Posted by Amit Singh, Vice President, Google Enterprise

Whether you’re evaluating Google Apps, ready to make the move, or already a current user, we’re making it simpler for you to find the local, specialized, and trusted help you may need with the new Google Enterprise Partner Search. Search, click, and make the call to see how Google Apps Resellers can make your experience with Google Apps even better.


With over 6,000 Google Apps Resellers around the world, Enterprise Partner Search lets you preview the capabilities of a partner and find one that offers the services you’re looking for – from setup and user training, to email migration, management services, and support.

It’s simpler than ever, search for a partner today.

Posted by Eric Morse, Head of Sales and Business Development, Google Cloud Platform

Cloud is core to everything we do here at Google. In the last decade, we’ve invested in building an infrastructure that can serve 4 billion hours of video every month, support 425 million Gmail users and store 100 petabytes of web index, and it’s growing every day. We’ve taken this technology and extended it via Google Cloud Platform so that you can benefit from the same infrastructure that powers Google's applications.

As a business, we know you spend a lot of valuable time thinking about IT solutions. We think it’s important to provide you with the best options for your business, which is why we are thrilled to introduce the Google Cloud Platform Partner Program. This program provides our partners with the tools, training and resources they need to successfully address your business’ IT needs. For example, Orangescape Technologies, one of our partners, integrated Google App Engine as part of their platform to help United Biscuits, a leading manufacturer of biscuits and snacks in Europe, migrate their legacy Lotus Notes applications to the cloud.

The Google Cloud Platform partner program has two types of partners.

Service Partners
Service Partners provide consulting and implementation services on various Google Cloud Platform products. You can use their knowledge and expertise to develop applications like:

• Business apps: Ci&T, a global systems integrator, built a new quotation app on Google App Engine to help SulAmerica, one of the largest insurance providers in Brazil, provide better policy quotations to millions of their customers.
• Mobile apps: Agosto built a smartphone app running on Google App Engine to help the Minneapolis Loppet Foundation register thousands of participants in a Nordic ski event.
• Social apps: PA Consulting built a crowd-sourced app on Google App Engine and Google Maps for MetOffice to provide richer, up-to-date local weather forecasts around the world.

Technology Partners
Technology Partners provide tools that integrate with Google’s platform or use one of our services as a foundation for their products.

• Google Compute Engine: Compute Engine technology partners offer a rich set of management services that help you configure and manage applications running on Google’s infrastructure.
• Google BigQuery: BigQuery technology partners enable you to import data from a wide range of existing on-premise and cloud data sources into BigQuery, as well as build rich, visually interactive dashboards on top of BigQuery.
• Google Cloud Storage: Cloud Storage technology partners have integrated Google Cloud Storage directly into their offerings to provide you with active archiving, backup and recovery, and primary storage solutions.

Contact a Google Cloud Platform partner directly to learn how they can help you make the most of your IT investments by taking advantage of Google Cloud Platform.

Posted by Naveen Viswanatha, Product Manager, Google Commerce

Two years ago in November, we launched Google Commerce Search, which provides the search quality of Google to e-commerce websites with interactive user features such as Suggestions, Search As You Type and Product Recommendations. With Google Commerce Search, retailers such as GNC, L’Occitane and Forever21 are powering fast, interactive and relevant search and navigation for their customers. Simple integration with mobile and local search results allows shoppers to find products in physical stores nearby, helping retailers offer a great shopping experience from start to finish.

We’ve grown both in product features and user adoption in the past two years, but we’re not done yet. In fact, we want to make it even easier for retailers to adopt Google Commerce Search to help them achieve amazing results and meet their customers’ needs.

So today we’re announcing that we’re growing the Google Commerce Search family with the launch of the Google Commerce Search Reseller Program. Through this new program, technology providers can bring the unique capabilities of Google Commerce Search to their retail clients.

We’ve been working with some leading technology providers who have developed solutions around Google Commerce Search for the web and for mobile, and we’re excited to formalize the program and invite even more technology providers to come on board with us.

