A random poll by The Catalyst revealed that an overwhelming majority of students, staff, and faculty are dissatisfied with the Microsoft Office 365 system that was introduced during the summer. The former Gmail system was preferred.
Following are the responses:
“I hate it. It’s annoying, slow and unproductive.” Banusa Sivanesathasan, a student.
“At first I was annoyed with it. But then it was more convenient because we have access to Word and PowerPoint and everything for free!”– Emma Medina, a student.
“I don’t like the fact that it changed when I was finally getting comfortable with Gmail. Outlook has more features, though it can be quite confusing. Especially on my phone, Gmail was a lot easier. On my phone, I don’t know for anyone else but the app isn’t working. It’s complicated but besides that I don’t mind it.”- Ashnelle Hall, a student.
“I absolutely hate it [and] it doesn’t seem to be stable. It is not user friendly! It’s hard for me to use. Gmail worked really well for me. [Microsoft] is very time consuming.” – Cynthia Anderson, Assistant Director of First-Year Experience.
“If I had to rate it on a scale of 1-10, I’d rate it a 1. The layout of Gmail was so much easier.” –Jawad Chaudhr, a student.
“The Gmail system has been here for a while and it was really hard to get used a newer system. Since Microsoft was rolled out, it was a little difficult to get used to. It was hard to navigate in the beginning but with constant use, trial and error, faculty and staff are becoming more familiar with it. IT in the NAB is available to assist with questions.”– Annette Johnson, English Department Secretary.
“The new email system is terrible. I hate everything that Outlook has produced.” –Jake Newhoff, a student.
“It’s okay; I liked the old [system] better. It was easier to use.” – Anastasia, a student (did not want her last name used).
“I didn’t mind the regular Gmail, honestly. Gmail was convenient. I didn’t have to go searching around for anything.”– Ron, a student (did not want his last name used).
“I don’t mind it much but it takes time [to get used to].”– Brenda Silverman,a student.
“Overall I’d say it’s pretty convenient as far as using word documents, PowerPoint, etc. However, I find the layout not as ‘user friendly’ as Google.” –Jabari Curry, a student.
“Initially I didn’t think it was such a big deal because I was familiar with Outlook. I actually assumed that it would be better for the students because though Gmail is easier, Microsoft Outlook has more of the programs that students use for their work such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. So I thought it would be better for students to use OneDrive. For me as a faculty member it’s a mess! Sometimes I don’t even see emails that I’ve got. I don’t know why, there’s a section for clutter which I guess is Spam, but there’s also a Spam folder! I had to deactivate that because I had stuff in my clutter from my director. That’s important stuff!”– Emma Antobam-Ntekudzi, Assistant Librarian.
“I found transitioning from Gmail to the new Outlook to be a very frustrating. I will say that it’s gotten easier since I’ve gotten used to it, but the Google system was very intuitive. I was able to make groups, labels, filters, custom flags so that I could mark emails and different levels of coherency. I found that you can do the same things on Outlook but it’s not as easy and obvious. I found that it’s been very difficult to search for messages and to keep organized. Overall, I feel like we went from a system that was fluid and smooth and that was set up in a certain way that made my job much easier to a system that’s frustrating, freezes and doesn’t work sometimes. It also feels unsecure to me because it takes a long time to sign out! If the signing out fails, than it didn’t actually sign you out and you have to go back to the page. If you’re somewhere and you need to leave to go to another class, and you think you had signed out, it doesn’t effectively go through the process, you’re still signed in and anyone can go through your e-mail.” Anonymous faculty member.
“It’s a little inconvenient because before, I could just go to Gmail and sign in, now it’s a whole process of going to the Old Westbury site. Asides from that, it’s fine I don’t have a problem with it.” Nigel Shelby, a student.
“I always have trouble logging in on my phone and I don’t think it’s as user friendly as the old system. I didn’t have issues with logging into Gmail on my mobile device and I was used to the layout.” Deirdre Bardolf, a student.
“I really liked Gmail because it was so easy to make Word Documents that are saved automatically when we switched the first couple days I was confused as to how to work it but once you learn how to get around it it’s really the same thing as Gmail but with better spelling corrections.” Julia Sorto, a student.
“I think it is awful. I set up all my emails to be forwarded to my Gmail account. The interface is also annoying, the ‘clutter’ system makes it hard to find emails or get notifications of emails. I will say it is beneficial that we get Word for free though.” Joey Marinaro, a student.
