Active BlitzMail accounts held by members of the Classes of 2012 and 2014 will switch to the new Microsoft Outlook server during the weeks of Oct. 3 and 10, respectively, Susan Zaslaw, project manager for the Blitz-2-Blitz transition, said in an email to The Dartmouth.
While all undergraduate and Dartmouth Medical School transitions are occurring as originally planned, the College was forced to defer many scheduled migrations in order to improve communication and support, according to Zaslaw. The deferred migrations were primarily in administrative departments and the Thayer School of Engineering.
"We are in the process of working with departments on a revised transition timeline," Zaslaw said, "but it is likely that the project will be extended for another three to six months."
The largest challenges to the transition have been user readiness and data migration, according to Zaslaw. While the BlitzMail migration project's goals have not changed, "the process for achieving those goals has," Zaslaw said.
"If users don't know what to expect during their transition, how to use the new system, or where to get help if they need it, they experience confusion and frustration," she said. "We want to avoid this. We are addressing both of these challenges through better transition communications and support, as well as a new procedure for recovering missed messages, post-migration."
Over Summer term, the College began transitioning from the old BlitzMail email system to the Microsoft Office 365 Suite server, successfully migrating approximately 4,000 of the 17,500 Dartmouth email accounts, according to Zaslaw.
The migration process ran into several unforeseen challenges during its first months, forcing administrators to halt the process in July for reevaluation.
After students complained of unsatisfactory communication regarding the change in services, the College is now providing more detailed pre- and post-migration information and support to those who have not yet transitioned, Zaslaw said. Student concern, however, is more focused on the quality and long-term functionality of the new Microsoft server, according to students interviewed by The Dartmouth.
After the successful migration of the Class of 2013's email accounts, the College sent a post-transition survey to all new users and held student focus groups "to get feedback on what went well and what could be improved about the transition process," Zaslaw said.
Peter Hill '13 said that after carefully reading the instructions emailed to students, he had no problems configuring his computer and adapting to the new system.
To address student concerns about administrative communication regarding the change, the College is currently updating its project communications to provide all of the essential information students need to successfully migrate online, according to Zaslaw.
"We've put up how to' videos on the computing services website and revamped our transition email messaging to be more individualized," she said.
Changes to the information offered include better directives for how students activate their Network Identification, or "NetID" a username assigned to every student upon their migration to Microsoft, Zaslaw said. The username will be required to access Banner Student, Blackboard, GreenPrint and a variety of other campus services, according to the computing services website.
Student concerns with the BlitzMail transition are largely focused on the quality of the new server. While some members of the Class of 2013 interviewed by The Dartmouth voiced relief at abandoning BlitzMail, which they consider outdated, many students, such as Hill, have expressed dissatisfaction with the Microsoft server.
"I'm glad that we are getting away from BlitzMail," Hill said. "While BlitzMail was convenient for student to student interactions, the system as a whole wasn't very good. I just wish the school had picked a better system than Microsoft."
Some students have opted out of using the Microsoft server and instead forward their Dartmouth email to Gmail or other email providers. Marion Ruan '13 said that since the migration, she has begun forwarding her Dartmouth email to Gmail and has set up her Gmail account to send her emails with her Dartmouth address.
"In my opinion, transitioning to Microsoft was a poor decision because the server always seems to be down, or slow, and people can't access their mail," Ruan said. "Gmail is definitely the better option."
While many students were concerned about the content of their BlitzMail folders transferring in the transition, old emails will appear in the new email format. In a previous interview with The Dartmouth, Vice President for Information Technology Ellen Waite-Franzen said old emails are considered the intellectual property of professors and students. Since these emails can also serve as a "record-keeping system," it was important that they be transferred to Microsoft, she said.