Our first new reseller is Branding Brand, a leader in the mobile commerce space who works with large multi-channel retailers to develop mobile and social commerce applications. The firm sought out Google when they heard about Google Commerce Search, as they knew it would deliver additional value to their customers. “Mobile users are often action-oriented--whether they’re locating a store, seeing what products are available nearby, or searching for a specific item–so it’s important to quickly provide relevant information in the proper context. Google Commerce Search allows us to do exactly this,” says co-founder Chris Mason. GNC was Branding Brand’s first client to launch with Google Commerce Search earlier this year, and here is what their CMO Jeff Hennion has to say about the results:



In fact, with Branding Brand we’d also like to announce our newest retail customer: Timberland. With Branding Brand and Google Commerce Search, Timberland has been able to make their mobile vision a reality, both in the core site experience but also in integrating the critical search capabilities provided by Google Commerce Search. Timberland makes quality and environmentally-responsible products, so we couldn’t be happier to welcome them to our family.

“At Timberland, the consumer always comes first. Our priority in developing our mobile website was making sure customers had the best experience possible,” said Chris Hardisty, director of Timberland Global E-Commerce. “Shoppers today expect fast and relevant results especially on mobile where speed and interactivity matter most. Since we launched our mobile-optimized website, we have seen mobile sales grow 20 times faster than our desktop site sales.”

We’re also happy to welcome Perficient, a leading technology integrator specializing in e-commerce. Perficient was keenly interested developing solutions around Google Commerce Search given the capabilities it can provide to their clients. “Google Commerce Search brings retailers of all sizes the advanced Google search features that were previously only available to the biggest players in the space, including Search As You Type, local product availability, and engaging mobile experiences,” says Sameer Peera, Principal of Perficient’s National Commerce Practice.

If you’re interested in becoming a Google Commerce Search reseller, please let us know by getting in touch.

Posted by Rahul Sood, Global Head of Enterprise Partnerships

Today, we’re making it easier for larger businesses to use Google’s cloud services by announcing the Cloud Transformation Program.

With the Cloud Transformation Program, we’ve identified select Google partners that can help you get the most out of Google’s cloud services, including Google App Engine, Google Storage for Developers, Google Apps Script and Google Prediction API. Initially, Cloud Transformation Program partners will offer customized solutions in the following areas:

• Cloud-based applications such as websites, mobile apps, social media apps, business process apps and customer-facing web apps built using Google App Engine and Google Apps Script
• Predictive solutions such as fraud detection, customer sentiment analysis, and customer churn prediction built using Google Prediction API
• Enterprise storage solutions such as storage for applications, data sharing and high-reliability backup built using Google Storage for Developers

Over time, we expect that partners will expand their focus as we add new cloud services.

We’re excited to have CSC, Cloud Sherpas, Cognizant, Opera Solutions, Razorfish, SADA Systems and TempusNova as our initial Cloud Transformation Program partners. These partners all have deep expertise and a proven track record of success helping businesses make the most of their IT investments, so we appreciate their support. To learn how you can use Google’s cloud services in your business, please contact one of our partners directly.

Posted by Jim Chow, Global Partner Programs, Google Enterprise

Resellers are one of the key drivers of customer adoption of Google Apps, Earth, Maps, and Enterprise Search. Over the last few years, the Google Reseller Program has grown to include over 3,000 resellers across 70 countries. We are excited to see our partners share our commitment to customer success. We will continue investing in our Reseller Program to ensure that all of our partners have the support and technical expertise they need to enable successful customer deployments.

Beginning today, we will start to recognize high-performing partners as Premier Resellers. Authorized Resellers remain a core focus for our Reseller program, and we will continue to invest in resources, tools and training to help Authorized Resellers succeed. For Authorized Resellers to become Premier Resellers, we have an objective set of eligibility criteria based on revenue, technical expertise and customer success. We are committed to working with each of our resellers to help them meet these specific qualifications.

