Once upon a time, a few semesters ago, there was an e-mail system that was used by students, faculty and staff all over campus. The email system was not that great, but it was not that bad either. It served its purpose as a multiple user server and served it well. Everyone was able to log on and check their mail whenever they needed to, and regular maintenance helped prevent problems as much as possible.
User-friendly options allowed everyone to go easily to their mailboxes and make changes when needed. The best part of the mail system was that you could link your school account to an outside e-mail address like Hotmail or Yahoo. That way, you could check not only your personal email but also your school e-mail at the same time.
Aside from the huge crash of the Mail 2 server that knocked out most of the faculty and students accounts one semester, not much was really wrong with the system. Everyone was happy and content.
This, sadly, is not the case this semester. At some point during the summer semester, someone thought it would be a good idea to change the e-mail system to a Lotus-based system. This system, in my opinion, is horrible compared to the other system. It’s not user friendly in the least, and the tutorial for the system that came with the first e-mail is not very helpful either.
But wait, I forgot to mention that before I got to the tutorial in the introductory e-mail, I had to sit in front of my computer for over 5 minutes trying to figure out how to open the e-mail in the first place. This is after I finally set up the Welcome Page as you are first directed to by clicking on a link and trying to figure out what was going on there as well.
I haven’t been back to the Welcome Page even after several trial-and-error attempts to get the system to start at my inbox screen. And I still have not been able to find a way to link my Hotmail address to VCU e-mail yet. My guess is the process is either not there or it’s hidden in some place that I have not thought to look in yet (Editor’s note: It’s not there).
But the real fun was just waiting to happen once the semester started. For the past four days, I haven’t been able to access my e-mail easily because my password wouldn’t work at the login page.
When I did reach my e-mail account, I couldn’t read any of my e-mails because the links to the e-mails would not work. When they did work, I had a second window of white sitting on-screen that would never load.
I actually let it sit for 20 minutes before it showed me a message saying the window would not open because of Lotus system errors. The other half of the time it was not working on its own or – while being accessed through Blackboard – would bring me a delightful show of blinking blue and brown screens as it tried to load the page over and over (and over) again.
All of these wonderful things ultimately lead me to ask some similar questions that are probably running through the minds of many others on campus. Why did the e-mail system change? Do the people that were in charge of changing the system know how un-user friendly it really is? Why didn’t they ask the users of the old system (a.k.a. the students, faculty and staff) if they wanted to have the old system replaced before they actually replaced it?
Oh well, I guess this is yet another decision we have no say toward while here at VCU.
Danielle Moss may be reached at
mossdj@vcu.edu
ytwithlove@hotmail.com