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|Overview | | |“Live@edu with Exchange Labs is great because it offers more functionality for students to |

|Country or Region: United States | | |communicate with the faculty, just as if I were hosting the solution on site.” |

|Industry: Education | | |Russell Wood, Director of Technology, Hinds Community College |

| | | | |

|Customer Profile | | | |

|Hinds Community College is based in Raymond, | | | |

|Mississippi, and offers more than 170 | | | |

|academic, career, and technical programs. | | | |

|Hinds served more than 17,000 students during| | | |

|the fall 2007 semester. | | | |

| | | | |

|Business Situation | | | |

|Hinds did not provide a student e-mail | | | |

|service, which made it difficult for faculty,| | | |

|staff, and students to communicate reliably. | | | |

| | | | |

|Solution | | | |

|Hinds deployed the Live@edu set of free | | | |

|hosted communication services with the | | | |

|Microsoft® Exchange Labs component for an | | | |

|optimized student experience. | | | |

| | | | |

|Benefits | | | |

|Digital collaboration that students want | | | |

|Better communication campuswide | | | |

|Easy IT management, thanks to hosted solution| | | |

|with self-service tools | | | |

| | | | |

| | | |Founded 90 years ago, Hinds Community College is the largest community college in Mississippi. While |

| | | |the college prides itself on being a close-knit community, Hinds did not provide an e-mail service |

| | | |for its students, thus impeding reliable communication among faculty, staff, and students. Hinds knew|

| | | |that its students wanted a Web-based e-mail service as well as personal spaces where they could share|

| | | |documents and blogs. It chose a Microsoft® Live@edu hosted communication and collaboration solution |

| | | |that includes Microsoft Exchange Labs as the e-mail component for a user experience similar to what |

| | | |graduates will use when they start their professional careers. Now students can connect with faculty |

| | | |members using a Global Address List and shared calendars, and enrich their academic experience |

| | | |through instant messaging, blogging, and sharing assignments online. |

| | | | |

| | | |[pic] |

| | | | |

Situation

Hinds Community College has been providing high-quality, affordable educational programs since 1917. Its main campus is located in Raymond, Mississippi; five other campuses serve five counties in the surrounding area. Hinds provides academic college-level courses for the first two years of four-year degree programs that must be completed at senior colleges or universities. There are 1,100 faculty and staff members at Hinds.

Because Hinds did not provide an e-mail service for students, faculty and staff did not have a single, reliable vehicle to communicate with the entire student body. Instead, students brought their e-mail accounts with them, often changing them during the academic year. This made it difficult for instructors to communicate with students using the college’s Web-based course management system.

“We needed an official communication method for students, faculty, and college administration staff,” says Russell Wood, Director of Technology at Hinds Community College. “It took a lot of time to publish general notices in the student newspaper, distribute flyers, and maintain a calendar of events on the college Web site—and even then we had no way of knowing that every student would get the message. It was time to bring our level of campus communication up to the 14 other community colleges in the state that offer students an e-mail account.”

When Wood took a closer look at the other community colleges, he found that most of them used a Microsoft® Exchange Server–based messaging solution or an in-house Web-based offering for their student e-mail service. While Hinds provides its faculty and staff with an Exchange Server messaging and collaboration environment, migrating all the students to it would be too expensive, especially because the college was thinking about allowing the students to use the e-mail service after they graduate.

Wood began thinking about a hosted Web-based e-mail service, but, after surveying students to see what they wanted from an e-mail solution, he changed his approach. “Students didn’t just want Web-based e-mail; they wanted a host of other services,” says Wood. “Personal Web pages [and] the ability to blog, share photos, and send instant messages—these were all important. This level of social networking capabilities was beyond what we could provide within our IT department, so I started looking for a partner that could provide a suite of hosted online services to enrich the learning experience at Hinds.”

Solution

After evaluating options, including Google Apps, Hinds Community College chose Microsoft Live@edu, a set of hosted communication and collaboration services for students and alumni. Hinds chose the version of Live@edu that includes Microsoft Exchange Labs as the e-mail component.

