UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Information Technology has partnered with Google to offer a suite of applications that will help improve collaboration and productivity at no additional cost to students, faculty and staff members.
G Suite for Education, available now, includes several of Google’s most popular tools — Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Forms, Groups, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, Sites and Jamboard — and may be accessed by students, faculty and staff members with a valid Penn State email address.
Users may activate their Penn State G Suite account by visiting the G Suite for Education website, clicking on the “Launch” button and signing in with their Penn State email address (e.g., abc123@psu.edu). Step-by-step instructions to Access Your Penn State G Suite for Education Account also are available on the Knowledge Base.
Penn State’s G Suite offering comes less than two years after the University’s implementation of Microsoft Office 365, another collection of cloud-based apps that have been utilized across the University to help users seamlessly explore new ideas, share projects, join conversations and gather information between campuses. As a result, Penn State’s iteration of G Suite will not include Gmail and calendaring, as Outlook will continue to be the University’s official email and calendaring platform.
“G Suite’s powerful assets will offer students more options for storage and organization and give them more ways to collaborate and be more productive outside their classrooms,” Associate Vice President for Teaching and Learning with Technology Jennifer Sparrow said. “G Suite also offers valuable resources for researchers looking to securely catalog their work from anywhere at any time, organize their findings, and ensure they’re easy to access and share.”
With Google Drive users will have unlimited storage, while Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms and Sites can provide options for productivity and ways to enhance workflows. Hangouts Meet and Chat will provide users with new communication channels, while Jamboard can bring an interactive whiteboard experience to your classroom or group meeting.
“While G Suite for Education tools are powerful on their own, they work even better together," Associate Vice President for Enterprise Applications Jen Stedelin said. "In concert with our Office 365 offering, G Suite will help break down barriers to access across the University as well as with external audiences and collaborators.”
A list of applications and training resources is available and allows users to browse training tutorials by app or job function. Beginner, intermediate and expert learning paths are available for each app. IT Learning and Development (ITLD) also has created a learning resource that will help you get up to speed.
Because the University now has two sets of productivity apps, ITLD is offering training sessions for working collaboratively with Office 365 and G Suite at Penn State. To register for these sessions, visit the Penn State Learning Resource Network at lrn.psu.edu.
For more information about G Suite applications, as well as frequently asked questions and help and support sources, visit the G Suite for Education website.