September 9, 2002

An email upgrade

All students preassigned UCSC email addresses; '@cats' address may be thing of the past

Two major changes are taking place that will make email services at UCSC more user friendly and much more usable as a communications tool.

One modification, which takes effect on September 15, will enable holders of CATS email accounts to drop the "cats" portion of their email address. The second change--the preassignment of email addresses to all UCSC students--was implemented this summer and promises to improve significantly the usefulness of email in the day-to-day operation of the campus.

Up until this year, students were eligible to receive a CATS email account, but many did not do so--making it difficult for instructors, administrators, other staff, and fellow students to know how to contact them electronically.

The change to preassigning accounts means that email is already active for all students in the current term. Faculty and other campus units can send email about classes and student services to this account with an assurance that email will be delivered. Faculty will receive electronic class lists with email accounts for all students and can therefore create comprehensive class mailing lists.

"In the past I couldn't rely on email as a communication method with students during the first few weeks of a class," says professor of computer sciences Charlie McDowell, who endorses the new preassignment practice. "Now I can use it even before the first class meeting. For a large intro class it could easily have cost several hours during the quarter dealing with students that didn't receive an email message and getting email addresses entered for students that didn't have them in the initial class list."

To access their preassigned email account, students need only to set an initial password through a real-time, on-line process, says Janine Roeth of CATS, chair of a campus committee that recommended the preassignment practice to the campus's Informational Technology Committee (ITC) last spring. ITC wholeheartedly endorsed the recommendation.

Students, many of whom consider companies like Hotmail or AOL their email providers of choice, only need to use an easy-to-navigate CATS web page to specify an off-campus address to which they wish to have their UCSC email forwarded (see information, below).

"If faculty or campus units rely on email communications, they should encourage students to set their password and/or forward their email," says Roeth. "Besides email, this same account will give them access to campus instructional lab computers, dial-up network access from off-campus, and the central Unix timeshare systems."

Carol Douglas-Hammer, of Student Housing Services, says the preassigned accounts will also enable UCSC to use email more effectively to communicate with students about non-classroom matters. "Students, for example, who live in university housing are expected to have and regularly check their campus email account. This change will enable us to use email more extensively to communicate necessary housing business with our residents."

The other change in email--the introduction of the simpler "@ucsc.edu" addressing--will benefit CATS account holders. Starting September 15, faculty, staff, and students can choose to substitute "@ucsc.edu" where they would otherwise have used "@cats.ucsc.edu". This applies to individual's email addresses as well as @cats.ucsc.edu mailing lists. Users may continue to use @cats.ucsc.edu without concern or can easily shift to the shorter "account@ucsc.edu".

Amy Hamel, of Services for Transfer and Re-Entry Students, welcomes the change. "This definitely makes things more simplified and recognizable," she says. "It's been hard to explain to people why 'cats' was in my email address."
Users that shift from @cats.ucsc.edu to @ucsc.edu will want to make the following changes:

Let recipients know about the new address--a "signature" at the bottom of messages is a good place to put this news, Roeth says.
Update any filters or rules-based mail sorting to work for both @ucsc.edu and @cats.ucsc.edu.
Contact any non-CATS mailing list administrators to update the subscription to the new @ucsc.edu address.
Update the settings on mail readers. Pine users on central CATS servers need not make any changes, but Eudora users will want to change their return address to omit "cats". For example, account@cats.ucsc.edu will become account@ucsc.edu.

Faculty or staff that use non-CATS email services may take advantage of the @ucsc.edu addressing by forwarding email sent to their CATS account to their active address. For example, faculty with the active address "account@soe.ucsc.edu" may request that email sent to their CATS account be forwarded to their SOE address (see information, below).

All current faculty and staff are eligible for CATS accounts and, if they don't have an account, can contact the CATS Information Resource Center (infocat@cats.ucsc.edu) for more information. (Beginning on September 15, the Information Resource Center will also receive email sent to: infocat@ucsc.edu.)

"Simplifying our email addresses and establishing accounts for all students are steps towards a common UCSC electronic identity that can be used for all forms of University business," says Pat LeCuyer, assistant vice chancellor of CATS. "Our unit is committed to improving email services and their effectiveness for the campus community."

Related links:

Information and links in a message on the Student Portal:
https://students.ucsc.edu/

Student Email Account Password Setting:
https://webmaint.ucsc.edu/cats/cgi-bin/register.pl

Email Forwarding:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/cats/sc/services/forward-mail.shtml

Email discussions on campus:

ITC minutes from January 11, 2002:
http://planning.ucsc.edu/pac/MtgNotes/itc/itc-02-01-11notes.htm

PAC agenda from May 28, 2002 (minutes not yet available):
http://planning/pac/MtgNotes/pac/pac-02-05-28agnd.htm

Return to Front Page