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Dealing with E-mail: What is your strategy?

Submitted by a_calder on Tue, 2010-03-02 21:44

We are evaluating our options for e-mail as we look forward to Luminis 5 which, as I understand it, will deploy with no e-mail solution built in.

We have been offering e-mail to our students for 9 years now, and there is a strong feeling that we should move away from supporting our own solution, as nearly all students come with their own e-mail address anyway. Faculty and Staff are on a separate e-mail system.

I am interested in your school's solution to email, now and into the planned future. 

If you have a moment, can you answer the following few questions. Also, please add in any information you think is relevant to the discussion.

Current E-mail

  • How are students using e-mail right now at your institution? Are you using the included Java Messaging/Com Express solution? Integrate an external solution? Allow RSS aggregation of external sources?
  • If you are not hosting on-site, is e-mail integrated into your Luminis instance? Was there considerable work to make this happen? Have you experienced any significant issues?
  • For institutions that allow students to manage their own e-mail, what are the primary issues from the user and/or institutional standpoint?

Future E-mail

  • What are your plans for e-mail going forward? Continue on the same path?
  • What are the main drivers for e-mail discussion at your institution? Cost? Support?
  • Is Luminis 5 generating a lot of discussion about supported e-mail at your institute?

Any information you can give will be beneficial

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DCCC Email

Submitted by mtalebi on Wed, 2010-03-03 11:00.
  • How are students using e-mail right now at your institution? Are you using the included Java Messaging/Com Express solution? Integrate an external solution? Allow RSS aggregation of external sources?
  • Students at DCCC use Gmail as their default school email. We do not use the including Java mail solution. I do not understand what you mean by RSS aggregation of external sources.
  • If you are not hosting on-site, is e-mail integrated into your Luminis instance? Was there considerable work to make this happen? Have you experienced any significant issues?
  • Since we are using Gmail, we are not hosting on site. We do have Gmail integrated with Luminis in the form of Single Sign On. We paid Sungard for their Gmail adapter which provided us with SSO functionality. We also have a backup Gmail login page that we use in case Luminis is down.... but knock on wood Luminis has been okay since we launched with Luminis 4 in 2008.
  • For institutions that allow students to manage their own e-mail, what are the primary issues from the user and/or institutional standpoint?
  • We used to have no school email before 2008. There were a lot of issues. First, faculty had to gather email addresses from students each class. A lot of faculty didn't even bother. Email communications was very unreliable. Students change email addresses. The school had no way to communicate to students through email in a reliable way. I would NOT recommend going away from a school email system.

Future E-mail

  • What are your plans for e-mail going forward? Continue on the same path?
  • When we upgrade to Luminis 5, we are definitely sticking with Gmail. It works really well and Luminis 5 is supposed to integrate with Gmail in the base product from what I have heard.
  • What are the main drivers for e-mail discussion at your institution? Cost? Support?
  • Gmail is free! (for now). We have had very little support issues as far as I know. We have more trouble getting people logged into Luminis (students here sometimes do not read directions well).
  • Is Luminis 5 generating a lot of discussion about supported e-mail at your institute?
  • We don't really have Luminis 5 email related discussions because we know what we are doing. We are excited about Luminis 5 for different reasons like going away from this 90's esque uPortal based Luminis 4.
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