STRUGGLES CONTINUE as the Ateneo community transitions to the administration’s changes in upgrading the University’s digital infrastructure. Notable among these changes are the new student IDs and emails which were set to be implemented during the first semester of AY 2023–2024. However, delays on their rollout—particularly for student organizations’ emails—still persist going into March 2024.

Office of Student Activities (OSA) Director Ralph Jacinto Quiblat points out the abruptness of the transition and the lack of consultations leading up to it. He further cited the lack of active engagement from the Office of the Vice President for Digital Information and Technology Services (OVP-DITS) to aid students, organizations, and offices throughout the transition.

While the use of Google Takeout was suggested, this approach was deemed inconvenient as it copied all files to the new account, including those not directly owned by the student. As a result, students and organizations resorted to other solutions like transferring their data to their personal emails or hard drives.

Challenges and delays

Last August 2023, the Office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs (OADSA) announced the new student IDs for this school year, having new features such as the Maya-partnered RFID and e-wallet.

However, ID distribution was moved to January 2024, owing to the volume of IDs needed to be produced. OADSA thus issued temporary digital IDs to all new students, while previously enrolled students continued using their AY 2020–2022 student IDs.

Similarly, last September 2023, the OVP-DITS announced the termination of Google’s unlimited Drive storage due to revised licensing guidelines. Subsequently, this prompted the creation of student emails under the new student.ateneo.edu subdomain.

These new student emails were scheduled to roll out by October 2023. While students started receiving their new emails by December 2023, organization emails have yet to be rolled out.

Uncertain reception

Emphasizing the lack of proper information dissemination, Quiblat expressed that while the faculty and staff were free to raise their concerns, they did not have a say in the administration’s final decisions.

Quiblat expounded that the abruptness of the transition’s announcement and implementation hindered their office’s productivity. “Instead of doing [our] actual work with the students, we had to sometimes close our doors because of the deadline [to] reduce our storage,” Quiblat expounded.

Sharing the same inconvenience, Ateneo Management Information Systems Association (MISA) President Leanne Go noted how MISA almost resorted to buying a hard drive for safekeeping files. However, this plan was halted when OSA announced that organization emails would regain their 100 GB storage allocation.

Commenting on the new email transition, Go also expressed that moving into new student accounts mid-academic year was counterproductive, especially for graduating students like her.

Despite all these challenges, Go voiced her appreciation toward the University’s adaptation to the “digital transformation of the world.” Similarly, Quiblat shared his hopes for more substantial conversations and contingency plans from the administration before handing down decisions to the community.

“We can help them find a solution if they just talk to us instead of [simply] announcing things,” Quiblat said. He added that conversing with students and administration is not difficult, as long as decisions are contextualized to the affected parties.

Plans for smoother transitions

In response to stakeholder concerns, OVP-DITS held a townhall last February 27 to discuss the progress of the email transitions and its implications on matters such as the Google storage cap, existing service subscriptions, and student organization emails.

During the townhall, OVP-DITS Enterprise Productivity Solutions Head Christine Amarra revealed that OBF emails for all students will be inaccessible starting April 1. Additionally, she added that active students will have their existing files deleted on July 1, while non-active students’ files will be deleted by April 22.

Clarifying the OBF account status, Amarra explained that active accounts involve all currently enrolled students in the Basic Education and Higher Education clusters. Conversely, she mentioned that students will be considered inactive if they are not listed under the Office of the University Registrar.

To follow up on concerns regarding student organization emails, Amarra said that these organizations will receive new emails, though the OVP-DITS has yet to start transitioning them.

Furthermore, she mentioned that OVP-DITS will be conducting trial runs for the new security and Google Education-related features included under the new student email. Likewise, other transitions such as Microsoft Office 365 and OneDrive will follow.

In hopes of improving communication with the community, Amarra revealed that OVP-DITS will be conducting roadshows from March to April. Before this, the OVP-DITS also aims to release a memo that consolidates their answers to questions from the townhall.