Equality impact assessment and Analysis (EIAA)
School/Directorate:Learner Support Services / Corporate Services
Name of person completing the equality impact assessment and analysis:Jerry Niman
Date of completion: 4th April 2013
What is the name of policy/functionpractice/criteria you are equality impact assessing? Office 365 project
Is the policy:
NewExisting
Section 1:Screening
What is the aim of this policy / function / practice / criteria? What is it intended to achieve?
1 To upgrade the current Outlook Live email service offered to students to Microsoft's new service, called Office 365. Microsoft hae indicated that this is a mandatory upgrade.
2 To migrate staff from the existing internal email and calendaring systems to the Microsoft Office 365, thereby offering an improved service at reduced cost to the University
Who are the main stakeholders?
StaffStudents
Community
In light of the data and evidence you have collected for this EIAA, does either of the following apply in relation to this policy or practice?
Possibility for discrimination / adverse impactOpportunities to promote equal opportunities / good relations
Section 2:Evidence and data
Please use the space below to discuss the range of engagement, evidence and data you used to assess the effects of this policy or practice on different people and groups. Discuss how you used it to make your conclusions about any impacts on equality of what you are assessing. Please ensure you include feedback where appropriate on the policy/function/practice/ criteria from the four staff forums: Race Equality, Respect Sexual Orientation, Gender, and N-Able Disabled Staff Group. You can obtain further guidance and details on the staff forums from the Equality Unit.
Office 365 is a Microsoft service offering secure, anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, instant messaging, conferencing, and file sharing.
Since September 2011, student email at the University of Bradford has been using the Outlook Live service from Microsoft, and Outlook 365 is simply an upgrade to that service. This upgrade is mandatory, as Microsoft will be wirthdrawing the Outlook Live service in September 2013. The project will also introduce Office 365 as the email, contacts and calendaring system for staff, with the eventual withdrawal of Meeting Maker.
Given the nature of the project, there is no foreseeable impact on staff or students of under the headings of: race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, gender reassingment, Pregnancy and Maternity.
There is the potential for impact under the headings of Disability (particularly visual, dexterity, dyslexia) and Age (older users may find it harder to adapt to change in layout, menus etc). There is also potential for impact on anyone for whom English is a second laguage.
Accordingly, a group of people with a variety of impariments was asked to comment on their experience using Outlook Live from an accessibility perspective, and to participate in a focus group to try the new Office 365 service. However, there was no response to the call for volunteers.
The suppliers of the service, Microsoft, have carried out extensive accessibility testing. The author feels that although it would have been preferable to have feedback from actual University of Bradford users, it is reasonable to take Microsoft's accessbility testing at face value. I therefore conclude that the move to Office 365 will have no significant adverse impact on any equalities group.
The accessibility features of Office 365 are described at
Section 3:Equality impact
Based on your findings presented in the section above, please tick the appropriate boxes below and summarise your reasons where appropriate:
Positive impact/ opportunities / Negative / adverse impact / No impact / Unknown / Reasons and evidenceRace / No rationale to suggest any impact
Gender / No rationale to suggest any impact
Disability / Microsoft accessibility information
Sexual orientation / No rationale to suggest any impact
Religion or belief / No rationale to suggest any impact
Age / Microsoft accessibility information
Gender reassignment / No rationale to suggest any impact
Pregnancy and maternity / No rationale to suggest any impact
If you have identified any negative or adverse impact, can this be justified?
Yes / NoIf you have answered yes, please explain how this can be justified:
What action will you take to reduce the negative or adverse impacts?
Changes to the policy / function / practice / criteriaConsider changes to the method of implementation
Replacing the policy / function / practice / criteria
Please discuss what action you will take to reduce the impacts:
Section 4: Action Planning
Action required / By whom / Date for completionNo actions required
Section 5:Publicising and reporting
The Equality Unit will work with you to ensure this equality impact assessment is adapted for publication on the University website.
Please use the space below to discuss how else you want to make the results of this EIAA more widely known. This might include presenting it at School or Directorate forums, committee meetings etc, or sending it to those who were consulted; you may have your own internal channels of communication you want to use.
The EIAA will be published on the web page that gives information on the Office 365 project:
Section 6:Monitoring and review
When will you review this EIAA?
This EIAA wil be reviewed when the Office 365 service is upgraded from version 2010 to version 2013. The date for this is not yet known.
Who will be responsible for the review?
The project manager at the time, or the person responsible for the service if the upgrade happens beyond the life of the current project.
How will you monitor the policy/function/practice/criteria in the meantime?
This might include collecting periodic feedback, checking statistics periodically etc. There is no requirement for another full EIAA at this stage.
Monitoring of support calls related to Office 365 in the Service Desk system.
Section 7:Approval
Dean/Director of School / Director signature:
Date:
Date sent to Equality Unit: