Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Microsoft Rolls Out Office Live Workspace Beta
12/10/2007
Microsoft has begun a full rollout of the private beta of its Live Office Workspace. OLW, unveiled earlier this year, is a Web-based feature of Microsoft Office that allows for collaboration and sharing of documents. The technologies included in OLW have already been rolled into Microsoft's Live@edu, a portal, communications, and collaboration suite for education.
Office Live Workspace is the first service released under the Office Live services banner. It allows Office users to save documents to the Web, share work, and collaborate.
"Based on feedback during initial testing and planning, we've received very positive feedback about Office Live Workspace," said Kirk Gregersen, Office Director of Consumer and Small Business Product Management in an article posted on Microsoft's site. "The product team worked hard to give Office users what they have been asking us for. We did a ton of usability and early alpha testing, during which people gave us great feedback that we've been able to incorporate into the beta you'll see today. We'll continue to evolve the service over the coming months, drawing heavily from things we're hearing on the community forum and in our early adopter programs."
He said he's also seen a high level of interest on the education side of things, especially colleges and universities. "We reached capacity almost immediately with our early adopter program, which now includes schools such as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington, and Vanderbilt University. Many students and faculty members use Office on the desktop every day, so people have been particularly excited about how Office and Office Live Workspace work together with features like the one-click save to their workspace, the Office Live Workspace add-in for Office, the high fidelity viewing experience, and the Outlook and Excel synching capabilities."
Other universities participating in the Office Live Workspace University Early Adopter Program have included Ball State University, DeVry University, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Indiana University, Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Michigan State University, University of Illinois, and Rio Salado College of the Maricopa Community Colleges.
OLW's integration with Live@edu, launched back in late October, brought users the ability to upload Office documents through the service and set permissions for others to view and collaborate on documents, including instructors and other students. Live@edu was also upgraded to provide 5 GB of e-mail storage space (up from 2 GB) and 1 GB of general storage space (password-protected). It's also added enhancements to e-mail, including whitelisting (which prevents specified e-mail addresses from being caught by the spam filter) and automatic e-mail reply.
Read More:
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Moodle Gets SCORM Improvements, Security Fixes
New versions of Moodle have been released, bringing the most recent stable build to 1.9.3. The latest round of updates includes a number of bug fixes and security enhancements, as well as improvements to the SCORM module.
- Free 'Morro' Antivirus To Replace Microsoft OneCare
Microsoft is rolling out a free antivirus software program for consumers that will compete with products made by Symantec and McAfee. Code-named "Morro," the AV app is expected to be available by the end of 2009.
- Microsoft Demos New SQL Server Features at PASS
Microsoft Wednesday previewed the ability to centrally manage applications and resources in the planned upgrade of SQL Server, code-named "Kilimanjaro."
- Microsoft Unveils Exchange and SharePoint as Services
Microsoft exec Stephen Elop on Monday announced two hosted solutions from Microsoft--Exchange Online and SharePoint Online--which are now available to organizations of all sizes in the United States. The software, paid for by annual subscriptions, is hosted on Microsoft's servers and supported by Microsoft's channel partners.
- 6 Ways Not To Become Rote Using Instructional Technology
There are, in my experience, six strategies to consider with any use of technology that will guard against rote use of technology and facilitate critical analysis of teaching and learning effectiveness. In this article, I'll share with you the checklist I work with and encourage others to work with in learning about and using new technology.
- Bringing Student Web "Stuff" to Campus Enterprise Systems
How can an institution incorporate Web 2.0 learning opportunities for students, and evidence of learning from those opportunities, into existing campus technologies and processes? PlugJam is providing part of the answer.
