There's been some interesting discussion this week about hosted email, and in particular Microsoft's Windows Live @ EDU http://www.imagine-wl.com/Education/en-US/ programme.  In the UK there are around a dozen institutions using this programme representing something like 120,000 students.  The discussion is focusing on the following areas:

1. Why wouldn't a university use this facility?
2. What would encourage universities to start using the facility
3. Are the students who already have access to it using it?

So let me give a few thoughts on these points

1.  Why wouldn't a university use this facility?

There may be many reasons for this such as:

• They have not heard about it
• They have some ideological opposition to using it
• They have a fully featured existing collaboration system that integrates into personalised learning environment
• No desire

I could go on but one thing seems to be certain is that the reason why a university carries on hosting its own Student email service is subjective and it is not possible to generalise.

2. What would encourage universities to start using the facility

I'm discussing with many universities some options for providing this service to their students and each one, as you can imagine, has different legitimate objections, fears and reasons for denying or delaying its introduction.  So one of the discussion points is around the possibility of a dual service.  This could enable the university to carry on hosting its own email but to also offer students who require it the potential of having a university branded email address with 2GB of email.  So, for example, a student may have an existing email address which is something like:

dominic.watts@maths07.yorkshire.ac.uk and this is his main university hosted email.  Why not allow this student to also have:

dominic.watts@live.yorkshire.ac.uk as an alternative with the higher levels of storage? 

This way, the university gets to carry on providing an integrated email solution but allows the student some flexibility to store greater levels of data without the university increasing its costs.

 Also, this universities could start with it today for both applicants and alumni.  This can create a powerful draw to keep the university top of mind in these stakeholders.

3. Are the students who already have access to it using it?

Great question!  Of course, we should take a look at how students communicate today.  Do they use email at all or is it just the university that mandates that students must access their university hosted email account to receive official communication?  But, this is the age of personalised learning and treating students as customers; therefore shouldn't universities be asking students how they want to receive communication?  Many students use alternative methods of communication/collaboration now and new media like youtube, facebook, Flikr where (spot the link back to personalised learning) people are involved in a more collaborative/creative method of communication rather than store and forward email.

 To summarise, there are many varied and legitimate reasons why a university is not using hosted email for students today but I believe there is a role for providing an alternative service to students, applicants and alumni in all universities.  Also, let's not forget that by waiting we are potentially missing the boat and today's students already find email is yesterday's solution.