The largest community college district in the country recently announced plans to move to the cloud, via Microsoft’s Live@EDU cloud suite. The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has determined that Microsoft’s package will best meet the needs of its students, staff, and faculty. The rollout is scheduled for the beginning of the upcoming school year.
What the Cloud Can Do
According to a report at PC World, the decision by LACCD to move to the cloud began with a desire to have every student on each of the nine campuses obtain their own email account within the school system. This idea slowly spread beyond email capabilities to include IM, video, and audio conferencing and calendaring. The cloud suite will also allow students to prepare online documents to share, edit, and collaborate with professors and other students.
“Students and faculty, once they start learning all the capabilities, I expect they’ll realize it’s way more than email,” LACCD CIO Jorge Mata told PC World.
Some of the specific features offered with Microsoft’s Live@EDU include:
- Email and calendars with a 10GB inbox
- Additional file storage up to 25GB
- Instant messaging
- Video chat and audio conferencing
- Document sharing
- Mobile email
- Accessible through Web browsers for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems
- Easy to set up and manage
This video explains Microsoft's Cloud Services.
Until now, the nine campuses for the Los Angeles Community College District have determined whether to offer students the option