The Telegraph moves over to Google

It seems we're not the only ones trialling out Google applications in professional settings. The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) began trialling out Google Apps 6 months ago, and they have already decided to move all of their 1,400 employees over to Google Apps. To read more click here.

Google Apps is a suite of applications; Google Calendar, Google Sites, Gmail, Google Talk and of course Google Docs! These applications are designed to increase collaboration amongst group settings.

After the Telegraph's 6 month trial with Google Apps, the TMG CIO Paul Cheesbrough said: "The feedback was, as far as IT trials go, overwhelmingly positive. People were able to find things much quicker and share things much quicker. So the feedback was good and certainly the bulk of the people who trialled, it would have been very difficult to take it away from them - and if you'd have said that to me at the beginning of the year, that would have been quite surprising."

Google also offers a package for educational institutions, Google Apps Educational Edition, which the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, has recently adopted. Click here to read more.

Google Docs just gets better!

Google Docs is constantly updating to make our lives easier, and now they have just brought out Templates and Dashboard.

Templates allow you to create a document, presentation or spreadsheet easily and quickly, by offering pre-set designs that you can use for your own purpose. There are over 300 template designs to choose from, whether you're creating an invoice, timesheet, slideshow, party/wedding invitation, budget form etc, they have it all for you!

To create a template simply select 'new' from the list page view and select 'Form template' from the drop down menu. You should then see a page that looks something like this:




The other new feature is the Google Docs Dashboard which saves advanced searches. Besides showing the list of saved searches in the sidebar, Google Docs creates an iGoogle-like page with containers that include results for each of your saved searches. You can reorder the containers using drag and drop and select the maximum number of results.

Depending on the way you use Google Docs, the dashboard is a great opportunity to group related documents, see a list of recently published documents, display the content of a folder or the documents shared with you by a collaborator.

To create a new container, click on "Show search options", build your query and click on "Save this search". A simple example of container shows all the documents from the "School" folder that have been shared with you:

APT STAIRS Project features in theTimes Higher

Our Project has been featured in The Times Higher Education! Check it out on our news site:

http://sites.google.com/a/jiscapt.net/project-plan/Home/News

Post Launch

Apologies I haven't written in here sooner, we were all having a little breather after the launch event. The team and I were extremely pleased with the success of the event; from the interesting speakers from Google and JISC, to the audience enthusiasm with Google Docs. The pictures of the event are on the site, so have a browse through!

Now the launch has officially opened our APT STAIRS project, we're all getting our hands dirty with Google Docs. So far we have 6 Google Docs projects lifted off the ground, and have more in the pipeline. We have a variety of projects on the go, including a project involving the use of Ipod Touch mobile devices in the classroom.

I'll be back soon with more blogs and updates on the website, including a new page on project developments.