Students will have the chance to begin the switch Google e-mail on Nov. 2, and all student e-mail accounts will be transferred to the new system by spring semester. However, moving everyone’s e-mail addresses at the same time would be technologically impossible, so University Information and Technology Services has decided to give student the option to transfer over at their own pace, said Thomas Rees, associate director for UITS.
The opt-in process will run through Dec. 19. Beginning Dec. 20, all students who have not chosen to move will be transferred to the new Google space automatically, Rees added.
“”It’s a two-part process,”” Rees said. “”Because we have somewhere around 40,000 accounts to move, little is going to happen instantaneously.””
To initiate the process, students will go to a Web site where they sign in with their UA NetID and simply click a button. The two-step process then begins.
The first step will be to create an account in the Google space, Rees said. “”This should happen relatively quickly, and after that they can sign in at catmail.arizona.edu and access all Google Apps: mail, calendar, docs and more.””
Once this transition begins, all the opt-in students’ incoming email.arizona.edu mail will stop going to the old university e-mail system — WebMail — and go to the Google Mail inbox instead.
The old mail in the WebMail inbox will not automatically transfer over until the student has gone through the second step of the process — mail migration.
Because there is so much data to move in, students will be served on a first-come, first served basis in the mail migration process, Rees said.
“”When they reach the top of the queue, UITS will send the student’s stored e-mail to Google,”” Rees said. “”Then Google will run it individually through their various virus and spam checkers and add it piece by piece to the student’s Google Mail inbox.””
Once the mail is moved over, the process is complete.
Students will be able to access their old WebMail account until one week after the spring semester starts.
