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University email systems
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Our University Executive have just announced plans to scrap our student webmail. To replace the servers and find a reliable system will cost £250,000 apparently - a price they are not willing to pay. Yet this is the executive that paid £10,000 for their boardroom table and £8,000 picture to hang in their boardroom. And we are just finalising a new £20million building... :chin:
How many of you have student email systems - how reliable are they.
We are preparing to fight this tooth and nail as we feel one of the most modern and forward thinking universities in Scotland should have a reliable and robust student email system.
For the techies. We currently use Silkymail by Cyrusoft Inc. - apparently this is shite [not my words]. Any you would suggest?
http://webmail.caledonian.ac.uk
How many of you have student email systems - how reliable are they.
We are preparing to fight this tooth and nail as we feel one of the most modern and forward thinking universities in Scotland should have a reliable and robust student email system.
For the techies. We currently use Silkymail by Cyrusoft Inc. - apparently this is shite [not my words]. Any you would suggest?
http://webmail.caledonian.ac.uk
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
Silkymail was truly shite though.
Don't know anything about better ones as have no experience (yet) of anything else. However, scrapping it altogether would be a really bad move on their part so maybe they'll come to their senses soon and reconsider?
I'm at Bristol too. The Silkymail system is rather pants but all you need to do is follow the instructions on the resnet site and configure Mulberry to work from off-campus. It took me two minutes to do it and now I can access my email from the luxury of Clifton. Mulberry is a cracking little program. You can also search the entire uni email directory from it.
does anyone else have blackboard at uni? thats really useful aswell :thumb:
Exeter does practically everything via the Internet - we have to print out our own University timetables to take to exams this year! We register online, pay our fees and accommodation costs if living in Univesity accommodation online and all communication with places like the library and the academic schools takes place via email - it's the most effective way of communicating information to the masses - and we're expected to check our email daily. Most of our learning resources (journals, lecture notes etc.) are all online, too.
I don't know how your University intends to operate without a valid internal emailing system.
I think they are only talking about the webmail service ie. allowing you to access your email from a non-networked computer
Exactly, how do they expect to keep in contact with their students? Only a small portion of University students live in halls.
"The existing student email system is overloaded and unreliable and cannot cope with increased demands. A new student email system has been estimated to cost about £250k to buy and a minimum of £55k to run. One free and viable alternative solution is for students to use their own email accounts provided by a third party Internet Service Provider e.g. yahoo, google, hotmail etc. This was discussed with representatives of the Students' Association at the Student Officer University Liaison Group meeting on 29th April 2005. Arguably this is a sensible prudent use of very limited resources. However there may be other ways that student email can be provided and other options are being considered and costed. As a safety net we are still going to encourage students to volunteer their own email address at registration because this will take the pressure off the existing system if no alternative can be found."
This is shocking, what image does this set to potential employers? When fourth years email for future jobs, they will have to use a hotmail or google email address?? Does anyone else think that this is verging on the stupidity?
We have had the local paper up, they are going to try and print this for tomorrow and personally I can't wait.. might show those idiots in suits in the Britannia Building what a sad state of affairs it is.
If you support our cause, then please sign our petition, http://www.petitiononline.com/gcusa05/ and let them know how stupid this is. [We have already had Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and there are only one of them!! You don't have to use your real name but keep it serious]
Glasgow Caledonian as a former poly and post-1992 uni, has always been in the view of the other Glasgow unis as lacking and poor. Well our own university executive have just proven that.
Sweet Caley High they call us, and I agree. Because a university we are not!!
I can't believe a uni is considering doing away with email entirely. The "savings" wouldn't be much, after the huge increase of paper memos.
Seems a bit strange that they are scrapping the whole email thing though ...
I really cannot believe that they will scrap the email altogether. It's astonishing.
Ask them if university staff will still have email access?
Why should students pay for an email system? Every other uni has an email system why not Caley? We are supposed to be modern and forward-thinking - and it goes contrary to the "2010 Vision" that the uni published..
It is a joke, plain and simple.
Here is the students association campaign site: http://www.sa.gcal.ac.uk/main/representation/gcusa/campaigns
That is bloomin' cheeky. The students pay to come to university these days.
Write to your MP. Seriously.
Although guess who my MP is... Dr. John Reid... "Labour's Attack Dog" - so that might not be a bad idea. :chin:
Our school system uses Outlook so why can't the students? It can't cost that much (come on, if Glasgow City Council can run it then surely a Uni can)
We made the headlines...