Microsoft unveiled a Office 365 free service offering for students, teachers and faculty,

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Microsoft unveiled a  Office 365 free service offering for students, teachers and faculty.

The new service was designed to deliver the familiarity of Office — Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and combine it with Microsoft Lync, SharePoint and Exchange, which results in the delivery of a great solution for communication and collaboration.

A series of leading schools and universities are already set to pick the new Office 365 for education service, Microsoft announced. 


Among them, the company counts Dartmouth College, which will move about 13,500 faculty, student and staff mailboxes to the cloud.

In addition, Cornell University announced plans to bring around 7,000 faculty and staff to Office 365 in the fall of 2012.

Gonzaga University will also take advantage of what SharePoint Online and Lync Online have to offer. 8,000 students and 1,200 faculty and staff will benefit from Office 365.

Additionally, Microsoft announced that the Catholic International Education Office, the Scottish government for education and the All India Council for Technical Education are also committing to the use of Office 365 for education.

Overall, these new customers to the service ensure that 12.5 million more students all around thee world will have Office 365 for education.

“Getting the world’s best technology in the hands of our students and teachers is critical to improving educational outcomes and making sure students are prepared for college and career,” said Anthony Salcito, vice president of Worldwide Education for Microsoft.

“With schools’ ever-tightening budgets, Office 365 for education enables them to deliver new and innovative technology in the cloud that will modernize teaching and learning practices, at no cost.”

Considering the fact that students, faculty and teachers need tools to enable them connect and work with other people on various projects, Office 365 for education provides them with shared workspaces, synchronized notebooks, instant messaging, and audio- and videoconferencing capabilities.

Some of the special features that Office 365 for education has to offer include:

Classrooms without walls. PC or tablet, online or offline, Office 365 for education helps people stay in touch, easily share resources, jointly develop and use curricula, and communicate in ways that work for them.

Prepare students for the workforce. Office 365 includes familiar Office tools that connect with the way people work today: in social groups.

Privacy and security. The service delivers a secure, school-managed environment that keeps student information safe. Microsoft has a comprehensive approach to cloud privacy and security in the industry, and in the past year Office 365 has added support for the most rigorous global and regional standards, including ISO 27001, SAS70 Type II, EU Safe Harbor, EU Model Clauses, the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and more.