This post emerges from the comment thread to last week’s Open Thread Wednesday: En route to a different point, William Wend mentions that students on his campus are required to use their .edu account to communicate with faculty and staff. At my school, students are the only people who can set up their .edu e-mail to forward to an off-campus provider–though such e-mails often get caught in the spam filter, and some students never set up forwarding, opting instead to just ignore the campus account. This sets up two different kinds of complaint: first, from students who don’t check the campus account, and second, from faculty who wish they could forward their e-mail elsewhere. (Sweet, sweet Gmail . . . !) Some part-time faculty further argue that it’s unreasonable to expect them to check the school’s account, since they often teach at many schools.
On the other hand, it’s my impression that virtually everyone these days has several e-mail addresses, and probably at least 2 accounts. Some people suggest having at least 3 addresses, which used to strike me as crazy. But Gmail’s ability to create more or less infinite addresses on the same account makes it a breeze to track what sites are re-selling your e-mail address like mad. (We would never!) Of course, you can always use a disposable e-mail service when signing up for commercial sites–I like 10minutemail, which offers precisely what the name implies: An e-mail address that’s valid for 10 minutes.
So, ‘fess up, ProfHacker readers! How many active e-mail accounts do you have? Let’s define “active” as something you haven’t checked in 6 months. I have 2.
And, beyond the numbers, does a “use our e-mail for university business” policy for faculty, students, and staff seem appropriate? antiquated? Something else? Let us know in comments!
Image by flickr user SubZeroConsciousness / CC Licensed
Follow Profhacker through your favorite RSS reader: 
Developing online and blended learning programs requires research and collaboration. Learn how top technology companies are partnering with campuses across the country to advance online learning as it becomes an increasingly important aspect of higher education.
19 Responses to How Many E-mail Accounts Is Too Many?
Billie Hara - October 6, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I have too many email accounts. I have a university account; two gmail accounts: one for professional activity, one for blogging activity; and two hotmail / yahoo type accounts for online activity (one is for eBay and online purchases, and one is for random “i-must-submit-an-email-address-to-have-access-to-something” type email account. I must simplify, and I’m trying.
Maria H. Andersen - October 6, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Given the volume of email I get in a day, I’d have to say that this is a trick question. ONE email account is too many. :)
Karin Dalziel - October 6, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I have… um… a lot. Over 12. But I feed them all into gmail, so I only have two places to check – work and gmail. Considering just forwarding the work stuff to gmail too and be done with it.
Amy - October 6, 2009 at 3:19 pm
let’s say 3. one is the very first I ever got (1998), and although it’s 98% spam at this point, there are a few things that go there I need. I had to create a reminder to check it every month, tho. one is strictly professional. one is for daily things (ebay, facebook, amazon, etc.). I had another for spam/address-submitting-things/etc. but now I mostly use the 1998 address for that.
Nels P. Highberg - October 6, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I have one that I check ten times a day and one I check once a month or so that I use for only one purpose, and checking monthly is fine for that. I can forward it all to Gmail, so I do.
Joanna - October 6, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Our university account is default for communicating with students because it is connected to Moodle and WebVista. I feed my .edu and 2 Gmail accounts (one for personal stuff, one for “persona” stuff, like Twitter and blogging about pop culture) into Thunderbird and also to my Blackberry.
jmcclurken - October 6, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Three, though one I check just under once every six months. The other 2 I check multiple times a day. They are fairly clearly divided between work and personal items.
Jason B. Jones - October 7, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Well, in my chicken_choker story, the specific issue was that the spam filter was grabbing it, and I was a n00b who didn’t know about spam filters. (This was like 8 years ago.)
My interest in this question is only partly to do with students: There’s also the question of insisting on it for faculty, in particular part-time ones. At our school, you can’t auto-forward–and I don’t even think you can do the neat POP trick you described on the other thread, though I haven’t tried yet.
I think if we could get out of the business of providing e-mail, many people on our campus, staff as well as faculty would be happy–though I suspect that there would be issues with complying with state record-keeping laws!
Julie Meloni - October 7, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I have the same approach to student e-mails & addresses as Pat with regards to poor username choices, poorly written e-mails, etc. Especially in my technical & professional writing classes, but in all of them, I give the little talk at the beginning about audience, etc, and let them know that I don’t care personally if they call themselves pretty_princess or chicken_choker (and believe me, I’ve gotten worse, and the example I use in class is particularly vulgar yet true) but their employers and potential employers certainly will, and from that point on how they choose to identify themselves should be a reflection of how they want to be seen by said employer or me — they’re adults, blah blah. But if there’s an official assignment about e-mail and professional communication, they darn well better look the part of they’re marked down — and they know that, and some of them change and some of them don’t and don’t care to change. Truth is, I see barely literate emails in my industry job all the time, and therefore don’t choose this particular hill to die on, as it were. The MLA formatting hill? That’s a totally different story….
dance - October 7, 2009 at 9:09 am
Four that I check in Entourage (real name—university, businesses, personal, academic listservs); two that I check in Thunderbird (alternate google-proofing name—I need to bring this down to a single one and have been ignoring them lately); there are seven accounts set up in Mail (various psuedonyms and MobileMe—but only two of these are really active); oh, and three Yahoo accounts that I only check on the phone.
Uh, is that 16? But I’d say I only send email from four of these.
