Outsourcing Email and Data Storage briefing papers
The provision of email and data storage to students within further and higher education institutions has long been a core part of many an institution’s IT strategy.
As the use of the internet and the web has expanded and grown, the free services now on offer to learners from a range of external providers often have a variety of features and capacity that institutional services cannot hope to match. As a result, many students are voting with their feet, ignoring their institutionally provided email address and using one of the many free services available.
Can institutions hope to provide a service themselves that matches the experience students are obtaining from these free services? Many institutions believe that they can’t and are either outsourcing email already or in the process of developing and implementing an outsourced solution. Other institutions have investigated the potential but for various institutional reasons they have decided not to outsource.
These briefing papers cover what it means to outsource email and data storage and the issues that institutions should consider if they wish to travel down this road. Choose from the extended version, for more indepth guidance, or the concise version, for a brief outline fo the issues.