We're also introducing additional categorizations to help customers identify resellers who focus on specific Google products and specific size companies.

As our reseller partners continue to help customers succeed, we hope these new standards will help them strengthen their business by providing clear benchmarks for them to strive for and meet. Current and prospective Google Resellers can learn more about the different categories and about becoming a Premier Reseller, including eligibility criteria and benefits, by visiting our Google Reseller Program website.

Posted by Ronan Hughes, CTO at Directski.com

Editor's Note: Next up, we’d like to welcome Ronan Hughes, Chief Technical Officer at Directski.com, a web based travel company based in Dublin. Directski.com migrated to Google Apps six months ago with the help of Google Apps Authorized Reseller, Baker Security & Networks. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google Cloud Calculator.

Posted by Joanne Schneider, Google Apps Small Business Team

In honor of National Small Business Week, we’d like to take time this week to share ways that Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace can help small businesses work more productively and efficiently.

Today, we’re highlighting a few of the Small Business Web apps in the Google Apps Marketplace, and how our customers run their businesses on them every day. Google shares the Small Business Web’s dedication to providing tools that have enterprise-grade functionality, as well as align with small businesses’ priorities.






These are just a few examples of the many Small Business Web app vendors in the Google Apps Marketplace who provide the functionality and integrations a small business needs. Over 30 Google Apps Marketplace apps have already joined the Small Business Web and declared their commitment to helping small businesses focus on what they do best. They include:

Finance Bill.com billFLO EchoSign Expensify FreeAgent Freshbooks Harvest Kashoo Outright Shoeboxed

CRM Assistly Batchbook CRM Capsule CRM Connect2Field Disqourse CRM Get Satisfaction PipelineDeals SAManage Solve360 CRM Tactile CRM WorkETC

Doc Management Box.net FormLizard OfficeDrop Collaboration MindMeister Teambox uberVU YoolinkPro

Sales and Marketing Mailchimp Olark SiteKreator VerticalResponse zferral

Editor’s note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Ali Ball, CIO of Broadway Malyan. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Broadway Malyan is an award-winning international practice of architects, urbanists and designers with a highly dispersed workforce. Headquartered in the U.K, we have over 500 employees working across 13 offices throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. The practice also has project offices in Baku and Edinburgh, and associated offices across Europe. In September 2010 we made the decision to switch to Google Apps with the support of Cloudreach, a UK-based Google Apps Authorized reseller and Cloud solutions system integrator. They have extensive experience in migrating businesses to Google Apps, and place a particular emphasis on managing business change and application development.

Our main motivation for moving to the cloud was to simplify our IT infrastructure and improve accessibility. After consultation from Cloudreach, we felt that Google Apps would provide exactly what we needed in terms of a greatly simplified service for our global user base and the accessibility that our mobile users require. We had recently upgraded to Microsoft Exchange 2010, however there were some major operational costs involved in running that platform. Despite those recent upgrade costs, there was still a significant financial advantage in moving directly to Google Apps.



From a day-to-day perspective, we were able to introduce our users to a new way of working through the real time collaboration in Google Docs. This method of working helps us significantly when building proposals or customer presentations. Giving users the ability to collaborate on documents and presentations online, and also use the chat and video features has not only increased our efficiency, but it has also saved us money by reducing the amount of travel required.

With Google Apps, the average user’s inbox storage has increased significantly from 1Gb to 25Gb meaning they never have to delete an email again. Plus, with Gmail’s built-in search feature they can find an email or chat message in an instant.

We have also implemented a mixture of Google Groups and Google Sites as a direct replacement for public folders, which will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

We’ve already saved a significant amount of money by moving to Google Apps, but I estimate savings will continue to increase in the future since we’ll no longer have to carry out upgrades to server-based applications, or spend management time on it. For example we no longer have to buy care packs for all of our Microsoft Exchange servers, or worry about purchasing new disks for the storage arrays when we reach capacity. To accomplish what we have with Google Apps using traditional hosted solutions would be almost impossible, and certainly cost-prohibitive. We’ve also made ourselves less dependent on office infrastructure. Everything now runs smoothly, with no intervention from us.

