| NEWS
| July 19, 2005
Computing and Technology
Officials to implement e-mail plan
‘E-culture,’ a new
information policy, will send grades, bills and other notices to
students’ university e-mail accounts beginning in the fall.
By Bunmi
Ishola
Contributor to The Shorthorn
Starting in the fall, the university will
implement a new e-mail policy called “e-culture” to
communicate information with students and staff.
Currently, all university information is handled by the U.S. Postal
Service, but officials hope to transition to using students’
university-based e-mail account instead. Some of this information
includes grades, bills, class notices and campus events.
Associate Provost Michael Moore said the transition would be a gradual
process, since students do not have a history of using their e-mail
as a source of official communication with the university.
“We’ll take some time to roll this out,” he said.
Dale Wasson, associate vice president for Student Services, said
the university recognizes that this transition might take a lot
of time; therefore, it will only start by communicating basic information
through UTA e-mail accounts, such as announcements from the president.
“It’s an evolutionary thing,” he said. “It’s
not something you can just flip the switch.”
Moore said the upcoming changes to the campus information system,
the addition of an ATM/debit card feature to the Mav Express card,
among other changes, made this a good time to implement “e-culture.”
“This [change] kind of fits in nicely,” Moore said.
“It makes sense.”
Wasson said the recent technological upgrade of the university’s
systems also makes this transition timely.
Although officials have been consulting other universities that
currently use similar e-mail policies to help formulate one for
UTA, Wasson said there are still a few issues.
One issue the new policy is facing is e-mail forwarding. If students
forward mail received in their UTA account to a private account,
such as AOL or Yahoo, it may not be received.
“Some private companies are cracking down on spam,”
Moore said. “If [students] are forwarding to other accounts
and [mail] is deleted, who’s accountable?”
Public Affairs Director Bob Wright said the university has plans
to start a student newsletter, which will be distributed through
the e-mail accounts.
“We’re hoping that [the newsletter] will cause them
to check their e-mail,” he said.
The newsletter will keep students informed on sporting events, drop
days, registration and other things happening that may concern them.
Wright said that since the student newsletter may not be enough
to tempt students to use their UTA e-mail accounts, the university
would continue to remind and encourage students.
“There will be a pretty significant amount of campaigning,”
Wright said.
Students attending orientation are being told about the new policy.
As the fall semester approaches, banners will be hung around campus,
and flyers will be handed out at registration. Wright said the only
problem the university may face with this is communicating and promoting
the new system.
Moore said he thinks this change benefits both the university and
the students. The student government has even agreed to pay for
a considerable amount of the upgrade.
“So, it’s a student funded incentive,” Moore said.
Wasson said he thinks the university needed to do this in order
to keep up with the advancing technology.
“I foresee us doing this over cell phones one day,”
he said.
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