A committee will look into upgrading Ohio University's outdated e-mail system this winter, with plans to have a new system in place no earlier than next fall.
OU's e-mail is currently running on Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), a free, well-established server, said Sean O'Malley, IT communications manager. The system, which has been in use since 1999, has reached the end of its life, meaning that it is off the market and can no longer be installed on new machines.
It's possible to receive continued service through 2012, but that would not be practical because newer alternatives exist and many of the people who knew how to use the old system have retired, O'Malley said.
Brice Bible, chief information officer, said when he arrived a year and a half ago, the system was already old and needed to be replaced. Other systems, however, were in worse shape and needed to be upgraded first, he added.
ITECH, an IT governance committee composed of faculty and students, will discuss the options for changing OU's e-mail provider during winter quarter, O'Malley said. Updating IMAP or contracting third parties, such as Google and Microsoft, are on the table, he said.
Google and Microsoft both offer free e-mail to colleges. Kent State University, Ohio State University and The University of Cincinnati currently use one of these services. Details on how the switch would change the layout of university e-mail accounts, hardware installation and the provisions of a contract are still unknown, O'Malley said.
The committee also is considering the possibility of building a new e-mail system in-house like Bowling Green State University, though it is too early to know the cost or practicality, O'Malley said, adding that he is unsure of how much Bowling Green spent.
The committee will convene around the first of the year, with the new e-mail service going campus-wide no earlier than next fall, Bible said. The committee will take feedback from faculty and students into consideration when making the final decision, O'Malley said.
In the mean time, IT has been working to improve the current e-mail system, Bible said. IT has removed other applications from the hardware and made the spam filter more effective, helping to reduce the loading time and keep it running.
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