Exchange Labs provides students with an Exchange Server–based inbox and combines the features of Exchange Server with the ease and convenience of online hosted e-mail. Exchange Labs is based on the e-mail and calendaring functionality of the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, Outlook Web Access on the Web, and Outlook Mobile on a mobile device, including shared address books and a 10-gigabyte mailbox.

In addition to a robust, college-branded e-mail service, students can take advantage of the Live@edu suite of online collaboration services. Other services include Windows Live™ SkyDrive for 5 gigabytes of secure online storage, and Windows Live Spaces for creating personal spaces and writing blogs.

Choosing and Setting Up Service

Hinds chose Live@edu because the college felt reassured with the support and partnership offered by the Live@edu team. Wood also felt that the range of services that come with the Microsoft suite of online offerings perfectly matched what the students wanted.

“We reasoned that Windows Live Spaces would answer their request for personal Web pages,” says Wood. “Students told us they wanted to keep their e-mail and class work, and we felt that the 10-gigabyte inbox was very generous. We were also impressed with the SkyDrive offering, which is unique, and with the Exchange [Server]–based e-mail service, which is a market-proven, mature product. And our relationship with the Live@edu team gave us comfort that our partnership with Microsoft would be solid and reliable.”

Wood and his team appreciated how easily Live@edu integrated with its existing infrastructure, allowing the college to take advantage of its investment in Exchange Server 2003. Wood also installed the Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 provisioning solution (the current offering is called Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007). When students, faculty, and staffers come to study or work at Hinds, Identity Information Server automatically provisions accounts in the college’s Active Directory® service, a component of the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. The solution also provisions the Exchange Server–based e-mail accounts for faculty and the Exchange Labs Live@edu accounts for students.

Facilitating Campus Communications

“One of our priorities for delivering a campus-sanctioned e-mail service was to facilitate the interaction between students and faculty,” says Wood. “Live@edu with Exchange Labs is great because it offers more functionality for students to communicate with the faculty, just as if I were hosting the solution on site. We can integrate our existing Exchange Server deployment for faculty and staff with the hosted Exchange Labs for students to achieve better collaboration at less time and expense for our IT staff.”

In January 2008, Hinds became the first college in the United States to go live with Exchange Labs. “Microsoft was extremely supportive during the process,” says Wood. “Once we secured the domain name that we wanted, Identity Integration Server automatically provisioned the Exchange Labs accounts. We decided to preload the students’ e-mail addresses into our online course management solution, so it’s easy for our faculty to contact a student from within that solution.”

Promoting the Solution

After running a small pilot project for 100 students during fall 2007 to fine-tune the student activation process, Hinds introduced Live@edu to the entire college in January 2008. Today, the college is promoting the Live@edu communication and collaboration services on its public-facing home page. Students can click a link and activate their go.hindscc.edu e-mail account from a page that explains how it will be the official account that Hinds will use to communicate with students.

On the first day of classes, more than 45 percent of students activated their accounts. “We tried to give the online services a strong presence on campus, and so we developed the go.hinds logo with the green light,” says Wood. “Today, there are 9,500 students actively using their go.hinds.edu account. So far, everyone has been happy with the services.”

Benefits

Hinds Community College has progressed from providing students with no e-mail service to being the first U.S. college to deploy Live@edu with Exchange Labs. Today, Hinds is delivering a leading-edge, fully integrated set of communication and collaboration services that’s unique among colleges in Mississippi.

“With Live@edu, we can deliver the social networking capabilities that students want,” says Wood. “Our faculty is excited about engaging students in collaborative learning. And IT staff can take pride in delivering a hosted solution that translates into superior services at low cost.”

Digital Collaboration That Students Want

As Wood and his team learned about students’ wishes, their thinking evolved from acquiring a simple, Web-based e-mail service to providing an integrated identity management solution with hosted communication and campuswide collaboration. Live@edu, with Exchange Labs as the e-mail system, is expected to promote learning through enhanced communication with faculty and to bolster student camaraderie, even after graduation.

