Google Docs - Who is using it at U of T?
I am curious to find out how many departments are using Google Docs on all three campuses? There seems to be an increase in popularity, so let's do a quick informal survey. If you are using it, please reply to this thread and let me know how you utilize it. Thanks!
- Tamara Adizes's blog
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Google Docs at UTM Library
Hi Tamara!
We featured Google Docs as part of our Learning 2.0 program for staff development a couple of years ago. Now we use it quite a lot; for sharing planning documents internally, for brainstorming, for communicating with our website developers, listing tasks in our work toward the Blackboard 9 upgrade, in communicating our activities to the team on the St. George campus (bb9 upgrade), etc.
Personally, I use google docs instead of word for meeting minutes, and any time I need a word processor and I'm on my netbook. I use it as a share among my various computers (work, mobile, and home).
I rate it AWESOME. :)
Offsite hosting?
I'm curious, how do you go about the issue that Google Docs is hosted offsite?
Well, I mean, sure, some
Well, I mean, sure, some people have issues with the whole "american servers" thiing. Most people seem to know the spectre of that "threat", but not much beyond that. It's a basic risk assessment; the content we're putting on google docs isn't confidential in any way. No financial information, employment information, grades, transcripts, etc. The minutes of our meetings and brainstorming notes, even our collaborative policy documents, isn't exactly information we work hard to protect. I think people get a bit too caught up in the privacy issues without fully weighing the risks and benefits. We can't possibly apply the highest possible security to every scrap of content we have; that would be insanely expensive and incredibly limiting.
Google docs has a ToS like anyone else, we read the ToS and ensure that we're not actually giving away our intellectual content, but beyond that: yeah, risk assessment, I suppose. We have a reasonable expectation of privacy with Google Docs, and reasonable is plenty for this kind of sharing. Pretty much all the time in my line of work, the actual risks involved are not very serious. The sheer utility more than makes up for any risk involved, given the content in question.
The biggest issue I think i not the actual "off site" thing, but people's expectations that there are two options, local & perfect, or off-site & awful. Neither of these are realistic.
I agree with Rochelle
I've been using Google Docs for personal use since it's beta version and have been increasingly utilizing it at work for the same purpose of collaboration where non-proprietary and/or non-confidential documents are in question. I agree with Rochelle on the privacy issue too... there is only so far we can worry before our productivity levels start to seriously decrease because we can't seem to do anything due to security concerns.
I think it's a great tool, as Rochelle said, and I know a lot more departments are using it. I am currently testing out Google Wave, and I can say it will be awesome. I am wondering if we need to start a more transparent discussion about this as it could really help increase productivity when it comes to non-confidential/proprietary collaborations. That's my personal opinion of course, not reflecting one of my department. :)
Microsoft Office Live?
So here's another curveball... has anyone tried Microsoft Office Live?
http://www.officelive.com/en-ca/
Much like Google Docs, they offer it for free to educational institutions (MS Office Live@EDU).
Never mind...
This is what came up when I tried to log on to it using Google Chrome running on Linux (I know, how very controversial):
To use Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta, your computer must meet one of the following requirements:
After trying it on my Mac using Firefox, it launched some sort of plugin that was part of my Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac install. I wonder if having Microsoft Office installed on your Windows or Mac computer (not absence of Linux/BSD support) is a requirement? Will it work on a Mac/Windows computer with no MS Office?
I guess Microsoft still hasn't wrapped their heads around the idea of cross-platformness. And no, going from XBOX360 to Windows Mobile to Windows XP doesn't really count. I am not impressed... as far as I'm concerned Google has nothing to worry about here.
Never mind is exactly my response...
Rouben,
I was going to say.. why use Microsoft Office Live when you can use Google Docs? It's really that simple. Google is so far ahead of Microsoft on cross platform 'cloud' services that I am not really looking elsewhere. It's like using Windows 7 instead of Snow Leopard.. oops, did I just say that? :)
hahaha
I'd be more than happy to check out a competitor to Google Docs; there's the Zoho suite as well. So far I've just found Google docs to be the friendliest and most reliable. Also, I use gmail as my primary personal mail, and docs wrapped up with it is just...simple.
I especially like that I can easily share documents between my mac, the work dell, and my netbook. I presume it will work equally smoothly on my future ipad. ;)
Since we're ranting in that
Since we're ranting in that direction... then I have to admit that Office Live's reliance on a locally installed copy of Microsoft Office is just silly. Office Live seems to be just a SharePoint portal.
Re. Google Docs
I've been using Google Docs for some of my work at UofT and Google Apps for several smaller companies charities where I volunteer IT services. Top marks in my books. I really like the added features that get added all the time. Most of them are useful with a clever spin to them.
GDocs at Medicine
For non-private information Google Docs is used in the Faculty of Medicine by lots of people. In Discovery Commons we have lots of dealings with people who are located at hospitals. With Google Calendars we can share ad hoc schedules. Trying to accommodate this through our Exchange server would be burdensome to everyone.
A Blackberry with Gsync installed can sync multiple Google calendars to Exchange, so you can integrate effortlessly inside and outside.
We are only scratching the surface of the kinds of fluid collaborations which are made possible by the open technologies Google is offering.
Right now I am writing little web apps using Google's python API so that I can access data in a shared Google spreadsheet when I am in the field with my BlackBerry. Fast, flexible and fun. Oh yeah. And one more 'F'.
Free.
Google Sites
One particular Google service that I think is often overlooked is Google Sites. With Google Sites we can:
- Set up any number of sites dedicated to any number of (non-sensitive) topics
- Open the site to the world (or not) and/or set-up collaborators who can update site content by signing in with a free Google Account based on their UToronto email address
- Embed rich content like video, flash and other external content (using an IFrame)
- Apply the U of T visual identity to the site's look and feel (logo, colours, etc.)
- Use readily available Google visualization tools and gadgets that dynamically display data from shared (or not shared) spreadsheets in effective and cool new ways
- Upload existing documents (like PDFs and other Office docs) whose content is then INSTANTLY indexed and searchable (no custom Google search appliance needed)
- Allow users to subscribe to content changes so that they are automatically notified via email when changes occur.
These are just some of the benefits of using Google Sites. You can see some of these features in action at:
http://sites.google.com/site/uofteasidevelopment/
A Google Site is the simplest CMS system there is, has daily backups, unlimited pages, versioning control, automatic content indexing AND it can be mapped and displayed through a custom utoronto domain name!
I strongly believe that many departments at U of T could use this free service to easily set-up and maintain a very simple, clean yet effective web site without placing any burden whatsoever on University resources. We could then re-direct some of these freed-up resources towards more mission-critical web applications and development across the University.
app domain
That EASI site is great.
Surely it is forbidden to host a utoronto subdomain at Google. I don't think I have actually pursued this, but it seems laughably unlikely. However, does anybody on campus do this with an external domain? For campus-related purposes, I mean.
Thank you for your comments,
Thank you for your comments, Ben.
Actually, we wouldn't be hosting any domain at Google, but simply display a Google Site through a custom ' [at] utoronto [dot] ca' sub-domain name that U of T owns. For more details on this, please visit:
http://sites.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99448
This mapping can be removed/changed at any time.
I have also purchased an external domain name (for my own use) from Google. It costs $10/year (yes, that's right, a year) and it comes pre-configured with Google Apps (50 e-mail accounts, calendar, contacts and unlimited Google Sites).
If you want to see what can be done with a custom domain from Google, you can sign up for one at:
http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new
Just choose 'I want to buy a domain name' and follow the instructions. It takes about 10 minutes to set the whole thing up and start working with it. Please keep in mind that Google Sites does not support custom CSS, FTP and custom scripts although you can get around these limitations by using Google Gadgets or writing your own scripts that are supported by the Google Sites platform.
myapp.utoronto.ca
Hi crisan,
Will you be creating a CNAME record for easi.utoronto.ca? Is it permitted to point utoronto subdomains to external hosts?
Too bad Google doesn't sell .ca names.
CNAME records
Hi Ben,
I assume that creating CNAME records would be created by the Web Services department.
I'm not sure if it's permitted to point our domains to external hosts, but if it's permitted to host a collaboration site on an external host, then I do not see any reason why that site couldn't have a friendlier URL that's indicative of the institution it represents...
I will try to have the EASI Google site point to easi.utoronto.ca and will post updates on that shortly.
Cris
Google Site displayed through a custom 'utoronto.ca' sub-domain
Hi Ben,
Check out
http://easiprojects.utoronto.ca/
The person who helped me create the CNAME record is Philip Murton [philip [at] madhaus [dot] cns [dot] utoronto [dot] ca]
Cris
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The New Google Docs
Check out the latest Google docs version...you need to switch it on (settings --> document settings --> editing --> toggle the new version on). It allows multiple cursors in real time. It's my dream come true.
I'm going to create a screencast on it this afternoon (for our staff, mostly) that I'd be happy to share with you if you're interested.
New version of Google Docs
The new docs version is great indeed! It maintains much higher formatting fidelity when importing/exporting Word documents, it's faster and you can collaborate in real time.
It's also important to note that gadgets are not YET supported in the new version of Google spreadsheets, but they should be within the next few weeks.