Accessing E-mail During An Emergency
If avian flu or other emergency were to force campus to close, e-mail
access from home would provide a vital link to colleagues and loved ones,
as well as a channel by which the University could supply you with timely
information. This page offers pointers for accessing your University of
Maryland (UM) e-mail, provided that you
already have some form of Internet access.
Mail@umd
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) provides the Mail@umd e-mail system
that is currently used by over 35,000 faculty, staff, and students. Mail@umd
can be accessed with your directory ID and password, using e-mail client
software like Outlook Express or Thunderbird, or by a Webmail interface.
The most important step in preparation is that you know your
Directory ID and
password. Every
member of the University of Maryland community has a Directory ID and password.
These are used to log in to campus systems such as ARES, UMEG and Testudo.
This ID also forms an e-mail address (yourID@umd.edu) that has the ability to
forward mail to any account that you specify. You may specify any valid
address, such as your official UM e-mail address, or a personal one from
another provider like AOL or Gmail (see Mail Forwarding
below).
Webmail is particularly easy to use when you
are away from campus and using your favorite browser. See the OIT
About Mail@umd webmail page.
If you prefer to use client software, the OIT
Help Desk provides
recommendations and configuration information. In this case, you may also
need to use the
Virtual
Private Networking (VPN) software in order to send mail through the
University's SMTP servers.
NOTE: Even if the name may remind you of the mail forwarding service,
Mail@umd is a completely separate service. Although your e-mail address
looks like yourID@umd.edu, it does not necessarily mean that you are using
Mail@umd. If you want to use Mail@umd with the forwarding service above,
you must specify yourID@umd.edu in ARES or Testudo; you would still,
however, tell people to send e-mail to yourID@umd.edu. If you have any
questions, the OIT Helpdesk can assist
you.
Mail Forwarding
You should confirm your official forwarding address is correctly specified by
using www.ares.umd.edu for faculty/staff
or www.testudo.umd.edu for students.
Other E-mail Systems at the University of Maryland
Some departments and other groups provide their own e-mail services. If
you are using one of these services, please contact your IT administrator for
additional assistance in accessing these systems from home.
If you currently access your e-mail through a department server
that has been disabled due to an emergency, it is possible to create an
account on the Mail@umd system by visiting
www.oit.umd.edu/new and
following the links. (Note: Accounts do not exist for everyone).
Once established, the account may be accessed via the web using
https://mail.umd.edu/.
Please be aware that your archived e-mail will not be available in
the newly created account.
|
