UVSC's E-Mail History

E-Mail at UVSC was originally the domain of computer administrators. E-Mail at that time was available to a limited number of people who needed to communicate with other computer administrators around the state. Back then, Utah Valley Community College (UVCC) only had a dozen or so e-mail accounts that used the PMDF e-mail system on UVCC's VAX computer. All of the addresses were <account>@cc.uvcc.edu.

Over time, as the Internet became more popular, UVCC procured a class B Internet IP address range. More and more faculty and students needed (or wanted) an e-mail account to communicate with colleagues. At the same time, people within the college wanted to communicate electronically with each other, so in 1991, a small PC based e-mail system was installed. This was the predecessor system to our current GroupWise system and was, at the time, called WordPerfect Office. One of the great things about this system was that the VAX also ran a version of WordPerfect Office, and the two systems were able to communicate. Eventually, then College President Kerry Romesberg made it known that all faculty and staff should have an e-mail account. He wanted to use e-mail as one of his main communication methods. A few hundred e-mail accounts were created, and e-mail became commonplace.

In 1993, systems were put in place to allow Internet e-mail to be received by the VAX and then transferred into the WordPerfect Office 3.1 system on PCs. This system was complex and anyone who wanted to use the Internet in their e-mail communications had to learn complicated commands to route the messages onto the Internet. It also required that special accounts on the VAX and in the e-mail system had to be set up. Later, with the introduction of GroupWise 4.1, the GroupWise system got its own Internet gateway, creating Internet e-mail accounts and making it simple for everyone to send and receive Internet e-mail. About that same time, UVCC became UVSC and e-mail addresses were <account>@uvsc.edu.

Student e-mail systems using other e-mail server programs had been put in place by the Computer Science department, but use was limited to CS students. As time went by, there began to be a call for other students to use e-mail, and the Internet was becoming a common research destination for everyone. The college was growing and it became difficult to create everyone an account using the other systems. The decision was made to begin placing student e-mail accounts in the GroupWise system. At the time, there were a few thousand accounts needed, and an automated system was created to provision the e-mail and network accounts - AutoUser was born.

For several years, students, faculty, and staff shared the GroupWise system, but over time, everyone became frustrated with the amount of e-mail traffic and the large size and complexity of using the address book to find someone. Also problematic was the heavy use of GroupWise WebAccess, which tended to crash occasionally. In the spring of 2003, it became clear that in order to continue using GroupWise as the student e-mail system, a huge amount of money would be required to purchase servers. This was deemed unnecessary, and an alternative system was found for student e-mail, albeit a temporary solution until Banner and UVLink along with LinkMail were put in place. Novell NetMail provided a robust solution that handled the requirements of student e-mail for two years.

As the saga continues, Banner came along, with UVLink and LinkMail in tow. The temporary Student NetMail system was retired, and everyone at UVSC now has a LinkMail account to be used for official college business. What will come next? Stay tuned . . .