The University of Texas at San Antonio Increases Collaboration and Strengthens Cybersecurity with Microsoft 365

Founded in 1969, The University of Texas at San Antonio has quickly risen to become one of the country’s top-tier research institutions¹. It serves over 34,000 students, and its academic colleges provide 24 competitive doctoral programs. To eliminate disparate email systems and to promote student and faculty collaboration, the university’s new Digital Customer Experience department spearheaded the campus-wide migration to Microsoft Office 365. This move delivers a centralized platform for university communications, enhanced cybersecurity tools, and an opportunity for students to hone professional workplace skills. 

Focusing On Effectiveness Over Immediacy

In early 2021, UTSA chose to migrate its entire student population to the Microsoft Office 365 platform. Previously, there was not a standardized communication platform and students could use personal email addresses through any provider. This resulted in a high burden for students and staff to determine how to communicate, collaborate, and submit work. For example, an English professor would have essay assignments submitted in a variety of forms such as Word docs, PDFs, Google docs or Mac pages. When official university communications went out around critical issues such as financial aid, advising, or scholarships, the IT department couldn’t verify if or when the content was received or viewed. Often, important university communications were lumped into spam folders causing students to miss deadlines and advising opportunities.

Before rolling out the new platform, Dr. Jessica Abel Wilkinson, Director of Digital Customer Experience for UTSA, took a unique approach that prioritized capturing and preventing potential difficulties across user populations. Her team spent over ten months identifying pain points and understanding student and faculty needs, including accounting for varying comfort levels of different student groups with technology. For example, a senior who is near graduation has different email needs than a new freshman. Seniors needed continued access to their email archives and continuity in receiving email from before the migration to best prepare them for the job market. Freshmen, on the other hand, have no alternative UTSA email experience with which to compare the Office 365 platform—making them digital natives in a new, more collaborative environment.

Honoring student identity by embracing preferred rather than legal names was another key consideration that Dr. Abel Wilkinson’s group embedded in the project plan, even as it raised complications with coding on the backend.

Dr. Abel Wilkinson’s team also pushed to introduce the new email platform mid-semester, recognizing that even though it seemed like it would be best to introduce a change at the beginning of term, to do so would make it more difficult for students to establish themselves and sort their financial affairs. By ensuring the email migration would not interfere with the start of term, the team was able to prevent any negative impact on enrollment or financial aid disbursement. This timing also ensured that students and faculty had well-established lines of communication prior to navigating the change, making the process smoother and helping to prevent communication gaps that could impact grades.

“If we wanted students to adapt to the new email platform smoothly, we couldn’t rush implementation” noted Abel Wilkinson. “While it was possible, on the technical side, to make the migration anytime, we recognized that we needed to emphatically prioritize communication and collaboration.”  

Over the course of two months, more than 34,000 active students and 100,000 alumni mailboxes were migrated to Office 365, and the IT team was impressed with how smoothly it went.

“Out of thousands of users, roughly 1,000 IT tickets were created—just under half of those were simply due to people not reading instructions—and they were all resolved within a few weeks,” said Nassos Galiopoulos, Chief Technology Officer and Deputy CIO at UTSA. “A critical success factor was not approaching this as a simple technology project. We garnered support and early buy-in across both university academic and leadership teams so that we were all aligned on this strategic initiative.” 

Bolstering Cybersecurity

The move to Office 365 let UTSA use the same robust set of tools it was using to protect faculty and staff, including highly sensitive research data, to also protect students. This expanded the "walls" of its security posture to encompass the entire UTSA community—not just people who work for the institution. 

Now, UTSA IT has more visibility than before into campus-wide communications. For example, IT can provide UTSA Marketing with verification that a specific email landed in 40,000 inboxes with an exact open rate. Previously, IT did not have that visibility because of the disparate email providers being used by students. 

Security concerns and threats facing students, such as phishing scams attempting to gain personal information via fake email addresses were a regular challenge. “Office 365 gives us the visibility across our environment to ensure that student identity is protected,” said Galiopoulos. “This has alleviated a lot of headaches from the previous solution, minimizes the time we spend investigating accounts, and strengthens risk mitigation at an organization-wide level. At this fraught time in the cybersecurity landscape, the ability to detect suspicious activity or red flags from one powerful tool enables us to identify ways to improve security and to act on potential threats at lightning speed.”

Preparing the Workforce

Giving students professional workplace skills was another leading factor in UTSA’s decision to move to Office 365. “Students can either learn the tools now or on the first day on the job, and the latter puts them at a disadvantage,” said Dr. Abel Wilkinson. “Bringing students into this platform boosts their professional development. The work they’re doing in academia does double duty because it’s also teaching them how to collaborate in a professional context.” 

Office 365 gives UTSA students a managed digital experience and new ways to work and collaborate. “Students are doing things that we couldn’t even imagine with the tools,” said Joe Tobares, Director of Learning Technologies. “I saw one student writing a research paper using just a keyboard and his phone. Every student automatically getting a Windows license and access to Office 365 across all their devices creates a level playing field so that students can use it where, when, and how they want.” Additionally, students can access Office apps entirely in-browser, ensuring that no matter a student’s access environment, they can still complete assignments and collaborate with others.

The in-depth planning by UTSA’s Digital Customer Experience team was pivotal in the university’s successful adoption of Microsoft 365. Today, students and staff are benefiting from the power of increased collaboration, workforce preparation, and a strengthened IT security team. 

“Integrating the students and faculty email systems in Office 365 has made collaboration and information sharing seamless,” said Kendra Ketchum, UTSA Vice President for Information Management and Technology. “At the same time, it has bolstered our ability to secure and protect university data while dramatically improving the overall technology experience.” 

1. UTSA attains prestigious Carnegie R1 Classification, elevating San Antonio as a destination for innovation