Mass e-mails plague inboxes despite portal
Katie Rose McEneely
Issue date: 10/22/09 Section: News
The online college portal, new as of last year, has failed to fulfill one of its purposes: cutting e-mail traffic.
Despite the implementation of the portal, mass e-mails are still the first way the Hillsdale College community receives campus information, Information Systems Manager Kevin Maurer said.
"We haven't had much feedback this year; the last comment we got on the portal was from April," Maurer said. "I'd say people aren't using it."
E-mail inboxes filling up is one of the biggest problems Information Technology Services faces. The preview option in Outlook allows students to view messages without opening them, and a lot of students don't clear out their inboxes, Maurer said. If there are e-mail attachments, inboxes fill up that much faster.
The portal was set up in part to deal with this problem, Maurer said.
"I'd envisioned people posting information and results. You could target the information to people who were interested on the portal," he said.
But if students are bypassing the portal, the best way to contact them is still through e-mail. Freshmen Trevor Freudenburg and Cameron Heyliger both said they rarely access the portal.
"I use it sometimes, but not a lot. I usually just text people," Heyliger said.
Freudenburg said he didn't see any advantages in using the portal.
But Maurer said the portal has value beyond accessing e-mail or disseminating campus information.
"It's cohesive and keeps links together," he said. "But cutting down e-mail traffic is still something we'd like to have seen."
ITS is also slowly moving the old public folder system onto the portal, he said.
"We're looking at the portal as one piece of the pie-one way to get information out. All Web parts are designed to make things easier."
Despite the implementation of the portal, mass e-mails are still the first way the Hillsdale College community receives campus information, Information Systems Manager Kevin Maurer said.
"We haven't had much feedback this year; the last comment we got on the portal was from April," Maurer said. "I'd say people aren't using it."
E-mail inboxes filling up is one of the biggest problems Information Technology Services faces. The preview option in Outlook allows students to view messages without opening them, and a lot of students don't clear out their inboxes, Maurer said. If there are e-mail attachments, inboxes fill up that much faster.
The portal was set up in part to deal with this problem, Maurer said.
"I'd envisioned people posting information and results. You could target the information to people who were interested on the portal," he said.
But if students are bypassing the portal, the best way to contact them is still through e-mail. Freshmen Trevor Freudenburg and Cameron Heyliger both said they rarely access the portal.
"I use it sometimes, but not a lot. I usually just text people," Heyliger said.
Freudenburg said he didn't see any advantages in using the portal.
But Maurer said the portal has value beyond accessing e-mail or disseminating campus information.
"It's cohesive and keeps links together," he said. "But cutting down e-mail traffic is still something we'd like to have seen."
ITS is also slowly moving the old public folder system onto the portal, he said.
"We're looking at the portal as one piece of the pie-one way to get information out. All Web parts are designed to make things easier."
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