Google

Google Apps provides LeedsMet students with what is effectively our own 'copy' of Google that we can access securely over the internet from anywhere and at any time. Every student has a LeedsMet Google "account".

Your email address is in the format "j.helat1234@student.leedsmet.ac.uk" . You must login to your Google account to access your email and other new facilities. The login name is the first part of your email address (j.helat1234), and your password is the same one that you use to login to the University's systems.

In addition to email, you will have access to a Calendar, IM/chat, Google Drive (word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools) and many other services, all secure and within our 'copy' of Google (i.e. the "student.leedsmet.ac.uk" domain).

Google Drive is an enhancement of Google Docs. If you have Google Drive installed on your PC or Mac you can sychronise documenst with you Google account and share them with other to work collaboratively.

The Calendar facility provides multiple calendars, one of which will hold a copy of your personal academic timetable. You can send yourself free text reminders of lectures!

If you are thinking of producing work in Google Docs or Sites please check with your tutor over what file formats are acceptable for work to be submitted.

There are a number of online tutorials available from Google. These focus on standard Google, rather than Google at Leeds Met, but they do give an excellent overview to raise awareness of what it you can do with Google.

These will give you a head start:

• Mail (6 mins)
• Calendar (9 mins)
• Start Page (5.5 mins)
• Docs (4 mins)
• Sites (2.26 mins)

Below is a link to the Google learning:

• https://sites.google.com/a/googleapps.com/google-apps-learning-center/

Here are some other useful links:

• http://docs.google.com/view?Docid=dg76nhkx_4cbs54kdk&pageview=1

You can keep up to date with new features by checking these official and unofficial Google links. Please let us know if you come across any others that might benefit students and staff.

• http://whatsnew.googleapps.com/  - Gives details of new features and a calendar of when they are released. Choose scheduled release details.
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/GoogleAppsUpdates - the offical update feed from the Google Apps team
• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/  - the official Google blog
• http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/ - the official Gmail blog
• http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/ - the official Google Enterprise blog
• http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Calendar-Help - the official Google Calendar Help Group
• http://www.google.com/mobile/  - Google mobile
• http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/ - unofficial Google blog

Q: As a student, do I have to use Google Apps ?
A: You must regularly check your email in your Leeds Met Google mail Inbox, and use this email address to communicate with the University. You do not need to use any other function with Google Apps

Q: I already have a personal Google account. Can I use this as my student email account ?
A: No, the University provides you with a student email account to use for communications from and to us. This enables us to guarantee that you have an email account that we can contact you through. We only store this email address in our systems.

Q: How do I log into my Google account ?
A: Your username is the first part of your email address (e.g. "H.Satal1234"), and your password is the same as the one you use when logging into the University's systems.

Q: I entered the wrong birth date and now my account is to be deleted. What do I do?

The following link goes to the Google pages where you vcan find why your account will be deleted and how to get it back to normal

http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1333913 

 Q: How much storage space do I get?

• Email:  7.5 GB per mailbox and growing
• Docs: 1000 documents, 20,000 images, 1000 spreadsheets (10k rows, 256 columns, 50k cells or 20 sheets, whichever limit is reached first)

Q: Where can I learn more about Google Apps?
A: There are some online tutorials available from Google:

• Mail    
• Calendar
• Start Page   
• Docs

Q: Where do I get support from ?

1. Within Google there is an excellent  'Help Center': http://google.com/support/a/users.
2. Leeds Met IT Helpdesks will be able to help you if you can't find the answer online, or prefer to talk to someone:
   Civic Quarter: (0113) 812 5968
   Headingley: (0113) 812 7467
3. If you still can't find an answer then email portal@leedsmet.ac.uk

Q: What happens to my personal data and the content of my emails and the content of my other apps accounts?

A:  This information is stored by Google in the US.  The European Directive on data protection requires member states to enact legislation requiring organisations to comply, as data controllers, with eight principles of good information handling:

1. Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully
2. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose(s)
3. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed
4. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up-to-date
5. Kept for no longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes
6. Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects (users of Google Apps in this case) under the Data Protection Act 1998
7. Personal data shall be kept secure with appropriate technical and organisational measures taken to protect the information
8. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection.

The eighth of these principles recognises that jurisdictions outside the European Economic Area (EU member states plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) may not legislate for as high a standard of data protection, and places restrictions on the transfer of personal data outside the EEA.  The European Commission has determined that an arrangement put in place by the US Department of Commerce - known as the 'safe harbor' - provides adequate protection for personal data transferred from the EEA.  Google has agreed to adhere to the set of data protection principles recognised by the Commission.

Google stores your data in order to assist in the improvement of its services.  Google's privacy policy, which sets out how they treat your data and what they will and will not do with it, is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html

Q: How do I download my email into a different client (including Outlook) ?
A: First, enable POP3 or IMAP forwarding in the email settings.

To download to another Google account, follow the "Standard Instructions" in this page: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13287

If you use Outlook XP/2002 you will need to make sure you have MS Office Service Pack 3 installed before you can send mail with SMTP.

PLEASE NOTE: we do not recommend that you forward email to another account, because your ISP may see official University emails as spam and block them

Q: What is the maximum size of attachments?
A:  Google Mail allows you to send and receive messages up to 20 megabytes (MB) in size, including the attachment

Q: What is an email conversation ?
A: Google organises your mail in conversations, rather than individual messages. This makes it much easier to understand the context of a message - or to follow the conversation. A conversation is an original message, and all of its replies (and replies to the replies).  Sometimes, conversations are referred to as "threads."

