Group Members:

Madeline Mill BIS/Accounting, Junior, [email protected] 

Jamie Rodgers BIS, Senior, [email protected]

Ryan Taft BIS, Senior, [email protected]

Seve Garza BIS, Senior, [email protected]

Trevor Husseman BIS/Accounting, Senior, [email protected]

Project Summary

Introduction

The technology used in this project is based on the cloud.  Office 365 is a virtual hard drive that Microsoft is selling as a program for users in order to have all their MS Office applications, emails, calendars, and documents in one central location.  This is being offered as an alternative to buying MS Office for every computer.  Since Office 365 located on the web, the idea is that the user will always have access to what they need to accomplish on any computer with internet access.  Cloud technology is growing to become more universal, Office 365 is coupled with all the MS Office applications most of us use on a daily basis with some additional features not seen anywhere else.

Situation

The goal of this project is to discover how Office 365 works.  Since this is a relatively new cloud program offered by Microsoft, not many people know what features it offers.  The current online collaboration tool used in team projects is SharePoint. Our goal is discover how the College of Business can integrate Office 365 into its program, and eventually use it as the new collaboration tool in the classroom. In order to introduce this technology to students and staff, we have developed multiple tutorials about Office 365.  The tutorials are made so student and staff can use Office 365 effectively without the use of templates.  We also want to test Office 365 reliability, efficiency, functionality, and document compatibility. In the end, this project will hopefully change how professors conduct class, and widen the possibilities and ease of group projects.

Complications and Learning Experiences

The first complication we came across when working with this technology just understanding how the program worked, and how you accomplished the features advertised.  This was a major roadblock in the beginning stages because the online forums did not match what we were experiencing.  We then found out it was because we didn’t buy Office 365 accounts, and instead had free trials.  Once we officially had accounts, we discovered we couldn’t download Lync on the COB computers because of administration issue with Outlook.  The problem was solved once we brought in our personal computers, and were able to use Office 365 as it was intended.  If this was integrated in the COB, administration issues could be solved easily with proper authorization.  From this project we learned about the latest technology, and how the features could be optimized and used within the college.  Overall, we believe that online collaboration on group projects can be more efficient and with the additional tools Office 365 offers that SharePoint doesn’t.