Posted by Ali Ball, Broadway Malyan

Cross-posted on the Google Apps Developer Blog

The Google Apps Reporting API lets administrators programmatically get information about their Google Apps environment, and today we're expanding access to the API for Google Apps Authorized Resellers. Resellers can use the API to gain a better understanding of how their customers are using Google Apps, so they can better personalize the service they provide to their customers.

Specifically, resellers can retrieve the following usage reports with the API:

• Accounts – Contains a list of the customer’s end-user accounts on a particular day.
  
• Activity – Identifies the number of customer end-user accounts as well as the number of active and idle accounts over several different time periods.
  
• Disk Space – Shows the amount of disk space used by a customer’s mailboxes.
  
• Email Clients – Identifies how the customer’s end-users access their accounts on a day-by-day basis.
  
• Summary – Contains the customer’s total number of accounts, total mailbox storage usage and total mailbox quota.

The Reporting API is one of several features we’ve been working on to let Google Apps resellers – over 2,000 and growing – understand and serve their customers better. If you’re an IT solution provider, we invite you to learn more and get started building a practice around bringing Google Apps to your customers. The Google Apps Authorized Reseller program is designed to help you enhance and strengthen your customer relationships.

Posted by Namrata Gupta, Google Apps Engineer

Editor’s note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Michael Wejchert, IT manager of Belle and Rollo, which was founded by his wife Carla Wejchert. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Belle and Rollo is an Ireland-based online children's lifestyle store offering a unique and eclectic range of items for children and families. It opened in Autumn 2010 and uses Google Apps as the heart of its communication infrastructure.


When we embarked on the path to open our store in January 2010, I was in the position of creating a business from the ground up and making critical decisions for solutions that would help us run an effective and efficient business.

I had come from a business with over 2,000 users on a Microsoft Exchange® system and was familiar with the various issues of cost, maintenance and reliability that affected our day to day communications systems. As a small start-up business, I strongly wanted to avoid the problems I had previously witnessed. We needed to have rock solid reliability but did not want to have the added complexity of running our own email hardware and the added expense of maintenance costs.

From my personal experience using Gmail and Google Docs I felt that a cloud solution would be very suitable for our needs. We needed to have accounts covering email, calendar and contacts that were accessible from anywhere, especially when working from mobile devices. Increasing the number of users quickly is also important for us as our business grows. I researched Google Apps further and contacted Baker Security & Networks - a Google Apps Authorized Reseller - who talked me through the various functionality features which lead to our decision to use Google Apps. They also recommended Irish mobile network 3 who supplied us with Android handsets to allow us to be fully connected to Google Apps when we were away from the office.

After more than six months running Google Apps, I continue to be impressed. As I spend the majority of my time on the road, the Android integration with Google services has been invaluable. Syncing multiple accounts for email, contacts and calendars has allowed me to respond to suppliers immediately and process customer queries and action orders efficiently. Once back in the office (or home) everything is in place and just as easy to access due to the Cloud.

Google Docs has given us a central hub for data creation and storage, with flexible and secure sharing settings. We have recently started to use it to streamline our invoicing process - we can generate invoices from any PC and then store them in the Cloud with Google Docs - removing the problem of being tied to a specific person, location or computer. As we work from various places - office, home office, on the road - it’s very helpful to have a central data store for the company. We have found the collaborative nature of Google Docs a very natural way of working over distance.

I am looking forward to seeing our company grow, safe in the knowledge that our Google Apps system will grow hand in hand with us, and without any of the usual technology growing pains!

Posted by Michael Wejchert, Belle and Rollo Limited

Editor's note: From time to time, Google likes to highlight partners and customers who have developed interesting and unique applications using our products. Peter Rossiter is a founder and CEO of Integeo, a company whose product leverages Google Maps API Premier. With over thirty years experience in the IT industry, Peter has led many innovative commercial ventures and research projects.

