Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
how do you do e-mail outsourcing...?
From: David Escalante <david.escalante () BC EDU>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:36:12 -0400
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ------------------------------------ The Policies & Legal Issues Working Group within the Security Task Force would like to put together some resources for schools to use that are considering outsourcing some portion of their e-mail to a third party. We believe many schools are contemplating this, and could benefit from the sharing of knowledge. We are not seeking links to existing web sites; rather, we would like to put together one or more documents listing issues and questions to consider when undertaking this activity. If you can help us put together such a document, even by simply replying to this message with some thoughts, we are seeking your input and opinions. Even if you haven't gone down this path yet, but have some nagging questions, we're interested in those, too. If you'd be able to help to consolidate the answers, or edit any draft document or FAQ we put together, please let me, my co-chair Merri Beth Lavagnino, or Rodney Petersen know. This is conceived as short-term, quick-hitting project, not a long-term commitment. DETAILS ------------- - We recognize that there a number of legal or contractual issues that have been run into by schools entering into these agreements. We are not seeking to know the details of any contract you may have settled on -- just questions that appropriate to ask of a given vendor in the contract phase. - There may be policy issues within your institution in terms of how e-mail is handled now, versus how it may be handled by a third party. What are some of those issues to be aware of? - There may be effective practices in terms of the migration process, or in working with a third party. Questions about practices that may have to change or should be implemented when switching to a third party would be great. - Also, any training or communication issues to consider, what to ask about the rollout schedule, and similar questions are welcome. - Anyone willing to share a possible approach or effective practice that they developed in answer to any of these issues? - We all have different constituent groups, such as students, faculty/staff, and alumni. Please be clear which group(s) you are talking about in posing a particular question or suggesting a particular practice. Many schools are outsourcing only student e-mail -- we need to be clear when framing questions in the document which constituent groups they impact. - Pointers to outside resources or archived discussions of this topic on other listservs are welcome. - In general, as you can hopefully tell from the above, we are seeking general questions about general issues. So instead of saying, "When the University of X contracted with vendor Y to outsource e-mail we ran into issue Z", we would like to obscure institution specific information that might be sensitive and be more general, as in "Be aware that for faculty/staff e-mail, you might run into issue Z, and this can be negotiated in the contract, or handled by adopting practice W on your campus going forward." Thanks in advance for your advice. -- David Escalante co-chair, Policies & Legal Issues Working Group
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Current thread:
- how do you do e-mail outsourcing...? David Escalante (Jul 10)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: how do you do e-mail outsourcing...? Hunt,Keith A (Jul 17)