New Aggiemail accounts a benefit for students

Following requests from students for a more advanced student e-mail system than what WebMail could offer, USU Information Technology Services has made a new e-mail system available: Aggiemail.

Previously, USU students used WebMail or WebMail Plus as their student e-mail accounts. USU IT Services received many requests from students for a service that would be more reliable and would have more capabilities than what was currently offered by the Webmail system, said associate vice president for IT, Eric Hawley.

The solution: AggieMail, an e-mail system that was created in partnership with Google. Aggiemail looks and functions exactly like Google’s Gmail e-mail services and has nearly all the benefits of a full Gmail account, such as 2GB of e-mail storage space, a calendar feature with sharing capabilities, Google Chat and Google Documents. Another added benefit to Aggiemail accounts is the account remains active even after a student graduates from USU.

Aggiemail also works in conjunction with Gmail accounts, meaning users of Aggiemail can use Google Chat to instant message with Gmail users and share calendars and documents with Gmail users.

All these features come at no extra cost for students as Google provided the Aggiemail service to USU free of charge, Hawley said.

“When you look at the Aggiemail e-mail system, the ability to use Google (applications) to share and work on Word doc or Excel type spreadsheets without e-mailing documents back and forth is huge,” Hawley said. “If you’re in a project group of four or five students, in the past, if you were the group leader, you would have to take the Word document back from five students, do all the edits and get it back together. Online, you can do it all together. I’ve heard some students say that’s a great academic benefit.

“Students are also able to, if they have a smart phone, get and receive e-mail on their smart phone. So if someone is in class and wants to look up their schedule and check their e-mail real quick, they can. Plus no cost for these features.”

Realizing the limitations of the cc.usu.edu e-mail service, a board of USU IT officials and technical advisers started working on creating a new system in the summer of 2006, Hawley said. Some options considered included an in-house system powered by Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Live and Gmail, Hawley said.

The Microsoft Exchange option would have cost the school $800,000 a year to maintain an e-mail service that would provide 2GB of space and remain active even after students graduated, which would have resulted in an increase in student fees, Hawley said.

The options were presented to ASUSU’s Academic Senate and Executive Council, Hawley said. After explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each system, ASUSU unanimously approved a resolution to go ahead with the partnership with Google and create a new student e-mail system, he said.

“We had been in talks with Google for three months before (the resolution was passed),” Hawley said. “We had also spoken to Arizona State University, who had moved all their faculty and staff to Google before we did. Google does not charge USU any money for e-mail. It’s not free in the sense that it still requires IT personnel.”

At the time the resolution was passed, the e-mail system was not named and students had the opportunity to vote on the name of the new system. Aggiemail was selected as the name of the new service and was made available at the beginning of May. Aggiemail is currently available to all USU students free of charge and will gradually replace the antiquated WebMail and WebMail Plus e-mail systems.

WebMail Plus will be discontinued on Sept. 14, so students wishing to transfer their e-mail and address book to Aggiemail will need to do so by that date or lose that information, Hawley said.

“Webmail.usu.edu will stay up but will be phased out,” Hawley said. “No deadline has been set yet. New students shouldn’t create or use either of those. All new students should set up new Aggiemail accounts directly.

“If you’re a student who already has accounts on WebMail or WebMail Plus, you should create an Aggiemail account and move your e-mail over. Yes, it’s kind of a painful transition, but this pain will pass.”

To set up an Aggiemail account, students need to log in to Access using their A number and password. Next, click on the “Personal Information” link and then click on the “Aggiemail” link. Read the license agreement and click the “I Agree” link.

The next screen has a scroll-down menu that provides a list of possible user names that are combinations of the student’s first, middle and last names. Choose the desired account name from the scroll list and click the “Submit” button. If another student has already selected the desired account name, a new name must be selected. Once a name has been selected, the new Aggiemail account is created and can be accessed at aggiemail.usu.edu.

Students can only have one active Aggiemail account at a time, and this account will remain active for students even after they graduate. Once an Aggiemail account is created, students can import their e-mail and contact lists from their old WebMail accounts into the Aggiemail account.

Scott Urie, junior in landscape architecture, said, “I never liked WebMail and never used it. I like (Aggiemail) a lot better than WebMail already. I’ll be using it a lot more, possibly more than my Hotmail.”

One disadvantage to the new Aggiemail system is its inability to work with POP3 services such as Outlook or Thunderbird. Hawley said USU IT is working with Google to get this service operational.

Another difference between Aggiemail and a full Gmail account is the absence of some of the applications and advertising in Aggiemail. Hawley said USU IT regularly requests these applications from Google, but as of yet they will not add these features to their free .edu accounts.

So what happens down the road when multiple students with the same name try to sign up for an Aggiemail account and the usernames are already taken? Will the system have to be revamped?

“It’s possible,” Hawley said. “If there were 10 people with your exact same name at USU in the next 10 years and if one a year showed up, which is unlikely, there’s still another 10-15 choices available. It’s extremely adaptable. It’s the same problem Gmail is dealing with. Google has millions of accounts. Down the road we’ll have to do what they do. But that’s 30 years down the road. But we will never have as many users as Google does.”

So far, there have been no problems with the transition from WebMail to Aggiemail, Hawley said.

“Presently I think we have over 5,000 accounts created on Aggiemail and it’s growing by hundreds every day,” he said. “That’s one great advantage of Google: They’re good at handling massive amounts of users.”

For more information or help with Aggiemail, visit it.usu.edu/aggiemail or call the Help Desk at 797-HELP.

-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu