Students returning to campus this fall will find they have a little more “Rocket pride” in their electronic correspondences, along with a significant upgrade in their online storage capacity.
As the new academic year gets under way, the Division of Information Technology is entering into an e-mail hosting agreement with Microsoft that will not only significantly reduce the University’s computer infrastructure needs for the future, but also will significantly increase each student’s Web-based storage capacity from 250 megabytes to 10 gigabytes.
“The transition requires the migration of current students’ mailbox content to the new e-mail system,” said Dr. Godfrey Ovwigho, vice president for information technology. “We are currently in the process of creating all of the new student e-mail boxes. Once that is complete, we will start that content migration.”
The new student e-mail addresses are structured in a way similar to the previous addresses, but read firstname.lastname@rockets.utoledo.edu.
To activate the new e-mail address, students need to go to http://myutaccount.utoledo.edu and change their UTAD password. After changing the password, signing into the e-mail account at http://rockets.utoledo.edu will complete the process.
Until migration of old content to the new boxes is complete, students can access their previously received mail at http://email.utoledo.edu. All new e-mail will be sent or forwarded to the rockets.utoledo.edu account.
The change requires minimal action on the student’s part, according to Ovwigho, as current e-mail addresses will remain active for the next several years.
“If an e-mail is sent to the old address, it is routed to the new one,” Ovwigho said. “In addition, all replies are automatically sent from the new ‘Rockets’ address, so the updating process may begin.”
Faculty and staff who are also students are not impacted by the change; however, IT will be increasing all faculty/staff mailboxes by 50 megabytes in conjunction with the transition.
“The University of Toledo is among the first to enter into this kind of agreement with Microsoft, which has allowed us to shape our agreement to ensure privacy,” Ovwigho said. “Our help desk personnel will still be able to provide assistance in the event of an e-mail issue, and we still have administrative rights.”
Ovwigho estimates that it would cost the University more than $2 million to upgrade the current e-mail infrastructure to achieve a similar in-house solution, in addition to personnel.
“This transition will last several years. That is by design, as we want to make this as smooth a process as possible for our continuing students.
“Plus,” Ovwigho added, “the addition of the word ‘Rockets’ into the address gives our students a chance to show a little Rocket pride every time they send an e-mail.”
For answers to frequently asked questions about this change, click here.
