University running events to help students with final move from Google

By Patrick Sullivan, Co-Editor-in-Chief

University of Bristol Google accounts will be closing for current students on October 14 with the University offering help sessions to minimise the risk of losing work.

Digital Bristol, the University team organising the switch from Google to Microsoft services, will host a Q&A style session on October 2 to help students manage the transition, with less than two weeks before the closure of Google accounts on October 15.

Back in December 2018, Epigram reported on the IT migration plan of older students after new entry students in 2018/19 were not provided with Google accounts. Over the course of the year, students who started in 2017 or earlier switched from GMail to Outlook but they have still been able to access other Google services, such as Google Drive.

In July, Digital Bristol performed a ‘forced’ migration on all students remaining on GMail after many failed to take up earlier opportunities to move across at a time of their choice. A spokesperson for the team said the mass migration was a ‘smooth exercise’.

Now though, attentions have been turned to protecting the work of students stored on their University Google Drive accounts. There is guidance available online but many staff are worried students are unaware of the impending closure of accounts.

Digital Bristol ran multiple information sessions throughout last academic year, and resumed them on September 25. The next one on October 2 will be the final session and students can expect help on using services such as Takeout Transfer to move all their documents to another Google account, their University OneDrive or another storage solution.

Featured Image: Google

Have you secured your Google Drive files with a different solution yet?