Q: How do I create folders ?
A: Actually, your mail account doesn't use folders. To help you organise your mail more effectively, you can use labels instead.
Here's why Google think labels are better than folders:

Labels	Folders
A conversation can have more than one label	You can only put a message in one folder
A conversation can be in several locations (Inbox, All Mail, Sent Mail, etc.) at once, making it easier to find later	You have to remember where you filed a message to retrieve it
You can search conversations by label	You can't always do folder-specific searches

Q: Can I tag outgoing mail?
A: You can set up filters that will apply a label to incoming mail that meets the filter conditions. We have found that filters seem to work on outgoing mail too.

Q: How do I ask for a read or delivery receipt?
A: Google mail does not currently provide this facility. Our recommendation is that if you really need to prove that you sent something, then ensure that you save a copy of the sent mail (you've got plenty of space). Tag it with a label to indicate that is important and 'star' it. Within the body of the email ask the person to inform you when they have received it.

Q: How does archive email work?
A:If you have dealt with an email and want to move it from your inbox but are not quite sure whether you will need it again (and so you really don't want to delete it) then you can select it and archive it. Archiving it moves it from your inbox to the 'All mail' folder. When you search your email, then Google will search 'All mail', unless you choose otherwise. This includes the mail in your inbox.

Q: How do I preview my message in Google mail?
A: You can preview a snippet of information, to the right of the subject line. If you cannot see any then go to the 'Settings' option (top right of your screen). Go to the 'General' tab, and choose the 'Show Snippets' option. Save the change and you should then be able to see a few words alongside the subject line in your inbox.

Q: How can I move to the next email message (conversation) without having to go back to my inbox?
A: Click on the 'Older', or 'Newer' links at the top right.

If you are a keyboard sort of person.....once you are in a message (conversation) use J (for older) and K (for newer) keys to move to older and newer conversations. Within the same conversation use the N (for Next) and P (for Previous) keys to move to the next and previous message. If you want more keyboard shortcuts then visit here.

Q: How can I select multiple files as attachments to an email?
A: You cannot currently select multiple files. You can attach multiple files, but you have to select them all individually.  We will feedback to Google on this one.

Q: How do I print an individual message (rather than the whole conversation)?
A: Just click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message you want to print, and select Print.

Q: Why do I have to login to the portal and then login again to my Google account ?
A: Google cannot receive the login information you input to the portal, so it has to ask you for your username and password again. However we have been able to keep the passwords synchronised so that if you change your portal password it automatically changes in Google as well.

If you want to quickly get to Google then the following direct links may be useful:

• Start page: http://start.student.leedsmet.ac.uk/
• Email: http://mail.student.leedsmet.ac.uk/
• Calendar: http://calendar.student.leedsmet.ac.uk/

Q: How can I import my contacts?
A: If you want to import your contacts from another system then create an export file from that system. The format of the export should be the 'Microsoft Outlook' .csv format.

The .csv file can be saved to your computer or memory stick. Then in Google mail, go to Contacts and choose the import function to import your contacts into Google.

We have found a problem when trying to edit the imported contacts. If, when you click on the contact, Google does not allow you to edit it then try this workaround.

1. Hover your mouse over the contact name
2. When you get the 'pop-up' box, choose 'Change picture'
3. Change one of the fields, or change a radio button
4. Save the contact

You should now be able to edit this contact as normal.

Q: How can I access Google mail using my mobile phone browser?
A: Put this URL into your browser http://mail.google.com/a/student.leedsmet.ac.uk (don't forget to bookmark it!)

Q: How suitable is google Docs ?
A: Google Docs is a collaboration tool for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations from anywhere with an internet connection without the need for specific office software needing to be installed on your computer. 

You can invite other Leeds Met students to collaborate on the same document and work on it at the same time. When your documents are complete you can make them more widely available as Web pages, email them out as attachments or save them to your desktop as Word, Open Office, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip. 

There may be some slight incompatibility problems loading these documents into Google Docs. Therefore, if you intend using Google Docs for collaboration then we recommend that you create the document in Google Docs from the very start.

For support in the first instance please visit the Google Docs Help Center: http://documents.google.com/support/?ctx=ausers&hl=en

Staff at the Help and Information point in the Library will be able to assist you in finding further help that you need to support your use of Google Apps.

For information on acceptable applications and formats for creating and submitting assignments, advice should be sought from your module tutor.

Q: Will staff be getting Google Apps ?
A: A LeedsMet Google Apps domain is available for staff. Please note that the email account does not replace your official University email address. If you would like an account to be set up please email googleproject@leedsmet.ac.uk with your name and University email address.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Google products we have implemented, you can visit the Google Apps Education Edition web site.

With so many enhancements being rolled out to Google Apps it is sometimes challenging to keep up with all the changes. You can now browse the latest changes and even subscribe to the official RSS feed.

Peter Sellek

Project Manager,
Google Apps Project,
Information, Media and Technology Services.

Adam Watson

Portal Content Manager,
Library and Learning Innovation.

For support please email: x-stream@leedsmet.ac.uk
For general enquiries please email: googleproject@leedsmet.ac.uk