UST Google accounts will be strictly for ‘learning, teaching purposes’ only, ICT says
Justine Xyrah Garcia
Thomasians now have to say goodbye to their unlimited Google storage as the University’s Office of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) will start limiting everyone’s cloud storage capacity after May 17.
In a memorandum released last April 15, the Office said that each enrolled student in the University would only be given a total of 20 gigabytes (GB) storage space that they could use to keep their school-related files.
“The University cloud drive service allocated to all users must be used responsibly for learning, teaching, and work purposes. Personal documents unrelated to coursework or university affairs should be stored elsewhere,” ICT said.
Aside from its limitation on students, other University staff would also be affected by this policy. The allocated amount of storage are as follows:
- Offices and Academic Staff — 30 GB
- Student Organizations, and Support Staff — 20GB
- Alumni and Guests — 5GB
The recent advisory was done in line with the policy changes in Google Workspace for Education last June 2022 wherein subscribing educational institutions now only have a baseline of 100 terabyte pooled storage across all users.
“Google’s transition to a paid service with limited space requires the University to modify its storage allocation policies to ensure equitable distribution of our valuable resources,” the Office reasoned.
With this, ICT advised holders of UST email accounts to migrate their personal files to avoid potential account suspension or loss of data.
Starting from June 1, two-factor authentication will also be required when logging on to UST email accounts to protect them from cyber threats such as spam and phishing.
However, those who are not currently enrolled or had already graduated can only access their UST email for a maximum of one year.
“All alumni are entitled to have access to their university email up to a year after graduation within which period that they have migrated their files to their personal email accounts registered in the UST Alumni portal,” the memorandum read.
The Office also warned Thomasians that those who would be violating the changes in email policy would be “dealt with in accordance with the standard University disciplinary procedures.”
Aside from account suspension or restriction, violators could also be subjected to disciplinary action, including expulsion from the University, and financial liability.
TomasinoWeb has tried reaching ICT to ask for their reason on their late implementation of email changes, but it has yet to give comment on the matter.
