There is a major shift in our G-suite policy where students that graduated after May 2010 kept their G-suite accounts indefinitely. This has now changed, students will not be able to keep their g-suite accounts indefinitely. This change is largely sparked by storage quota limits that are imposed on us by Google and will help to clean up accounts and unused data that is still out there that are associated with student accounts (a large chunk of used storage is graduated grad student’s Google Drive data).
One point I want to highlight that will be majorly impacted by this change is Google Drive. Many people think that Google Drive folder permissions work the same as Windows NTFS permissions, in fact, they do not. Here is a common scenario:
- Professor shares a folder with a graduate student(s) from My Drive
- Grad student(s) upload data, other files, etc. into the said folder – therefore grad student(s) have OWNERSHIP of the files.
- Grad student graduates, the account gets disabled, data that student uploaded to shared my drive folder perishes, and professor panics as he/she thinks they have done everything correctly.
How to avoid this scenario:
- Use Google Shared Drives for anything that will involve work with other collaborators. Google Shared Drives has different permissions than My Drive, preventing sudden unknown data loss. You do not have to worry about anything disappearing unintentionally if you have your files in a Google Shared Drive.
- Move any shared folders in My Drive to Google Shared Drives and share with appropriate individuals
- Make sure the grad student(s) changes permissions on files they uploaded to you if you decide to keep the folder in My Drive
OIT will start giving out optional alumni e-mail addresses to our recent December graduates. Students who graduated earlier — between May 2010 and the present — also will be contacted via their student email account when it is their time to receive an email-only alumni account. Alumni email accounts are optional but graduates will need to decide within six months of receiving the official notice if they will create an account