“Google Sites now supports the ability to apply a site template’s theme to any existing site. This does not apply the entire template to your existing site, just the template’s theme.”
This is a pretty nifty feature, especially for those who manage multiple sites!
You can read the full post here: http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2010/08/apply-template-themes-to-existing-sites.html
-Chris
Google has announced that they are canceling their Wave product due to lower-than-expected user adoption.
“We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.”
You can read the full post here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html
-Chris
If you’ve been wondering about the security and privacy of Google Apps, this security whitepaper may answer many of your questions: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/pdf/ds_gsa_apps_whitepaper_0207.pdf
Additionally, I just came across an interesting announcement from the Google Apps team. It appears that Google Apps for Government version has just received Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration. You can read the official post here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-google-apps-for-government.html
-Chris
For anyone who is wondering where the Middlebury Google Apps “Start Page” went, well…it has been phased out by Google and replaced with iGoogle, as of July 1st, 2010. The ”Sign in” link is located in the upper right-hand corner of the new iGoogle page. Have fun customizing! (http://g.middlebury.edu)
Does anyone miss the start page? We could consider creating a new User Start Page in Google Sites, which allows for locked content and control over available gadgets. What do you think?
-Chris
From the official Google Apps blog…
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Google Apps administrators can now segment their users into different organizations and control which Google services are enabled/disabled for each of those different sets of users.
- Allows creation of organizations in a tree-like hierarchy
- Manage membership of users into one organization
- Specify policies for which services are on/off by organization
Updates have also been made to the Google Apps Directory Sync Tool and the Provisioning API to take this new functionality into account.
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You can read more about this update here: http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2010/07/user-policy-management-now-in-google.html
One last thing…there is a catch to using this. A user can exist in only a single node in the hierarchy tree. This could present problems for users who have multiple roles (ie. a graduate student who is also an undergraduate alumnus, a staff member who is also a student, etc.)
-Chris
An update on where we are in the Google Apps evaluation process, including a schedule of our upcoming presentations with links to outlines has been posted to the main LIS blog. It can be found at http://sites.middlebury.edu/lis/2010/07/14/update-on-evaluation-of-google-apps-for-higher-ed/
Join us in Davis Family Library 145 at 1pm on Wednesday, July 14th for an exciting EDUCAUSE webcast that focuses on Brown’s Google Apps experience!
From the EDUCAUSE website:
“About a year ago, Brown deployed Google Apps to its 6,000 students and has now decided to extend the service to include faculty and staff as well. In this Webcast, we’ll hear about how these decisions were made, the options considered, difficulties surmounted, and successes to date.”
