Byebye Google (english version)

(original french version)

"Bye Bye Google" is the (relatively self-explanatory) code name for a multi-year project that successfully disconnected ERG from Google. Table of Contents

Back to the Future of the 2000s

It is October 14, 2009, and the first @erg.be email addresses are created in what was then called Google Apps for Education, a Google service launched three years earlier that brought together and linked Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Talk.

Between 2006 and 2012, Google Apps (which became G Suite in 2016 and then Google Workspace in 2020) was free for all users, but later became free only for the Google Apps for Education and Google Apps for Nonprofits versions (in Belgium, for certain non-profit organizations and foundations approved by a private "charity business" company). Other organizations, SMEs, etc., that had grown accustomed to using "free" services and tools found themselves forced to dig into their pockets or completely rethink how they collaborate online...

However, the Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals version, which ERG had been using until then, remains free (while the Standard and Plus versions cost a few euros per student per year). In short, a pricing strategy that’s hard to beat!

And yet, the school has chosen to disconnect from Gmail, Drive, and the like. Why?

A look back at the lockdown periods

A combination of several factors allowed the school to begin a shift toward open-source software, as Peggy Pierrot noted during the presentation at St·e Claude, namely:

• Peggy was working at Matos at the time and was able to set aside time to organize this;
• there is a supportive community within the school that favors free software (with a number of people — including some teachers, administrative staff, and members of the administration — who want to give free software a more prominent role);
• several people at the school were close to key players in Brussels’ community-based internet scene (notably Tactic asbl, Domaine Public, etc.)
• And last but not least, the lockdowns have highlighted the need to stay in touch with students (despite social distancing).

During the first lockdown, the ERG community decided it was entirely possible to avoid relying on Zoom, Teams, and the like, especially since Peggy had the “keys” to a Mattermost instance (an open-source alternative to Slack), which allowed for a lighter and more fluid digital conversation than email. A collaborative effort involving peer-to-peer internal training and the promotion of these new approaches helped us get through the first lockdown. Various open-source tools were made available for distance learning: Jitsi and BigBlueButton for video conferencing and online classes, for example.

A collaborative effort involving peer-to-peer internal training and the promotion of these new approaches helped us get through the first lockdown. Various open-source tools were made available for distance learning: Jitsi and BigBlueButton for video conferencing and online classes, for example.

As we prepared for the start of the 2020–2021 academic year and anticipated a second lockdown, a need arose: to maintain reliable channels of communication with students. However, unlike other art schools using Google Apps / G Suite / Google Workspace for Education, the erg has never systematically created accounts for each of its students, or even for each professor. With pseudonyms, homonyms, and other variations in personal email addresses or changing phone numbers, it’s not always straightforward. That’s why we came up with the idea of standardizing email addresses for students in the format firstname.lastname@erg.school.

Why @erg.school and not @erg.be?

Since the idea is to avoid rushing into Zoom and similar platforms, we shouldn’t rush into Google either! However, with Google Workspace, @erg.be email accounts for teachers were managed through Gmail. Rather than doing everything at once, to address the most urgent needs, given the available time and out of concern for the well-being of the administrative team and the teaching staff, the plan is to create email addresses with a different domain name (erg.school, in this case) over which ERG and Tactic would have full control, allowing them to start from scratch with the students, which would also make it possible to distinguish their email addresses from those of the faculty or administrative staff.

As a result, by September 2020, all students who had confirmed their enrollment had a university email address, cloud storage space to save their work or access course materials, and access to the Mattermost platform.

European Recovery: Business Not as Usual

At the end of 2020, the European Union launched an economic recovery program: NextGenerationEU, a temporary instrument designed to "repair" the economies of member states following the (economic) crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to create a "greener, more digital, and more resilient future." The centerpiece of this program is the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which will result in additional grants for the ERG from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

In fact, all higher education institutions (art schools, as well as colleges and universities) in the French Community of Belgium were eligible for a predetermined budget (calculated based on the number of students) simply by submitting a request and presenting a spending plan that fell within the framework of the RRF program. While some schools choose to invest in brand-new computers to “bridge the digital divide,” ERG decided to build on what had already begun to take shape: a digital ecosystem centered on Brussels-based actors and powered by open-source software.

