The Office of Information and Technology is converting all remaining Exchange 2003 accounts to Exchange 2010 beginning Friday at 5 p.m, said Roger Rehm, vice president of Information Technology, in an e-mail.

The process is expected to be completed before the university resumes business at 8 a.m. Monday.

“If you do need to access e-mail over the weekend, we’ve put together a lot of information at http://email.cmich.edu that you’ll find helpful,” Rehm said. “It contains up-to-date links to detailed client configuration instructions, mobile device information, and links to access your webmail over the weekend.”

The OIT Help Desk will operate on extended hours over the weekend. It can be reached at at 774-3662.

Central Michigan University is working on expanding theirs.

More students get their essential e-mail connection from CMU than the national average, according to a study conducted by the Faculty Center for Information Technology in 2006 that showed 84.2 percent of CMU students preferred their university e-mail to other forms. This number is higher than the average of 82.8 percent across other four-year institutions.

“There is a sort of mounting thought of the idea of not assigning e-mail addresses,” said Roger Rehm, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer.

A study conducted by EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit promoting information technology for higher education, indicated around 25 percent of doctoral institutions such as CMU have begun to consider ending e-mail address services.

This number is a marked increase from the 1 to 2 percent figures of 2004. But Rehm is not entertaining the idea.

“It would disadvantage a number of students and that would concern me,” he said.

Benefits do not outweigh risks

While higher education in general is getting to the point where it begins to consider e-mail roughly equivalent to paper mail, Rehm said, the benefits just do not outweigh the potential risks.

“(The CMU account) is the primary account that I use,” said Madison Heights sophomore Emily Denryter. “Most of the people I know mostly use the CMU account.”

She said she only had one other account which she used to keep up with a student group, and she is happy with CMU’s service.

“That’s my primary account,” said Rockford senior Samantha Corey.

Corey had a Hotmail account before starting at CMU, but began using her university mail to keep in touch with her professors.

Jackson freshman Chance McBride does not consider his university account to be his primary address, but he does use it for all his educational and professional correspondence.

“I have my school (stuff) on there — I don’t like getting other stuff to clutter it up,” McBride said.

The university e-mail accounts serve as communications centers for students, as well as ensuring a lack of liability for the university.

As long as CMU has one place provided by the university where students can go to check their grades and financial data, CMU does not have to worry as much about potential mix-ups, Rehm said.

“It’s a safety net,” he said.

It is with this in mind that Central Michigan University is considering alternatives in place for university accounts.

Roger Rehm, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer, is leading a committee seeking to establish requirements to be used for testing e-mail systems against general requirements.

“We’re trying to understand how many options we’ve got,” Rehm said.

Many students, such as Vassar sophomore Nick Andreychuk, share a common concern.

“Maybe a little bit more storage so you can see more e-mails,” Andreychuk said.

The current maximum is 200 megabytes for all accounts. Rehm is already optimistic about expansion in inbox data limits.

“I can tell you we’re talking gigabytes, not megabytes,” Rehm said in an e-mailed statement to Central Michigan Life.

Survey Says

A large portion of data will come from a survey circulating this week.

The e-mail survey from the Office of Information Technology is presenting a series of questions and scales which it will use to confirm or modify what the committee has established as priorities.

“Filling out the survey is the best thing people can do right now,” Rehm said.

The current e-mail system used is Mirapoint from Merit Network, and faculty use Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. They have been used since before Rehm started at CMU in 2004.

The university license for Mirapoint will expire at the end of the academic year, and Rehm would like the transition to the new system to begin before then.

Rehm said the University recognized the e-mail access system has become somewhat outdated compared to the explosive growth of Gmail and other e-mail services.

Several options are currently being considered, including Google and Microsoft live@edu suites.

Some students said they want more capabilities with the e-mail.

“The one thing I would like it to do is to be able to sync with (Microsoft) Outlook,” said New Boston senior Stephen Glaab.

He is one of many students who use their cmich.edu accounts as their primary e-mail account, a trend that is higher than the national average, Rehm said.

“Right now, it’s my primary but, because I’m a senior, I’m using Gmail because I’m not sure how long it will last,” Glaab said.

Alumni e-mail retention is a major issue on the committee’s docket. Rehm said the problem with continued alumni account service is one issue being seriously considered.