Student e-mail system upgraded

Some students have voiced concerns about changes in their University e-mail service, but the modifications are designed to streamline the system and make it more reliable, says Doug Jackson, associate vice president of Academic Computing Resources.

“We have developed an e-mail standard for students to ensure they can connect in an official capacity to the University,” Jackson says.

In the past, students would have their own private account and University officials had no way of knowing if it really belonged to the student and not his or her best friend or someone else, Jackson says. Sacramento State needs a valid account with each of its students, he adds, so that the student can receive official communications in a secure manner.

Previously, students also had a preferred e-mail address and a forwarding address. New students won’t be using the forwarding address, and the preferred address won’t be used unless there’s an overwhelmingly exceptional need, Jackson says.

Current students will still have the other addresses available for their use, but Sacramento State’s Information Resources and Technology department has been sending out notices to make sure those addresses are correct. “We are testing them and confirming they are actual addresses,” Jackson says. “We’re not saying existing students can’t continue their forward, we just want to make sure they’re effective—that they work.”

All students are being asked to send and receive their official e-mail through their Sac Link account. That will make things easier not only for the students, but also for faculty. A professor will no longer have to gather individual e-mail addresses from each student in the class, trying to interpret each one’s handwriting, Jackson says. Instead, a list of Sac Link accounts will be available for instructors.

And with the review of current students’ forwarding addresses, the odds are even greater they will receive the information they need. “We don’t want our students to miss out on financial aid or an assignment that’s due, or any other important messages,” Jackson says.

His team has also improved the Sac Link e-mail system. “We’ve beefed it up. It’s much easier, much more robust and much more accurate,” Jackson says. Students will find it easier to get to their e-mail from the new uPortal site, also known as My Sac State 2.0.

Creating the portal has been a major project. It’s not just a list of URLs, but a collection of channels—areas within a page that may change with updated information. “It’s like many different windows on one page,” Jackson says.

One important element of the uPortal is a single sign-on for users. “You can go to one spot, log in, and gain access to all services without having to log in again,” Jackson says. My Sac State 2.0 is scheduled to fully replace My Sac State Classic on Sept. 16.