Students wary of Emurl, turning to other providers

Students, as well as professors, are turning to national e-mail providers because of all the confusion and distrust in the e-mail system at the college. Hotmail is now becoming more popular among the Cabrini population. Although it was not intended to be the main e-mail system, the community is also finding that this works more to their advantage.

by Shanna Lynn Fanelli staff writer

Despite the belief by the college that its student e-mail system, called Emurl, works properly, students continue to distrust the system and have turned to national providers like America Online and Hotmail for their e-mail.

There have been considerable commotion and confusion about Cabrini's e-mail accounts since day one of the semester.

There have been complaints due to e-mail malfunctions and inquiries as to why problems are even occurring at www.xavier.cabrini.edu.

The provider of Emurl, Cabrini's new e-mail system, has been a popular campus topic. Due to e-mail problems, stu- dents-and even instructors-have shied away from using the campus program.

"From an instructors' point of view, it has been very frustrating," said Gerald Satlow, associate professor of computer information science, of the e-mail unreliability. "We want to start the semester knowing how and where it is going to work, not indirectly hear about something and find out it is not there."

Problems with air messages results from individuals on campus not being able to contact those off campus.

It has been a big concern, but is something the computer and technology services here at Cabrini is aware of.

"We've been working through these problems and issues," said Peter Bretz, head of learning re- sources and technology. "Specific programs have been issued so the problems would be resolved."

Hotmail, one of the free services on the Web whose items are mostly covered in computer information science classes, was not intended to be the campus e-mail system. Hotmail, which actually appears to offer more advantages than Emurl, such as group lists, distributions and nicknames, had been approached for versions of software to run on campus.

"Unfortunately," said Bretz, "they didn't offer any."

Organized mail is available with Emurl, and it, along with Hotmail, is Web-based.

With Web-based e-mail, a Web browser, such as Netscape

Navigator, is used to access email.

Advantages to using Webbased e-mail is that it is easier for students to send and receive e-mail from anyplace, not just campus.

Browsing is also a feature many students have already experience with and it is covered in CIS classes.

Unfortunately, e-mail is a feature that students have not been able to access at www.xavier.cabrini.edu.

"I haven't used Emurl because when I first came here they promised me e-mail but I never received it." said sophomore Kathleen MacMenamin. "I tried e-mail once but it never worked so I got AOL."

MacMenamin is not the only student deterred from using the campus program.

Even though efforts have been made to resolve the computer problems and Emurl had been tested prior to the school year, mishaps keep occurring.

The problem could be that when the technology was tested, it was without the large user body that Cabrini has been experiencing.

"We felt as though we had tested it," Bretz said. "Having a larger user body to work the new technology is guaranteed to give rigorous testing of the program, and that is when this particular issue was brought to our attention."

For now, Hotmail continues to be the first choice of students and it is the program instructors are working with in CIS classes.