Google Apps IT in the clouds IMAGINE

Google Apps – IT in the clouds IMAGINE, Croatia Marijan Juresic Member of: Association of youth information centers Croatia &

Imagine The organization was established in May of year 2005 with a goal of promoting quality education for young people with disabilities. The organization make people who work on projects for young people with disabilities and young individuals with disabilities between 15 and 29 as well, the organization operates all across Croatia.

The delegation of ZAMISLI organization Zamisli organization is an association for young people which is acting on promoting possibilities for young people with disabilities and influences on providing quality to their life and education through programs of educating, informing and counseling, technical support, international cooperation and pointing at different needs of young people with disabilities

We are developing through five programs: 1. Technical support for young people with disabilities Organized transportation for educational needs of young people with disabilities in Zagreb and its district Adaptation of literature for blind (or people with sight disability)people in schooling Assistants for students with disabilities 2. Informing and counseling throughout the project Youth Information Center Office for young people with disabilities 3. Program of non-formal education through projects Club for young people with disabilities in Zagreb and Rijeka Summer camp for young people with disabilities Social actions of young people with disabilities 4. I listen, therefore I see is a program of adjusting drama art for blind people Adjustment of movie theater projections for blind people 5. Program of advocacy is being developed through social actions

Background Young organisation with motivated young people needed platform for developing projects, sharing informations, opportunities and collaborating. The platform needed to be accessible for all, from everywhere 24/7 There was no fundings to implement expensive small bussiness systems

Mission impossible Professional platform free of charge? Impossible Blind people are using Internet? Without having IT team?

Google Apps Beta program 2008. we entered beta program Because of that we are allowed to have up to 200 accounts for free (normally 50 accounts) 2009. we started to actually use this platform Decisions that we made before we started to use platform: Who will be administrator? Sharing policy Who will get account from the beginning? Do we understand how it works? Naming of accounts

Sharing policy This is one of the most important steps into implementing cloud applications First rule: do not share if it is not necessary Second rule: Project documents are shared only to people within that project, not everyone Third rule: do not share outside of organisation domain General information about organisation are shared with everyone (till now there are 3 documents that are shared with whole domain)

What is it? Google Apps is a collection of web-based programs and file storage that run in a web browser, without requiring users to buy or install software. Users can simply log in to the service to access their files and the tools to manipulate them.

What is it? (2) The offerings include communication tools Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar Productivity tools Google Docs: text files, spreadsheets, forms and presentations, a customizable start page (i. Google), Google Sites (to develop web pages)

How does it work? All of the applications in Google Apps work through a web browser. Users must have a Google account and, once logged in, can access familiar—if scaled-down—functionality for word-processing, calendaring, chat, and other tools.

Why is it significant? Google Apps is significant particularly for non-profit organizations, and higher education, the notion of providing software as services rather than as products offers several key benefits. Such an approach transfers responsibility for software updates and maintenance away from the institutional IT department, freeing IT staff from a considerable amount of software support.

GMail Common question: „I have already Gmail, I do not need second gmail account” Gmail Business also includes: chat/call inside organisation Sharing contacts Branding Available to have nicknames for example: James. Bond@yourdomain. com and agent 007@yourdomain. com

Mailing groups There is availability to make allias for group of accounts, so the communicating would be easier

Starting page (customizable)

Calendar Creating: private events, public events visible to organisation members only Inviting others (inside and outside of organisation) to some event and most important of all collect information if they accepted or not.

Calendar (creating event)

Calendar Reminders on events: Via e-mail Via SMS (free!) Via pop-up on screen

Calendar (creating event)

Google Docs Allow basic formatting of text documents but without higher-level functions found in traditional software. Spreadsheets support formulas and simple functions. Presentation allow to present directly to web, where it is available to restrict presentation for organisation or make it public available Forms are here to collect information and save it into spreadsheet Each file has a creator/owner, who determines who is allowed to access the file either as a viewer (with read-only rights) or a collaborator (who can change the file).

Google Docs Because Google stores all of the files and content centrally, collaboration and document management become far simpler than when distributing files to multiple people and keeping track of different versions. For a text document, for example, the application maintains the file, allowing authorized users to see or edit the text while keeping track of all the changes and who makes them. This version history is available and allows comparing any two versions of the document.

Google Docs

Collecting information 2 3 1 4

Collecting information (2)

Google Forms Easy to create (aprox. 5 -15 min) 7 types of questions available Storing dana into spreadhseets where we can analyze data Notifications on collected dana Notification when dana is entered Notification per analysis Accessible for blind people!

Google Forms

Google Sites Easy to make with WYSIWYG desing mode Available gadgeds like Google Calendar, Google Docs, dynamic google spreadsheets… We didn’t yet implemented into our projects google sites, planned for 2011.

Google Sites

Google Apps Mobile Available on smarthphones Two way sync of: contacts, private calendar and e-mail

Downsides? The greatest concern about Google Apps and similar services is the loss of control Because access rights are shared across the service, users rely—to some extent—on how carefully others protect their login credentials. For users, the menus and tools are not consistent from one application to another, and applications running over the web do not work as smoothly and predictably as those running locally

Different approach To implement google apps as a second domain for working with: volonteers, youth workers not closely related to organisation or people that won’t be in organisation for a long time

Movie time

Cloud computing

Thank You ! Questions?

Contact IMAGINE: UDRUGA ZAMISLI Ulica grada Vukovara 68 CRO-10000 Zagreb e-mail: ured@zamisli. hr www. zamisli. hr