Microsoft Office to be offered to Rutgers students
Rutgers has an offer to expand Microsoft Office to all students on campus for free, said Donald Smith, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer at the Office of Information Technology.
But they have decided to wait to allow students to download the program due to concerns about the potential obligations of the program.
Smith said Microsoft first announced its Office 365 Education for Students program a few weeks ago without any previous mention of its development, and gave schools the option to block students from using the program. Rutgers is one of the schools that chose to block it temporarily.
“We want to make sure there are no surprises,” he said, adding that other universities have opted to block the system.
Rutgers has encountered some issues with blocking the service, Smith said. The block is almost in place, but he “hesitates” to tell students they should download it at this time.
As of press time, the system appeared to be open.
The OIT’s major concern with this offer is some of the questions they have about the obligations and costs. Although the service is technically termed “free,” it really is an expansion of the current contract they have with Microsoft, which costs the University $1 million each year.
Only students at schools with this Enrollment for Education Solutions agreement, which allows Rutgers to use Microsoft Office in computer labs, can sign up to download these products, he said.
Although the idea is well received, these contractual obligations are involved in its implementation, he said.
“It might put us in a position that would not be very wise,” Smith said.
They are also concerned about student eligibility requirements, he said. According to the Microsoft 365 website, the service would expire upon graduation.
While the student is part of the University, they have the option to save their work on Microsoft’s unlimited cloud storage, OneDrive. Once they graduate, it is unclear what happens to those documents, he said.
They need to know if students can purchase a subscription service at graduation, he said.
“With ScarletMail [from Google], the conditions took several iterations, but they decided that the material is not lost after graduation,” he said.
The current contract negotiations could take several weeks, possibly up to a month or more, he said.
“We just want to make sure we understand and that we’re doing the right thing,” he said.
