Overview of Email at Notre Dame

• Introduction
• Your account name
• Your account password
• How to get email software
• Learning to use email
• Looking up email addresses
• Mobility with IMAP
• Forwarding your email
• Using LISTSERV lists to communicate with groups
• Responsible use of email

Introduction

The University of Notre Dame provides faculty, staff, and students with access to the Internet. One of the most popular ways to access the Internet is through electronic mail (email), the exchange of electronic messages through computer networks. Any member of the campus community may use email to send messages across campus to classmates or professors, or around the world to colleagues and academicians. Students, faculty, and staff are assigned email accounts when they become part of the Notre Dame community.

Your Account Name

At Notre Dame you are automatically assigned a variety of different accounts, including one for email.

Email account name
Your email account name is in the form "John.M.Smith.1@nd.edu" where John.M.Smith.1 is your full name followed by a unique number to differentiate your account from others that may have the same last name.

Your NetID account name (also known as your AFS ID)
Your NetID is an eight-character account name using the first letter of your first name and the first seven characters of your last name (for example, jsmith would be the Net ID for John M. Smith and jalexand would be the NetID for Jason Alexander). To ensure uniqueness some accounts (particularly for common last names) may include a number (e.g. jsmith2).

Shortening your email address
You cannot change your email address, but you can shorten it using one of the following options:

• The system is not case sensitive, so you do not have to use capital letters (John.M.Smith.1 is the same as john.m.smith.1).
• You can use only your last name and the unique number (smith.1@nd.edu).
• You can use your eight character NetID instead of the numbered email address (jsmith@nd.edu).
  
  Important note: You cannot shorten your email address to omit only your middle initial (John.Smith.1@nd.edu). If someone tries to send mail to an address like this, the mail server will bounce it back to the sender.

Your account password

Typically, each time you launch your email software you are required to enter your password prior to checking or sending mail. At Notre Dame, your email password and your NetID password are one and the same. If you do not know your password, see the recommendations below:

• If you are a new student, staff, or faculty member, you can set your email/NetID password for the first time on the web at https://password.nd.edu.
• If you do not remember your email account name and password, take your Notre Dame ID to the OIT Help Desk (room 128 DeBartolo). For security reasons, no account information will be given over the phone.
• To eliminate the need to visit the OIT Help Desk for a forgotten password, enroll in the "I Forgot My Password" service at https://password.nd.edu.

How to get email software at Notre Dame

The OIT provides a number of email software applications free to the Notre Dame community. Most often, in addition to needing a software application, you also need to configure your computer to communicate on a network. Many email clients that the OIT supports are available as free downloads on the OIT Software web site.

Learning to use email

The OIT provides documentation and training opportunities for both Eudora and Messenger, the email software currently distributed by the OIT. Visit the OIT Documentation Web Site to access documentation to help you use these email applications.

For information on classes offered, go to: https://endeavor.nd.edu

Looking up email addresses

It's easy to look up email addresses for Notre Dame students, faculty members, or staff. You have several options:

• Most email clients allow you to connect to the Notre Dame directory (EDS) using a protocol named LDAP. For instructions on how to setup your email client, visit the Notre Dame EDS web site.
• You can also go to the Notre Dame Directories page and enter the name in the Online Phone Directory field.

Mobility with IMAP

Because many users need to check their mail from multiple locations, the University has adopted IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). This protocol allows you to check your mail from locations such as your home, your residence hall, or your office without having to download the messages to the computer you are using. In other words, the messages are stored at a central location, which is easier to manage than messages stored on multiple computers or diskettes.

Every member of the Notre Dame community is allotted a specific amount of disk space for email messages on the IMAP server. Your messages are stored in this space and you can access them from any computer that has an Internet connection.

Forwarding your email

You can easily have mail sent to your Notre Dame account forwarded to another account. Follow the instructions on the Forward your email Web page to enable or remove your email forwarding.

Using LISTSERV lists to communicate with groups

LISTSERV is a system that makes it possible to create, manage and control electronic "mailing lists" on the Internet. A major use for these lists at Notre Dame is for shared discussion around a common topic (e.g., a class of students and their professor), where all participants of the list receive all messages sent to the list. Notre Dame manages a LISTSERV server, making it easy for groups to create lists. In addition, members of the University community can participate in LISTSERV lists outside Notre Dame. For more information on LISTSERV lists at Notre Dame, visit the LISTSERV Web pages.

Responsible use of electronic mail

The world of electronic communications demands a special protocol to ensure effective and friendly interaction. Computer resources should be used in accordance with the ethical standards of the University community. Any use of the computer for harassment, threat, or defamation is a serious and punishable offense.

Anyone using Notre Dame computers and networking resources is responsible for observing the policies set forth in Responsible Use of Information Technologies at Notre Dame published by the OIT. The full text of the usage policy is available in printed form in DuLac, the Faculty Handbook, and the Staff Employee Guidebook, or in any computer cluster.

Make sure that your system date and time are set correctly. Eudora and other email software packages rely on this information to tell you when messages are sent or received. Also, many mail servers use this information to determine how long messages have been stored on the server and how to act upon them accordingly.