Location-based services have quickly become pervasive in our everyday lives and maps are now widely used as a convenient and useful visual tool to present data in ways that people can easily relate to.

Business Intelligence (BI) covers a collection of techniques and tools that support an organization’s decision making process. The advent of Google Maps familiarized people with the concept of data points on a map and progressively more and more BI customers are expecting fully integrated maps and spatial analytics with their tools of choice. Seeing data in the context of its location often exposes information previously hidden in the raw data.

But a tool is only useful if it’s usable. You need to focus on solving your business problems not technology. Avoiding the need for specialist programming resources is a good start followed by ensuring the BI skills of a dashboard or report designer are sufficient even if the underlying spatial analysis is quite complex.


Google Maps API Premier is a solid platform for presenting a rich background context of street and satellite data for analysis of business data. The Google API also enables us to dynamically geocode address data and users can zoom to particular areas of interest using our enhanced Google Search facility.



There is a lot more to visualizing data on maps than just plotting points and icons. Integeo’s Map Intelligence comes out of the box with an extensible, easy to use palette of spatial analytical functions. These enable clear and immediate perception of data relationships, groupings, classifications, patterns, trends and variations that stand out when mapped. A summary of the features of Map Intelligence can be found on our website.

At the click of a button, the analytics currently being viewed by a user can be interactively viewed on Google Earth. The dynamic map layers are generated by Map Intelligence from the “facts and dimensions” in the dashboard or spreadsheet, offering the choice to either use KML (KMZ including images, legend, etc.) or a network link that will update from the Map Intelligence server whenever the user changes their Google Earth view. All the information and data relationship layers are dynamically available so that as filters are applied in the BI environment they are automatically applied to the view in Google Earth.

Please visit www.integeo.com if you would like to learn more about Integeo and see why Map Intelligence is the only BI product to rank top 10 among purpose built GIS solutions (Ovum Research 2009). We offer integrated mapping analytics incorporating Google Maps API Premier as an “off the shelf” solution for users of all the major BI platforms - currently these include (but are not restricted to) BI products from Cognos (IBM), Business Objects (SAP), Oracle, MicroStrategy, QlikView, Actuate, BIRT, Microsoft Excel and SQL Reporting Services.

Posted By Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Team

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Jason Hellman, Information Access and Search Practice Leader at Innovent Solutions, a Google Enterprise Partner that works with Google search and analytics technologies. For the past eleven years, Jason has implemented eCommerce search, Enterprise search, and Business Intelligence solutions at major Internet Retailer Top 100 and Fortune 500 companies.

When Google announced Google Commerce Search we were excited to learn about the technology and the business challenges it could help solve. The promise of Google's outstanding relevance being tailored to the unique needs of eCommerce search was an intriguing prospect and we wanted to be very involved.

Google Commerce Search delivers features such as parametric search, product promotions, and customization which extend the powerful backbone of their high-availability, highly-scalable infrastructure. All of this allows the eRetailer to focus on merchandising and quality of search instead of issues such as infrastructure and peak loads. It's exciting technology and very powerful.

One of the biggest challenges we typically face is the ability to provide a demonstration of technology that is tailored to the specific interests and culture of our clients. The issue is fairly simple: how do I build a compelling proof of concept quickly that will be received enthusiastically by my customer?

It’s a challenge in any situation, but it’s even more difficult for eCommerce search. Search results are interwoven within the site design, and customers often want to see how search technology will help improve their existing product thumbnails page. Creating a demonstration usually means rewiring a sample page with enough technology to demonstrate the desired features. Submission forms, pagination, browser history, and the various search features themselves must be hand-crafted. Simply put, it can be a tedious and time-consuming task.

