Peacock Mail for Students

Saint Peter's College has partnered with Google Mail to provide students with "Peacock Mail", a service that has more e-mail storage and a suite of communication and collaboration tools. In addition to e-mail students will also have Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk as part of the package. Peacock Mail will be available exclusively for students on June 30, 2010.

If you wish to retain messages from your old email account please see the FAQs below to determine how to take action.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the College moving to Peacock Mail and Google Apps?

Partnering with Google will give students additional email storage and a suite of state-of-the-art communication and collaboration tools that will enhance their ability to work together. In addition to increased productivity opportunities, moving to Google Apps also will allow the college to save costs in the long run by reducing the need to buy and support software, hardware, and storage to maintain our own independent e-mail service.

Who will be able use Saint Peter’s Peacock Mail and Google Apps?

For the first phase of this project, only students and Alumni will be transitioned from Exchange to Google. All current students will be converted before the Fall 2010 semester.

What applications will be available besides mail?

Initially, the College will be offering Google Docs, Google Chat, Google Mobile, Mail (Peacock Mail) and Google Calendar. Additional Apps will be evaluated in teh future based on demand.

When will my account be transitioned to Peacock Mail?

All Peacock Mail accounts will be active on June 30th. As of that date, all NEW mail will be sent only to your Peacock Mail account. You can still access mail in your old account for the next 90 days.

Will my email be moved from my old account to my Peacock Mail Account?

You will have 90 days to manually forward any important mail from your old account to your Peacock Mail Account. You may request to have your existing mail transferred by calling 201-761-7800 or emailing the Help Desk at helpdesk@spc.edu. Requests will be processed based on criticality.

How do I access my old SPC emails?

During the summer, you can still login the same way as you did in the past. Here's the link.

How do I forward email to my Google account?

You will be able to access and forward your old emails to your Peacock Mail account until September 30th, 2010. Simply log into your old email account, open the email you want to forward and click “forward” at the top of the screen and enter your address @mail.spc.edu.

Will I see advertising on Peacock Mail?

No.

How will students access their Peacock Mail?

You will be able to access your account from the drop down menu on the upper right corner of the Saint Peters College Home Page. You can also go directly to the login page by entering mail.spc.edu from any browser.

Will my new email address be @gmail.com?

No. The new domain will be @mail.spc.edu.

Will the Peacock Mail be available to alumni?

Yes. Accounts will be created automatically for all alumni who have graduated 6 months ago or less. All other alumni can request accounts by calling or emailing our Helpdesk at helpdesk@spc.edu.

Who will administer Peacock Mail Accounts?

Peacock Mail will be set up and administered by the SPC ITS staff. ITS will provide user support through the Help Desk as well.

Will information stored on Google’s server be secure?

Under our contract, Google will protect Saint Peter’s College’s data with the "same standard of care with which it protects its own confidential information." Google will disclose College information only when required by law, and then only after giving the College the opportunity to challenge the disclosure request.

FERPA-Protected Information
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of a student’s education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education, and applies to all records directly related to a student and maintained by college. For example, highly sensitive information about a student such as Social Security or credit card numbers, and student grades should never be stored in Google, in accordance with FERPA and the Saint Peter’s College Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources policy governing the use, transmission, and storage of highly sensitive information. Student grades, for instance, are best stored in a secure course management system. More information about FERPA rules can be found on the US Department of Education site.

Acceptable Use
Students using a Google account will have access to the Google Apps for Education suite of applications, including e-mail, personal calendars, and collaborative document sharing (at a future date). Because of the collaborative nature of Google Apps, there are several caveats and circumstances about which students must be aware.

Google Apps for Education Are Not Hosted by ITS
Having a Google Apps account means that your e-mail is transitioned away from Saint Peter’s College hosting and is now being hosted by Google. Because ITS does not host Google's e-mail (Gmail), or any other documents created in Google, we are not able to maintain or secure the content in Google Apps. Individual users must be responsible for making backups of and securing any content they choose to place in the Google Apps domain. For example, ITS cannot recover an accidentally deleted file or e-mail, nor will Google provide this service. Please visit the Google Mail for Education website for various methods of backing up.

Intellectual Property Rights
Students are responsible for protecting all intellectual property placed in Google Apps for Saint Peter’s College.

Highly Sensitive College Information
Saint Peter’s College’s Acceptable Use policy governs the use, transmission, and storage of highly sensitive information, such as social security or credit card numbers. Highly sensitive information, including student grades, should never be placed in Google Apps. Secure course management systems should be used instead.

Participation of External Users
Google Apps users can invite other Google Apps users, both within the College and outside the College, to view data, co-edit documents, and use other collaboration tools. Since ITS has no administrative access to Google Apps data, it is the responsibility of each user to ensure appropriate controls are used to prevent accidental or undesirable file sharing.

Is there a size limit for e-mails sent to or from a Gmail account?

Yes. The message size limit is 25MB including any attachments. Google Apps is designed to simplify file sharing by providing links to shared content rather than including it as an attachment, in order to ensure that people will be working, and collaborating on the newest version.

Can I transfer a personal Google/Gmail account to Peacock Mail?

No. Your private account and institutional accounts will not be merged. Additionally, you will not be able to access your Peacock Mail account via the Google personal edition interface such as www.gmail.com.

I got an e-mail requesting me to reply with my username and password to keep my account active. What does this mean?

Please do not reply to messages like this. SPC ITS will never ask you for personal information in an email. If you have any questions, please contact the helpdesk before replying to any suspicious email.

When students graduate what will happened to their Peacock Account?

Nothing. One of the benefits of Peacock Mail is that students will be given lifelong email.

Will I be able to access my Google Mail and other apps from countries that censor Internet traffic?

There may be difficulties in viewing or receiving information from College systems in some foreign countries. This challenge exists regardless of the service provider. Users are encouraged to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, which may, in some cases, lessen the difficulty.

Will I be able to share calendars?

It is the plan that full calendar sharing will be allowed within the college and that free/busy information will be sharable with external calanders.

Can I make e-mail folders/subfolders in Gmail?

Google uses "labels" instead of folders to organize e-mail. You can assign multiple labels to a message.

How much storage do I have?

Peacock accounts are provided with 7GB of storage.

Will I be able to use desktop e-mail clients such as Thunderbird and Outlook with Google Apps?

You can retrieve your Gmail messages with ITS-supported clients or devices that support IMAP, such as Thunderbird, Outlook or Apple Mail, but you will need to set a Google desktop/mobile client password if you want to use either of those options. To read your Gmail with another e-mail client, you will need to use your Google Desktop (IMAP)/Mobile Client password to access your e-mail in that other client. Peacock Mail can be configured to work a number of e-mail clients. For a complete list of Gmail supported clients and setup guides, please visit Gmail's supported IMAP client list page.

After switching to Peacock Mail, will the out-of-office auto reply and mail forwarding functions that operate here at the College still be usable, or will we need to use similar capabilities (if they exist) from Google?

Peacock Mail account users will need to use Google's auto reply, forwarding and mail filters features available in Peacock Mail. These features are setup by the user in their account.

How do I setup my mobile device to receive my Peacock Mail?

Please see the link here for a list of supported devices and setup instructions.

When will support documentation be available?

Google's Help Centers support documents are available for your review at anytime.

Please send any questions or comments about Peacock Mail and Google Apps to helpdesk@spc.edu.

Peacock Student E-mail

Log in to Peacock Mail

Frequently Asked Questions