Biola Employee Google Apps Account

All Biola faculty and staff receive a Google Apps account which includes a Biola email address (@biola.edu) for university-related business and communications. Faculty and staff should send university-related business and communications from a university-managed Google email account.

As an employee, the work you do on your Biola Google Apps account belongs to the university. Employees lose access to their Google Apps account on their last day of employment.

As of April 2022, Biola will not provide employees who are also alumni with an alumni Google Apps account. Please visit the Alumni Google Accounts page for more information.

For more information about IT policies for employee technology use, please see our policies page.

Can I store Personally-Owned Data on my Biola Google Apps account?

Your faculty and staff Google Apps account is a tool for university work, managed by Information Technology. As with any university service, it may be replaced or disabled if necessary.

The data on your Google Apps account belongs to the university. This account should not be used for personal communication or to store personal data. Biola University is not responsible for recovering or maintaining any personal data or services on your Employee Google Apps account.

What is the difference between University-Owned and Personally-Owned Data?

University-Owned Data refers to any data that you created while at work, or is used to accomplish your job at Biola University.

Examples include:

Business communications
Student records
Personnel records
Meeting notes
Project proposals
Policies and procedures
Backups of data from your work computers
Data shared with you by your coworkers

Personally-Owned Data refers to any data unrelated to the university, and not needed for your work.

Examples include:

Vacation photos
Personal financial documents (tax records, retirement records, etc.)
Utility bills
Backups of data from your phone or home computer
Schoolwork that belongs to you (e.g. if you were or currently are a student)

How can I identify Personally-Owned Data?

Generally speaking, any data you create while at work is owned by the university. If you were a Biola student before you became an employee, the easiest way to identify personally-owned data would be to do a search in Google Drive for all data created before your first day of employment.

How do I download my Personally-Owned Data from my Biola Google Drive account?

For detailed instructions with screenshots, view Google's documentation here:

Employees will need to download their own personal data for the following reasons:

You know your data, what is your intellectual property and what is Biola data.
Biola Google users have exclusive access to their accounts. IT does not have the ability to access your account without taking exclusive control.

Can I use Google Takeout to transfer or download my Personally-Owned Data from my Biola Google Drive account?

Google Takeout only allows users to transfer or download all of the data in their account. This functionality is disabled on employee Biola Google accounts for the following reasons:

Biola is operationally and often legally responsible for much of the data on your Google Apps account, and we cannot allow employees to take any of that data with them when their employment ends.
IT cannot easily sort out your intellectual property from Biola data that must be retained.

Can I keep my Biola Google Apps account after my last day of employment?

Employees lose access to their Google Apps account on their last day of employment, even if they are an alumnus. Your Google Apps account is intended for Biola business-related correspondence and storage, and any personal data should be downloaded off of your Biola Google Apps account before your last day of employment.