Dalhousie University's cloud conversation

Over the last few months, Dalhousie University has been looking much more closely to the possibility of replacing much of its expensive infrastructure with an outsourced cloud service. I was part of the conversation with my presentation (large mov file) on campus on Data Privacy Day and the conversation has been continuing. It has been very interesting to look at three recent articles on Dal News, including a two-part interview with Dwight Fischer, the University's CIO, and particularly the comments by students and other stakeholders on those articles. Check them out:

• dalnews.dal.ca - Looking to the cloud
  
• Q & A with Dwight Fischer (Part I)
  
• Q & A with Dwight Fischer - Continuing the Cloud Conversation (Part II)

If you are a member of the University community (have a dal.ca login), you can join the conversation here: https://blogs.dal.ca/connectedU/.

Ryerson University looks to the clouds

Today, I had the great pleasure of being one of the speakers at Ryerson University's broad consultation on the possibility of adopting cloud computing at the university. It was an incredibly high-quality event with a packed auditorium (in the middle of reading week, no less) and a very engaged audience.

The agenda is here: E-mail and Collaboration Tools Consultation | Email & Collaboration Tools Consultation.

My presentation is here:

If you can't see the embedded presentation, try this link: https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpx56cg_415c4c8k5g5&interval=60

The full symposium was webcast live and will be available here:

• Morning session, including introductions, Ontario Commissioner Anne Cavoukian and me.
  
• Afternoon session, including presentations by Google, Microsoft, James Turk (Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers), panel discussion and next steps by the University

If you want to see the many, many tweets which were sent out, search Twitter for #ryeprivacy.

UPDATE: Over at Slaw.ca, Dan Michaluk, who was at the symposium, has posted a few of his observations on the day: Commissioner Cavoukian says the Patriot Act is nothing.