New e-mail service @ WSU
By John Jones
We’ve all had these conversations. " ... at t-w-s-u-v-m dot u-c dot t-w-s-u dot e-d-u."
"T-w what?"
"(sigh) T-w-s-u-v-m ..."
In the past, faculty, staff and students have had to explain long, confusing e-mail addresses – not to mention the confusion that has been the result of the university maintaining two central mail servers (wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu and twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu). But all of that is going to change in the next few months, and soon we’ll all be e-mailing from the new server, wichita.edu.
The change will take place over the course of the spring semester and will vary depending whether the user is a faculty/staff member or a student.
The university’s computing center has just launched a new Web-based e-mail service, which is now available to all students and will be available to faculty and staff by Feb. 1.
"For some time now, we have wanted to provide better e-mail service," explains Mike Erickson, assistant director and manager of technical services and operations. "One that has a better client and is more mobile and useful to students."
The new e-mail product, "WebMail," will provide users with easy-to-use e-mail very similar to Microsoft’s HotMail.
WebMail gives e-mail service to users through the Web. Users will be able to access the WebMail page, log in and check their e-mail from any computer that has access to the Internet, whether they are at the office, at home, in the library or anywhere else in the world.
Currently, there are two alternatives for faculty and staff to move to the new wichita.edu server. The choice is voluntary and depends on the needs of the department or user.
The first choice is to install Lotus Notes, an office-based e-mail system. Departments that have switched to this system have usually done so in order to have a complete office e-mail and calendar scheduling software package available to them. University computing provides installation, training, support, and follow-up workshops for this application. For more information, please contact Marguerite Schmidt, 978-3901 or marguerite.schmidt@wichita.edu.
By Feb. 1, those not interested in Lotus Notes will be able to move their accounts to the WebMail-accessible wichita.edu server from wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu (which also supports the twsu.edu extension) or twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu. This will give faculty and staff the same Web access that the students now have.
Erickson plans to have all e-mail accounts consolidated onto wichita.edu by the end of the spring semester.
Mail will be forwarded to the new wichita.edu address from the main two servers for 60 days or users can have that account deleted.
Announcements will be made when the WebMail service is available to faculty and staff.
Students who don’t have existing WSU central computing e-mail accounts will be set up on the new WebMail server when requesting a university e-mail account. Students on the wsuhub or twsuvm server can request a new account to receive the wichita.edu extention.
For more information about WebMail, contact Erickson, 978-3453 or mike.erickson@wichita.edu. The WebMail pages can be accessed at http://www.wichita.edu/email.
