By Sergio Berrueta
The Los Angeles Community College District and College Information Systems released new email account for students and faculty with “cloud” based services for more effective communication last month on February 4th.
With the new accounts, standard email services will still remain with 10 gigabytes of storage and 20 megabytes limit for attachment of files.
Along with these features, students and faculty will gain access to Microsoft Office web applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, Word and the ability to share photos. These web services will be available to use anywhere with Internet connection.
The new system, powered by Microsoft Outlook, uses the passwords that students have used previously in the older Student Information System.
Other capabilities that will be added in the future will include video, calendar creation for assignments, voice chatting and sharing the same screen over the cloud.
A cloud-based service connects to a personal server linking to the account, which allows access from any computer, smartphone or tablet.
Gustavo Mendoza, Manager of College Information Systems said, “We are comfortable it will provide outstanding services and security in all services provided.”
“There’s a minor fee, but the district is picking up the fee on that. District Legal has been very involved in getting this off the ground.” Mendoza said. “In addition, we won’t have to buy servers, applications, and use InfoTech resources.”
Students can access this new email service by going to student.laccd.edu and entering their student ID number and password.
Despite being operated under the Microsoft Outlook system, those students with Android and iOS devices can access their account in a similar way via their respective browsers.