Beyond the matter of principle, it was also a question of survival (how to ensure access to our data regardless of any crises that might arise) and legal liability: according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the school administration is responsible for protecting the data entrusted to the institution, and we knew that Google and Microsoft, to name just two companies store their users' data all over the world to ensure redundancy, 24/7 access, and so on (sources here and there, or Denmark’s decision to ban all Google Workspace products). The university was therefore unable to guarantee this protection while still being held liable in the event of a data breach.

This idea of returning to the “local” (in the sense of proximity, not nationalism) was also an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the working conditions of the data hosts, as well as the technical and legal requirements we face, on Linux servers in Belgium.

This digital learning has another purpose: switching to other software (rather than the big-name products in the field) allows us to learn the principles of software (rather than the specifics of a particular brand) and to gain a better understanding of the practical aspects of how these infrastructures operate. This learning does not happen on its own or spontaneously, but rather through training, information, and peer-to-peer explanations (among students, teachers, and administrative staff), which facilitate a smooth transition into these “different” work environments. The friction that arises (sometimes) is (often) a source of demystification and reclaiming digital tools — tools that may also be used or encountered again later in their professional lives. Indeed, more and more organizations, both in the cultural sector and elsewhere in Brussels, are using these tools.

Where is the exit, please?

In practical terms, how did this disconnection from Google Workspace take place?

Having set the stage, it is important to emphasize that without the regular and dedicated support of Tactic’s IT staff working closely with the teams, this change could not have taken place. It also requires curiosity, energy, solidarity, and a willingness to listen among members of the administrative teams, students, and faculty in this collective learning process.

While we can’t offer a ready-made solution, we can highlight a few key elements of this project. We can’t offer a ready-made solution because — though it goes without saying (but it’s always better to say it) — this involves a unique dynamic within a group of people, a social entity with its own inertia, making it difficult both to initiate change and to put “normal” activities on hold.

At the start of the 2021 school year, Peggy Pierrot is handing the reins over to Maxime Hackermann, and erg nomade is gradually transforming from an email address (created on March 17, 2020, to try to distinguish between requests for equipment and those specifically related to IT) into a cross-functional space, straddling support for students in learning to use the digital services offered by the school, collaboration with faculty to adapt new tools to their teaching practices, and support the administrative team to ensure that the right information reaches everyone. Not to mention regularly reminding everyone of their passwords!

Planning to phase out the use of Google Workspace (primarily Gmail and Drive) will begin in early 2022. While the migration of “cloud” features (file sharing and collaborative editing) can be carried out over a long period alongside the use of Nextcloud — by encouraging people to stop creating new files in Drive starting in the fall of 2023 — the issue of email is more complicated and requires a deadline, a turning point. The summer “break” (which isn’t really a break from the institution’s perspective, since as soon as the juries and second sessions end, it’s time for registration, then admissions, then the start of the school year, and off we go again…) is identified as the least bad time for this transition. This allows us to provide individual support to administrative staff, since teachers are less active on email during the summer, but also to Tactic’s IT staff, who took their vacations at different times (yes, IT staff are human beings just like everyone else, and they need vacations too ;~) to continue fixing configuration issues and unexpected bugs that arise during the first few days of use.

Over the course of this past year and a half, the migration process has involved, on the one hand, resolving and anticipating technical issues, and on the other, listening to, understanding, and addressing everyone’s needs and concerns regarding this major shift in work habits. Indeed, email and online shared documents (which have become quite central to “Google’s workflow”) are everyday tools that many of us use constantly. Changing them means changing the most basic work habits; it means touching on the personal side of everyone’s work. It also calls into question a form of work efficiency that allows us to be productive — or, at the very least, to avoid burning out at work by struggling with our keyboards and mice (and the psychosocial risks that this entails). Special attention was paid to identifying the features most frequently used by the team so that they could be carried over to the new environment, as well as to creating documentation in the form of step-by-step, illustrated tutorials—both online and in print—that allow everyone to (start) finding their way around before eventually asking their colleagues for help.