Time is running out for students to transfer information from the university’s old Mirapoint system to its new Terpmail accounts, as Gmail will become the official student email provider at the end of the month.
After Sept. 30, students will no longer be able to access their Mirapoint accounts, which the Office of Information Technology will shut down in October. More than 17,200 students have already logged in to their new university Terpmail accounts — up from 13,000 the week before students arrived for the fall semester. OIT spokeswoman Phyllis Dickerson Johnson said she is confident the department’s outreach efforts will reach the student body in time for the switch.
Through posters in Shuttle-UM buses, ads in Stamp Student Union and an informational Terpmail YouTube video, OIT has been providing basic information to students about converting their Mirapoint accounts to Terpmail — a measure the department will continue through emails to students during the next few weeks.
“We’re doing a major communication push,” Dickerson Johnson said. “Wherever the students are, we try to be. If they’re on the buses, in Stamp, on social networking — we’re there.”
A final backup of the system will ensure OIT can retrieve emails and other information for students who missed the switchover deadline, although several students said they aren’t concerned about losing anything during the transition.
“Email is really just text and words. It doesn’t matter how you get it, just that you get it,” said senior computer science major Tam Nguyen, who added he has always forwarded university emails to his private account.
Introducing groups of new students to Terpmail during summer orientations gave OIT officials useful feedback, said David Barks, OIT’s assistant director of middleware solutions and services.
“We’ve learned a lot. As technologists, we’ll sometimes do things we think make sense and students will see things a different way,” said Barks, adding that in the first 10,000 Terpmail sign-ups, OIT only received three requests or complaints.
And since last semester, when a committee of students, faculty and staff suggested the university negotiate a contract with Google, OIT has managed to alleviate most concerns over lack of features and security.
Through the university’s efforts to work closely with Google, OIT secured each student 25 gigabytes of storage with their Terpmail accounts; originally, the accounts were to have 7.5 gigabytes. The new system offers all Gmail applications, including document storage, instant messaging and email filtering.
“Filters, that’s my new thing — sorting all the different emails has been helpful,” junior history major Rachel DiDonna said.
OIT Security Director Gerry Sneeringer said Google has guaranteed the protection of students’ personal information through its innovative security language.
“It gave us a real nice feeling that we’ve got some good protection in place and we’ve had a number of other universities ask us how we’re able to do that,” Sneeringer said.
Some students who didn’t experience the Mirapoint system, such as freshman neuroscience and psychology major Naomi Cole, said they adjusted easily to Gmail.
“I definitely check it a lot; it comes straight to my phone,” Cole said.
But most of the students who have signed up for Terpmail accounts are upperclassmen, many of whom still choose to forward university emails to their private accounts, Barks said.
Regardless of whether they actively use Terpmail, students said they appreciate the university’s efforts to modernize.
“Changing the system shows that the university is being more progressive, which is great,” Nguyen said. “I like to see that in my university.”
lurye at umdbk dot com
