[Air-L] Google Docs

[Ronald E. Rice]

The question about accounts is a red herring.  You can set up a google docs 
account without using a google email account.  Once you use the google email 
account, it does offer you additional features, but that's when they can 
track usage across all google activities.  You can allow access to a shared 
set of google apps to other folks using non-google email accounts.

At least two of the other questions are more relevant.

Saving stuff on google servers DOES raise the issue of impermanence of 
materials.  But this seemed to me to be MUCH more of an issue using a lot of 
the (other, more formally) open source systems.  Either you have to store 
stuff on much smaller organizations' servers, or you have to convince the 
university to let you install and then maintain open source databases and 
applications (not allowed where I am), or you have to get your own server 
and then worry about maintaining and upgrading everything with either 
vollunteer, your own, or help from students who move on frequently.

There are legal issues as to just what kinds of University-related financial 
and legal things you can store on an outside server.  For instance, you can 
get a free domain and access to a wider range of services (which we didn't 
need) by registering as a educational institution, but that requires you to 
sign a statement, or getting formal authorization, that you are a legal 
representative of the educational institution (again, couldn't do that here 
and wouldn't want to take on that responsibility even if it were allowed). 
Or, for $10 per year, you can just purchase a domain through them, and if 
you are lucky you can find one that exactly corresponds to your group name. 
You can even upload your own logo to appear on the main Google apps page.

Finally, widgets are available through the Google Apps site that you can add 
on to your set of apps.  A few of these are directly offered by Google, and 
those conform to the Google privacy statement (for what that's worth).  Most 
of the others, though, are not subject to Google's privacy policy, so I 
don't use any of those.

So, some advantages, some benefits.
=======================================================
Ronald E. Rice
Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication
Co-Director, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media
President of the International Communication Association 2006-2007
Dept. of  Communication, 4840 Ellison Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020
Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102
rrice at comm.ucsb.edu
http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/rice_flash.htm
http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Guidry" <krguidry at gmail.com>
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Google Docs


> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Gordon Carlson <gordycarlson at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>>
>>  What do you all think?
>
>   I think it's a good question worthy of debate but realistically
> it's closing the barn door after the horses have left.  It seems that
> an obvious (and perhaps overly-naive) compromise is to recommend that
> students register new accounts not directly or easily linked to other
> accounts or their names but I'm sure that there are many people
> subscribed to this list that could describe exactly how difficult - or
> impossible - that is to do.
>   And what do you do when your institution has outsourced e-mail to
> Google or some other company?
>
>
> Kevin
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