Pat Gehrke - October 7, 2009 at 11:27 am
Technically I have eight email addresses (including two from my university), but GMail actually handles all of them. As a result, I have one inbox, one interface, and one account that I log into but I can do all my email tasks inside that account and send from any of my addresses using that GMail account.
So, in practice, I only have one account. My .edu address won’t support POP3 fetching and GMail apparently won’t IMAP link to other accounts (though you can IMAP to GMail), so I set the university accounts to auto-forward to my GMail address. Everything else I have set up for GMail to fetch. Then when I want to send an email from my .edu address or from my own server’s address, I use GMail’s “Send Mail As” function. This allows me to send from whichever address is appropriate to the task, keep all those different email addresses I use for different reasons, and still have just one inbox and one archive of everything.
Plus, the spam filter on GMail is the best I have every seen or used. Only about 1-2 spam messages make it into my inbox each day, while the other 100+ cleanly are sent to the spam filter. Meanwhile, I have about one case of a non-spam email being sifted into the spam filter every two months or so.
This solution works very well for me and allows easy global access to all my emails plus simple sync’ing with my smartphone.
Beth Kuebler-Wolf - October 7, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I’m still wondering about how to manage student email communication. Is it curmudgeonly to insist that they use their university email? I do this because I haven’t ever figured out a good way to manage all the alternate email addresses they might use, and because I can look their uni email account up via the uni system. I tell them they have to check that account (I don’t care how, whether they use another system like gmail, etc) to get communication from me and I also say they need to send email to me from their uni account so I know who it is, because I have no idea who ‘psycho_lady@whatever.com’ is (yes, I really had a student with psycho_lady in her email address.)
Personally I have only two email addresses– one for personal use and online transactions and one for work. Maybe I need to get out more, digitally speaking!
Jason B. Jones - October 7, 2009 at 12:56 pm
This is the real question! Is this curmudgeonly or not?
I’m torn: On the one hand, it doesn’t seem that hard to juggle multiple accounts; on the other hand, it seems like that’s Yet. Another. Thing. to go wrong. And if you don’t force everyone to use the university e-mail, then aren’t you in practice promising to support all those e-mails? To find out why e-mails from provider X aren’t making it through the spam filter?
I’m not surprised by psycho_lady . . . I first realized this was a problem a few years ago when I had a student with the e-mail address chicken_choker[some number]@some.provider. Couldn’t believe it!
Nels P. Highberg - October 7, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Beth–
I require my students to read and follow this version of “How to Email a Professor.”
http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-e-mail-professor.html
I do not require that students use their university email because I don’t use the university email (I use Gmail since I’m allowed to do so). If students use the instructions in that post, except for the one about using university email, we’re good.
But I also teach in a professional writing program, so we discuss email, and I have students write emails that I grade. We discuss the kinds of email addresses that are appropriate, and my students use only their university email or Gmail with their actual names.
Pat Gehrke - October 7, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I actually encourage students to use off-campus email and have advocated that the university stop giving email accounts to students. Many free services are more robust, with larger inboxes, better interfaces, and higher reliability than our campus email service. Additionally, almost all students already have active email accounts before they get here. The money we spend on infrastructure and support for a wholly redundant service that is relatively low quality could be better spent elsewhere. We don’t require they get a whole new official university phone number or a whole new university postal address because we know they come in with functioning phone and postal service, so we merely collect the needed information from them. Why should email be any different?
What I do advise the students to do is to change their default email addresses in their university profile to whatever they actually use. I also require that they go into BlackBoard and ensure that the email address linked to their BB account is one they check daily. When I need to send an email to a student I can just pop into BB, log into that class, pull up the email tool, and fire it off. It goes to her or him with my preferred account as the reply-to address and goes to whatever email she or he told BB is their preferred account. Alternatively, if we have corresponded in the past, I just keyword search my GMail for her or his last name, pull up the old thread, and have a functioning email right there.
As for spam filters and support for all those third-party providers, I will say I trust most third-party providers more than I trust university IT offices to provide functioning and effective email, but ultimately it is the student’s responsibility to ensure she or he is set up to receive those emails (just like she or he is responsible for postal forwarding or filing a change of address upon moving).
As for silly email handles, poorly written emails, etc., none of that bothers me. If my student wants to us 0mgz0rsIpwnUn00bz@hotmail.com, then whatever, what do I care, so long as I know who she or he is and the email reaches its recipient. If the email makes no sense, I treat it just like if the student had said it to me in office hours. I ask what I think I must in order to figure out what the question is. I guess I just don’t see what the issue is.
Beth Kuebler-Wolf - October 7, 2009 at 3:37 pm
@Pat- I think my problem with off-campus email is that I am cranky and feel like searching for student emails and figuring out who psycho_lady actually is is more mental work than I want to do, even if it is only searching my inbox. Yes, I have become that irascible and lazy in middle age.
Fabian - October 8, 2009 at 7:31 am
This is what I do as well. I have every other email account (including work) directed to a central gmail account where I organise (filter, label and archive) everything and redestribute using the appropriate original email address I got it from; which is a brilliant feature of Gmail.
John - October 8, 2009 at 11:50 am
I have basically two: work and personal (really everything else). Even if I funneled everything to one, having a .edu email is so valuable for discounts and free stuff.
Don Schaffner - October 8, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Two is one too many. I have one, which I use for everything.