Monday, December 17, 2001

It's Official: E-Mail Supplants the Printed Letter at the U. of Colorado at Boulder By SCOTT CARLSON Paper mail is going the way of the rotary phone at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Starting on January 1, e-mail will become the official form of communication on the campus. Students will be required to check the mail that comes to their university accounts. Marin E. Stanek, a coordinator of technology at the university, says the policy will streamline communications between students and faculty and staff members. "Faculty can now request an e-mail roster at the beginning of the semester," she says, "and expect that students are using their e-mail on a regular basis, and use that to enhance their teaching." E-mail is also a quick and efficient way to contact students in case of an emergency, she says. Students would not actually have to use their university accounts -- they could set up mechanisms that would forward mail to their private accounts on, say, Yahoo or Hotmail. At the beginning of the fall semester, university officials estimated that only half of the students were using their university accounts. At last count, earlier this month, about 64 percent of the students were using them, Ms. Stanek says. The University of Colorado looked at other institutions as models -- the University of Texas at Austin, for example, which has been working toward making e-mail a standard form of communication. "But we wanted to take it a step further and work with our counsel on making it some sort of policy," Ms. Stanek says. Ms. Stanek says that private communications or legally sensitive material -- such as grades, personal identification numbers, or Social Security numbers -- will continue to be sent the old-fashioned way: via the U.S. Postal Service. Background article from The Chronicle: Obstacles Remain to the Creation of Paperless Campuses (1/26/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Senate passes bill to resolve dispute over interest rates on student loans Congress approves increase in college aid to veterans Democrats spar with White House over Pell Grants New England colleges cut back on athlete admissions U. of Notre Dame football coach quits after résumé fabrications are disclosed Mississippi State U. throws out results of final exam amid suspicions of widespread cheating Canada plans legislation to regulate research involving reproductive technologies 4 die in clashes at universities in Congo and Malawi Getting ready for a new generation of course-manaagement systems  It's official: E-mail supplants the printed letter at the U. of Colorado at Boulder Researchers test small-dish satellite links for distance education