LTS
Offers Google Apps for Collaborative Work
Lehigh University and Google have entered a partnership to
bring selected Google Apps products to Lehigh students,
faculty, and staff. These Google products will enable the
Lehigh community to communicate, share, and collaborate more
efficiently. The premiere Google App for collaboration is
Google Docs which includes word processing, spreadsheets,
and “forms” among other things.
LTS staff
and others throughout the university have been experimenting
with Google Docs for collaborative work with considerable
success and satisfaction.
It is easy
to use and to share, ending the need to email files back and
forth. It has a good system for documenting changes and
allowing comments. There is plenty of storage space and
there are no advertisements. Faculty members might wish to
encourage students to use Google Docs to work on their
collaborative projects.
Another
useful feature is that individuals outside the university
can participate in the collaboration as well provided they
have a gmail account. This is one of the few instances in
which a tool can be shared in this way. It’s ideal for
planning professional conferences and events or co-editing
documents.
An
important advisory about Google Docs is that the files are
stored on Google servers and not in the direct control of
Lehigh University. One should not use Google Docs for
confidential documents. Files that Google Docs users delete
are not retrievable
Other
products included in Lehigh's Google Apps are Google Sites,
a tool to create collaborative websites;
and Google Calendar, a personal calendar that the user can
edit, share with friends, and/or publish as a Web page.
There is
also a Lehigh affiliated gmail option that is of interest
primarily to students. A detailed document on the LTS Help
Desk website [URL] describes the advantages and
disadvantages of using Lehigh gmail.
To access
Google Apps, go to
http://www.lehigh.edu/google and log in with your Lehigh
username and password. For more information, see also the
Lehigh Google Apps FAQ at
https://sites.google.com/a/lehigh.edu/lehigh-google-apps/google-apps-faq.
--Susan A. Cady
LTS Director for Administrative and Planning Services
Article posted April 14,
2009
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