To help commerce site managers and developers understand the capabilities of Google Commerce Search, and see the features that are often important, we developed a reference application using Google Web Toolkit (GWT). By including the GWT-generated JavaScript within a sample page, and adding a few "div" tags to surround elements to replace, it is possible to take a static HTML page and turn it into a robust AJAX application, deriving results from Google Commerce Search.

A few tweaks to a style sheet and the results will appear identical to the original source page. It's that simple: add some JavaScript, wrap some elements with "div" tags, and tinker with a few CSS settings.

We can then present the Google Commerce Search results as if they were within the client's site itself, fully functional with faceted navigation, promotions, and all the power of Google's searching relevance.

The story can end here, as we now have a functioning implementation of Google Commerce Search. But a proof of concept only tells a part of the story. The rest of the story is told by interweaving features throughout your site with promotional zones, merchandising options, and strategies to make the most of your data and your shopper's experience.

If you'd like check out our open source solution for Google Commerce Search, take a look at the demo page on our website and let us know what you think.

When we launched the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program a year ago, a number of partners around the world were already actively helping customers of all sizes reduce IT costs and complexity while giving users the productivity tools they wanted – Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. Since then, millions of businesses have gone Google – and our resellers, too, have gained momentum. With nearly 1,000 Google Apps Authorized Resellers from more than 50 countries now building successful Google Apps practices, we celebrate our partners' progress over the last year and look forward to them continuing to drive customer success with Google Apps in the years to come.
In a recent mark of this progress, the MSPmentor 100 Report for 2010, which ranks top managed service providers worldwide, reports that already 22% of these top MSPs are now promoting Google Apps to their clients.
Our resellers represent a wide range of firms who assist businesses in adopting, leveraging, and extending Google Apps – from global systems integrators to smaller, specialized IT service providers. Acting as trusted advisors, these solution providers work to serve their clients' unique business needs and to improve user productivity via Google Apps at lower costs and with greater reliability.
In our first year, we launched some important tools to help our partners better serve customers, including our online Reseller Console for automated ordering, provisioning, and management of their Google Apps clients. Our Solution Providers resource site provides a full range of marketing, sales, and product information, while we also instituted a series of online webinars and live training sessions in Google offices around the world.
Conversations with channel firms at events hosted by Everything Channel, CompTIA, ConnectWise, and SMB Nation reinforced our belief that customer needs are well served when resellers act as the primary contact for provisioning, deployment, billing, and ongoing consulting and support.
We're especially excited about the relationships we've built with our partners over this first year. Some highlights include (in alphabetical order):
• Appirio and Genentech (large enterprise): Appirio, a cloud solution provider, migrated 15,000 Genentech users from a variety of legacy systems such as Apple Mail, Exchange 2003, Sendmail MStore, and Thunderbird. Appirio also provided a range of value-added services including integration with new systems such as Magic Meeting Marker, end user training, and on-site support.
• Cloudreach and Small World Financial Services: Cloudreach, a UK-based reseller, successfully migrated Small World Financial Services, a family of retail financial services businesses that operates worldwide, from their legacy Microsoft Exchange and Kerio environment to Google Apps. In total, 500 users across 9 countries were migrated resulting in cost savings in excess of 75% annually against their legacy software license. Here's more:

• Cloud Sherpas and Lincoln Property (mid-market): Cloud Sherpas, cloud computing systems integrator and application developer, assisted Lincoln Property with the configuration, implementation, change management and deployment support around their move to Google Apps. In addition to successfully migrating GroupWise mail and contacts data for 950 users, they implemented SherpaTools, a free app from Cloud Sherpas that provides additional IT management functions for admins and new features for employees.
• Sheepdog and Evisu (small business): Sheepdog successfully migrated Evisu off of Microsoft Exchange 2003 in less than two weeks, allowing the company to avoid its renewal deadline. They also provided comprehensive Gmail and Calendar training for all users and continue to offer support as Evisu adds new users to Google Apps.
We recently kicked off our second year by hosting our first Google Apps Partner Advisory Board here at Google in Mountain View. Our partners provided valuable input on the best ways to continue to enrich our program. In 2010, we look forward to strengthening our reseller relationships and finding new ways to help our partners build sustainable, profitable cloud computing businesses.
If your firm is interested in Google Apps reselling and services, we invite you to learn more about the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program and join this growing movement.

Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Google Apps Channels

• Add Single Sign On to your app using OpenID
• Connect your app with Google Docs and Sites
• Learn how Google architects its own GWT applications for production
• GWT + HTML5 can do what?!
• Making Freemium work - converting free users to paying customers - VC panel

Plus:

• Learn how to acquire additional customers using the Google Solutions Marketplace
• Network with Google Apps Resellers and find new channel opportunities
• Network with other ISVs in the Developer Sandbox that are already selling to Google Apps customers

Google I/O is our biggest developer event of the year, and it's also the best chance you'll get to learn about the technologies that can help you build a thriving business extending Google Apps. We hope you'll register today!

Technology has the potential to transform the educational experience and to connect students, instructors, and researchers in new ways. We think it's critical for schools and institutions to expose learners to these tools and practices to impart information literacy skills required to succeed in their careers – as students and beyond.

Sharing a strong belief in the power and possibility of open platforms, Google and Blackboard have recently teamed up to combine our platforms, and we wanted to share a few powerful examples of these integrations with you here.

Enhancing collaboration in the classroom. Earlier this summer, Northwestern University took the lead on developing a way to facilitate classroom activities by letting instructors embed Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and calendars into Blackboard course sites. Individuals enrolled in Blackboard courses are automatically added as collaborators to these documents, and single sign-on capabilities allow documents to be accessed without logging in twice.

A recent student newspaper article details how these new capabilities are being used in courses ranging from foreign language to world history enabling new models of academic collaboration and assessment. What Northwestern has accomplished exemplifies one of the best recent examples of tying together the unique capabilities of Google Apps for Education and Blackboard Learn.

Now, more than ten different institutions, Google, and Blackboard meet on bi-weekly calls to regularly discuss the future of the Bboogle project. Northwestern has also made this Blackboard plugin available through an open source educational tool community called OSCELOT for other clients to download and contribute back to.

Enabling coordinated collaboration. As part of a class project at Penn State University, a team of students examined ways to improve their online learning experience by integrating Blackboard with other systems. After some analysis, their top recommendation was to develop a solution that combined events from their multiple school-related and personal calendars into a single location.

By integrating with Google Calendar, they were able to create a Blackboard plugin that combines events from Google Calendar with academic course schedules, assignment due-dates, and group meeting times from Blackboard. Their plugin was also made available as an open source project at the end of the semester. More details, including user documentation, are available through OSCELOT at this link.

Connecting researchers where they teach. The London International Development Center was formed to connect researchers from the University of London's six Bloomsbury Colleges. Its mission is to find ways to solve complex problems relating to international development by bringing together scientists from interdisciplinary backgrounds. By creating a Google Spreadsheet that integrates behind the scenes with the familiar Blackboard user experience, the LIDC provided a way for researchers to search and connect with each other by name, college, and research interest.

Facilitating new ways to communicate. Google Wave represents a new way to approach group collaboration and communication, and thus the potential for impacting education using such a tool is significant. Imagine creating a course assignment within Blackboard that triggers a contextualized Wave of thought and conversation that can react to changes in course content within the LMS and relay thoughts and comments from subject matter experts around the world back into an assessable course discussion forum or blog.

Today we invite you to join a discussion of how you think Wave should be used to enhance educational experiences. Log into Wave and click this link to post your thoughts, then see your comments show up within the discussion forum in this Blackboard course.

The examples listed above are just the beginning of what's possible when combining the power of the Blackboard and Google platforms, and we salute the institutions that are on the cutting-edge, creating these integrations.

– George Kroner, Blackboard Developer Relations Engineer

Posted by Gabe Cohen, Google Apps Education Edition team