“It took a little upfront effort, but we now have a future-proof communication infrastructure to support collaborative learning and a sense of community that our students want at Hinds,” says Wood. “Right now, I’m excited about deploying Microsoft Office Live Workspace so students can access Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint®, or Excel® files online and share them with study groups and faculty—another way to stay connected in a thriving learning environment.”

Better Communication Campuswide

Students and faculty are communicating better than ever using the Exchange Labs component of Live@edu. First-year student Chelsea Leblanc relies on her Live@edu account to keep in touch with her professors and up-to-date with course assignments. “My go.hindscc.edu account is quick, simple, and always available,” Leblanc says. “I know I can always reach a professor when I need to. Also, I’m better organized with connecting to the other students who work with me on the yearbook.”

Coby Gaines, President of the Raymond Campus Associated Student Government, uses his e-mail account to broadcast student government activities and notices. “I use my go.hindscc.edu account for getting the word out on campus activities and for communicating with faculty and staff.”

Some faculty members are using Windows Live SkyDrive to share class material with students and, according to Wood, many faculty members are talking about using Windows Live Spaces to encourage collaboration on student projects. Theresa Hamilton, Vice President at Hinds Community College, says, “Live@edu is the best way to communicate with students for instructional purposes.”

The Hinds honors society is using SkyDrive to share files and photos, and other students are using it to transfer their assignments from their home computers to the lab computers at Hinds.

The alumni association is looking forward to better contact with graduates. “Even though we are a two-year program, we have a very strong alumni association and an active alumni community,” says Wood. “We host a number of high-profile annual events, and I know that the alumni association will be using the students’ Live@edu accounts to stay in touch with our graduates for social events and for fundraising.”

Easy IT Management

Live@edu with Exchange Labs provides self-service account management features for administrators. Wood can enjoy the best of both worlds: a hosted solution that reduces total cost of ownership, but with management tools that he can use to easily add or delete students from the service. “I like that Exchange Labs is similar to a business e-mail application,” he says. “The control panel has an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that simplifies how I manage the students’ accounts.”

Privacy is a big issue for schools, and this was another reason that Hinds chose the Microsoft hosted solution. Exchange Labs provides encrypted communication using Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Sockets Layer. “With Live@edu, I’m not worried about spam, viruses, or the safety of student information,” says Wood. “It’s great to know that the solution is up and running reliably 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I don’t have to back it up.

“The identity [management] server is another success story because it automates the process of creating Active Directory accounts and e-mail addresses for 17,000 students,” Wood continues. “I can’t begin to estimate how much time that has saved. At Hinds, we are only beginning to realize the long-term benefits of establishing Live@edu as our campus-endorsed communication and collaboration solution for students. Microsoft is constantly innovating and, as new features come available for Live@edu, Hinds will be ready to take advantage of them.”

Microsoft Live@edu

The Microsoft Live@edu program provides institutions of higher education and K-12 with a set of free hosted and cobranded collaboration and communication services for students, alumni, and applicants. Offerings include a choice of Windows Live Hotmail® or Microsoft Exchange Labs for e-mail, and Microsoft Office Live Workspace, an online space to collaborate on Microsoft Office documents.

For more information about Live@edu, go to:

get.

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“With Live@edu, we can deliver the social networking capabilities that students want. Our faculty is excited about engaging students in collaborative learning.”

Russell Wood, Director of Technology, Hinds Community College

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“My go.hindscc.edu account is quick, simple, and always available. I know I can always reach a professor when I need to.”

Chelsea Leblanc, First-Year Student, Hinds Community College

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“My go.hindscc.edu account is quick, simple, and always available. I know I can always reach a professor when I need to.”

Chelsea Leblanc, Second-Year Student, Hinds Community College

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“Live@edu is the best way to communicate with students for instructional purposes.”

Theresa Hamilton, Vice President, Hinds Community College

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| |Software and Services

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

− Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003

Microsoft Exchange Server

|Services

Microsoft Exchange Labs

Microsoft Live@edu

Technologies

Active Directory

| |

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2008 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:



For more information about Hinds Community College, call (800) 446-3722 or visit the Web site at:

hindscc.edu

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