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Lifetime  e-mail for MU alumni, students

University IT services teams up with Google to offer lifetime e-mail addresses.

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By Elizabeth Hagedorn, Contributing Writer Updated 10:58 PM Friday, December 25, 2009

Miami alumni who feel a ping of sadness when they realize their university e-mail has been deleted soon will no longer have to shed tears over losing one of their last connections to the good ol’ days.

Miami University IT Services is teaming up with Google to give students and alumni lifetime e-mail.

New students who confirm their admission to Miami will be added to the new system. Faculty and staff will not be included for now because of privacy and security concerns, said Randy Hollowell, training and publications coordinator for IT Services.

Current students will be added after incoming students, with alumni in the third phase. No exact date has been set, but it will likely be in the summer or fall of 2010, Hollowell said.

Current students and alumni will be asked if they would like to join the new system to get e-mail for life and will be instructed on how to do so, Hollowell said.

Students who graduated more than a year ago will likely need a new username because of the chances their old alias has been taken by a current student, said Micah Cooper, director of advanced technology.

Miami officials said they are excited by the chance to offer e-mail for life to alumni. Many ask how long they will be able to keep their e-mail address, said Jennifer Clark, director of alumni membership and marketing.

“We thought it was very important for students to keep e-mail addresses in order to keep in contact with the university, as well as with each other,” Clark said.

Alumni won’t be the only ones benefiting. Current students will receive 7 gigabytes instead of just 1 gigabyte — a significant increase that was not affordable before, Hollowell said.

IT Services also is starting a new policy where usernames cannot be used more than once, in order to make sure that students can keep their username forever, Cooper said. IT Services is also trying to make the system flexible for alumni who make change their name after getting married or divorced.

“Things are just different when you’re talking about an account for your whole life. That is one of the reasons the alumni will be last,” Cooper said. “The second reason is that it’s more difficult to prove they are who they say they are. We will be validating identities through the alumni office.”

The structure of the e-mails will not change significantly and will be still be accessed through MyMiami, Hollowell said. Students and alumni would more than likely still have an address including “@muohio.edu.” There will be no reference to Gmail.

Hollowell said current students would not have ads; however, once students graduate, they will have ads on their accounts just like on Gmail accounts.

As for privacy and security issues with the new system, Hollowell said that even though they are turning over to a new host, the IT Services at Miami would still handle security.

“We will make sure our practices are followed,” Hollowell said.

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1) this is totally OPTIONAL for Miami alumni, no one is being forced to do this. 2) my bet is that alumni who want to keep a Miami e-mail address are proud to be Miami grads and aren't afraid of being "tracked down" for parking fines and requests for donations. 3) not that many people will take advantage of this, Miami has e-mail addresses for tens of thousands of alumni anyway. 4) many many universities offer this, it's nothing new, and not like MU is trying to keep up with OSU. sheesh.

huh?
12:10 PM, 12/27/2009

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Bet our data bases of parking violaters will never be erased. We will track you down and get our "fine" money if it is the last thing we do. Your degree will never be delivered if you don't "show us the money!"

MiamiHeat
9:17 AM, 12/27/2009

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This would have been news worthy 15 years ago when many universities started lifetime email. Bad part is not that Miami University and Oxford as well are years behind the rest of the country in technology, but they don't even seem to realize that fact. Guess that's what happens when you live in a bubble isolated from everything, but corn and snow.

John Forsyth
1:08 AM, 12/27/2009

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I'm a higher ed it administrator. First off, Google offers this option TOTALLY free to universities. Miami only had to pay for their own programmers to hook the system to Google. So really, it's not a big leap to do this.
Yes, a university has to provide email records to anyone that asks for them.
FERPA guidelines are strict for IT. Staff/Fac don't get access because they frequently trade much personal student info over email, like contact information, grades, and social security numbers.

Chris
12:09 AM, 12/27/2009

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I graduated from Miami and Ohio State. Ohio State has football and nothing else. OSU is a bureaucratic disaster and has no perception of what a quality education might offer. Quantity they have, but all their services are mediocre.

I can't wait to trade in my OSU email for my old Miami email.

To Billy
10:18 PM, 12/26/2009

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