Carleton is moving its email system for staff and faculty to a cloud-based system based in the United States starting in the fall of 2014, according to Denis Levesque, Carleton’s chief information officer.
The university moved students onto that service in 2012.
The move puts Carleton on a common system and will lead to improved communications, Levesque said in an email.
“Moving to the cloud from the current Carleton-based system will allow the university to better meet the needs of faculty and staff,” he said.
The new email service provides 50 gigabytes of storage, improved spam and phishing protection, and better support for mobile devices, according to Levesque.
Despite some concerns that basing the email system in the U.S. could lead to surveillance by the National Security Agency, Levesque said the new system is fully compliant with all Canadian privacy legislation.
“As part of the planning process, Carleton conducted an impact assessment in order to fully understand any privacy issues,” he said.
Several Canadian universities have already moved to cloud-based email, or have plans in the near future to do so, including Lakehead University, Ryerson University, the University of Alberta, Dalhousie University, and the University of Toronto.
