern.
Student Box accounts are also being affected, with a plan in place to transfer all student data to either OneDrive or SharePoint accounts depending on needs. This transition in data storage affects UVU organizations along with faculty.
Changes for Box are set to take full effect by the end of July, as departments are being transferred over one by one. Box accounts will be switched into viewer-only mode to verify successful transfer of all data.
For more information on the Google and Box transitions, visit the DX transformations website; the Review will continue to update as more details become available.
