May 19, 2013

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Student Email Alert: Automatic Email Forwarding Ends on February 8, 2013

January 8, 2013 by

In March 2012, the University of Mississippi (UM) went live with UM Gmail.  Once all students were provided with UM Gmail accounts in summer 2012, UM Webmail was taken offline in October 2012.

Now, the final step is near.  As a reminder, on Friday, February 8, 2013, automatic email forwarding from WebID@olemiss.edu to WebID@go.olemiss.edu for students will no longer be in place.

Who is Impacted?

Students admitted before March 18, 2012 are impacted.  If this applies to you, the Office of Information Technology (IT) made changes to help minimize the impact.  First, your official UM email address is already set to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.   That means class roles, myOleMiss and Blackboard will reflect your correct email address.  Also, when IT migrated mailing lists to Google Groups, we changed the email addresses to WebID@go.olemiss.edu for students.

To get the word out, consider using your email signature block to promote your WebID@go.olemiss.edu email address.  On February 8, email sent to WebID@olemiss.edu will not be automatically forwarded to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Who is Not Impacted?

  • Employee email is not impacted.  Employees are provided an UM Mail (Exchange) account and may request an UM Gmail account.   There is no automatic forwarding to UM Gmail in place.  If an employee has created an email forwarding rule from UM Mail to UM Gmail, that forward rule will  remain in place.
  • Students admitted on or after March 18, 2012 are not impacted.  For these students, the automatic email forward is not in place. They were only issued UM Gmail accounts (i.e., WebID@go.olemiss.edu).
  • Students who became employees or graduate instructors are not impacted.  In short, these individuals have an employee affiliation. As mentioned above, employee email is not impacted.

Final Comments

You can read more about UM Gmail at go.olemiss.edu.  If you require assistance or have questions, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu.

Filed Under: UM Google Mail

Mailing List Service Migrates to Google Groups

August 7, 2012 by

On July 25, Information Technology (IT) completed the migration of our mailing list service to Google Groups. Google Groups is Google’s version of a mailing list service. Some of the advantages of Google Groups include a web interface for self-service group management, web-based archive mail review and support for email attachments up to 25 MB.

Key Migration Points

Below is recap of key points sent to mailing list owners when we migrated to Google Groups.

  • We migrated mailing lists and members. If the list was used in the past 18 months, IT migrated the mailing list to Google Groups.
  • Mailing list names and list email addresses remained the same (e.g., hd@listserv.olemiss.edu).
  • Student email addresses were modified from WebID@olemiss.edu to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Getting Started: Member

For mailing list members, there are very few changes. Since the mailing list names have not changed, you may email the list as you did before the migration. Students emailing a list should remember to use their UM Gmail account and not their personal Gmail account.

If you want to join a list, just send an email to groupname+subscribe@listserv.olemiss.edu where groupname is the exact name of the mailing list. The mailing list owner will take the appropriate action to complete your request.  Likewise, you can unsubscribe by emailing groupname+unsubscribe@listserv.olemiss.edu.

Getting Started: Owner

When you are ready to create a new mailing list, contact the IT Helpdesk for now. In the near future, IT will be building a web interface in myOleMiss to provide a self-service mailing list creation option. Also, we encourage all list owners to have UM Gmail accounts for full access to the Google Group management interface.

Once you have a list, the most common tasks are adding list members and creating list managers. You can review the Google Groups FAQ for answers to these questions or contact the IT Helpdesk to step you through the process.

Final Comments

IT created a Google Groups FAQ to answer the most common questions. For any other questions about mailing lists, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu.

Filed Under: Academic Technology, Email, Helpdesk, UM Google Mail

WebMail for Students Moving to UM Google Mail

March 15, 2012 by

Figure 1. Poll Results from UM community in support of moving student email to Google.In June 2011, a committee was formed to consider a University of Mississippi (UM) partnership with Google to offer Google Apps for Education to students. Google Apps for Education offers email, document creation, calendar services and home pages to use in private and collaborative projects.

In June 2011, a committee was formed to consider a University of Mississippi (UM) partnership with Google to offer Google Apps for Education to students.   Google Apps for Education offers email, document creation, calendar services and home pages to use in private and collaborative projects.

In September 2011, the committee requested input from the university community on this initiative. The survey results (Figure 1) showed an overwhelming desire to pursue Google Apps for Education as the replacement for UM Webmail.  Soon after, the Office of Information Technology (IT) began preparations for this initiative.

UM Students

Beginning on March 19, 2012, UM will provide each student with the ability to opt in for a Google email (Gmail) account.  For students, the new UM Gmail account will be a replacement for the current UM Webmail account.  Although this account will be hosted with Google, it will have the “go.olemiss.edu” extension rather than “gmail.com.”   The UM Webmail account,  WebID@olemiss.edu,  will continue to work for a while.  Once students opt in to UM Gmail, any email sent to WebID@olemiss.edu will be automatically forwarded to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Beginning on July 9, 2012, any remaining student accounts on UM Webmail will be automatically migrated over to UM Gmail.   Similar to the early adopters, any email sent to WebID@olemiss.edu will be automatically forwarded to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Further, for new student accounts created on or after March 19, only a UM Gmail account will be created.   These students should only use WebID@go.olemiss.edu for email correspondence.

UM Employees

On March 19, 2012, faculty and staff may also sign up for UM Gmail.  Instead of a replacement, this will be an additional account for UM Gmail and other Google apps, leaving the UM Mail (Exchange) account to be used for official UM correspondence.  UM Gmail accounts are being made available to employees so they can use Google Apps for Education in their roles as instructors and students.

Why UM Gmail?

The major advantages are that Gmail offers substantially more disk space than UM is able to offer, and Gmail offers better support for mobile devices,” says Kathy Gates, Chief Information Officer (IT).   “We anticipate that these two features will be highly appealing and may lead to more students using their university-assigned email accounts.”

All Gmail accounts will have 25 gigabytes of personal storage space.  There is a 1 GB limit on the storage of files that are not in the Google docs format.   Examples would be PDF or JPEG files.  Fortunately, files can be converted to Google file formats during the upload and save process.

What About Security?

For everyone, the UM Gmail password will be the same as your existing WebID password.   During the UM Gmail sign up process, a password reset will be required to meet the Google password requirements (e.g., 8 characters).   You can read about Google’s security and privacy statement online or review Google’s Public Policy Blog.

More Information

More information is available at http://go.olemiss.edu.  For questions and assistance, contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu.

 

Filed Under: Email, UM Google Mail, Web Applications Tagged With: , ,