Universal e-mail moves forward - Penn Printout, Sept 1993

The University of Pennsylvania's Online Computing Magazine

September 1993 - Volume 10:1

Universal e-mail moves forward

By Alfred C. D'Souza

A campus-wide task force on electronic mail recommended in 1992 that all students, faculty, and staff be provided with e-mail and NetNews services. This fall, students in seven additional schools- Dental, Education, Fine Arts, Law, Nursing, Social Work, and Veterinary Medicine-will be given e-mail and News accounts (at a rate consistent with each School's ability to train and support its students). These new services feature the popular Elm software for e-mail, which can be accessed from PCs, Macintoshes, and Unix workstations.

Elm is also the recommended software for students in Arts and Sciences and Engineering; other systems are supported in the Annenberg School, Medicine, and Wharton, but all systems communicate with each other using an Internet standard protocol (SMTP). Elm was one of two e- mail systems introduced last year; the second, Eudora, requires an Ethernet/IP-connected Macintosh and is popular with staff and faculty in some schools.

Lessons learned, Future plans

A pilot Elm implementation conducted in the School of Nursing and a post-mortem on last year's experiences in other Schools have provided data that will improve the effectiveness of this year's e-mail services. Key provisions of this year's program are

Instructions for the PennNet Authentication System (PAS) will be given to new e-mail users. Although not needed for accessing e-mail and News from most campus labs or from Ethernet-connected computers in ResNet rooms, a PAS ID and password are required for access via modem or via the DIAL: prompt.
Training, even for software as straightforward as ELM, is required to minimize the need for ongoing hotline support.
Students are being trained to train and support other students; this strategy has proven to be very effective for training large numbers of students.
A concerted effort is being made to expose new users to Penn's new Policy on Ethical Behavior with Respect to the Electronic Information Environment, rules about acceptable use of PennNet and the Internet, and generally accepted "netiquette" practices.

Are we there yet?

Providing e-mail and News for all students is a major step forward, but more remains to be done. Many faculty and staff lack e-mail services, and the multiplicity of supported (and unsupported) software on campus impedes interchange of formatted text, spreadsheets, and other binary documents. Standards are also needed for better e-mail security and for "e-mail-enabled" applications, such as forms processing (purchase orders, travel expense vouchers, et al.).

These and other challenges are the focus of the reconvened e-mail task force. For more information about its work, contact the co-chairs, Michael Eleey (eleey@crc) or Daniel Updegrove (updegrove@dccs).

Alfred C.D'Souza is Director of Program Management for Data Communications and Computing Services and Information Systems and Computing

Sidebar: Updating your address

Penn's online E-mail Directory has been expanded to include student listings, and many faculty and staff listings have changed, reflecting migrations to Elm and Eudora. Please check your listing in the whois database by telnet to whois.upenn.edu, using gopher, or using the address lookup features of Elm and Eudora. To add to or update the directory, please do the following:

Students: Contact the e-mail system administrator in your School.

Faculty and staff: Send e-mail to directory@dccs. Be sure to include:

Your name, including honorific (e.g., Dr.)
Your department or office
Your electronic mail address
Your PENNCard ID number