Miami Student

Issue date: 3/6/07 Section: Campus

Media Credit: Whitney Hofacker The Responsible Use of Computing Policy requires students and staff to use public computers, such as these in Irvin Hall, ethically.

Miami University computer users can now take a test-run of the future of e-mail services at the university, as Information Technology (IT) Services has released the demo for its new e-mail and calendaring program from Microsoft Exchange.

Set to be officially implemented this summer, the demo is currently available at www.muohio.edu/e-mailinfo.

There, users can use the functions of the program including a task list and calendar. Users may use the demo program to send e-mails to others with a Miami account, but e-mails to external accounts (such as Gmail or Hotmail) cannot be sent or received.

The project was first conceived two years ago, yet was abandoned due to high cost until an evaluation of Miami e-mail services last August. According to Tim Pierson, senior director of computing and communication services, work then started again in January 2007.

Pierson said the program will be more streamlined and integrated than Miami's current service, SquirrelMail.

"One of our big initiatives is e-mail," Pierson said. "Students didn't like (SquirrelMail). They said there was too much spam. They said it was clunky. This is a step towards resolving that."

Cathy McVey, director of IT customer relations and communication, believes that the transition this summer between e-mail programs will be easy, especially for students.

Pierson doesn't see the new program providing much of a problem either.

"There will be training on campus for those that feel they need it," Pierson said, "but I don't know how much training students are going to require."

Currently, IT is working to set up those training schedules as well as finalizing the "core project team" made up of technical staff and consultants from IBM. According to Pierson, they have also settled on the overall design for the program, which will employ 52 servers. The current e-mail program only runs on two.

According to McVey, informational sessions for the new program have been successful with two sessions in November and one in December. These sessions have been held on all three campuses and seen an average turnout of 40 to 60 people each. So far the turnout has been mostly staff, but McVey says some students have attended as well.

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