The University of Arizona

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University and Computer Science Email Accounts—Requirements and Use

The University assigns all students, faculty, and staff an official University email account. Students, faculty, and staff are required to read email from this account on a regular basis (see Official Student Email Policy). Students enrolled in Computer Science courses and Computer Science faculty and staff (including student employees) are also assigned an official Computer Science email account, which is automatically forwarded to their official University email account. Students, Faculty, and Staff are required to read email sent to their Computer Science account on a regular basis (see Appropriate Use Guidelines for Departmental Computing Facilities, Computer Science Frequently Asked Questions , and Reading Department email Remotely ).

 

Obtaining a UA NetID in Order to Change/Setup Your Official University email Address

Your UA NetID is your personal identifier for a number of online services at the University of Arizona. Some of the services requiring a NetID include:

You may obtain your UA NetID online. Students will need to know their Student ID, PIN, and birthdate. Faculty and Staff will need to know their Employee ID, CatCard Number, and birthdate.

Official University email Address

Students, Faculty, and Staff, not already assigned an official University email account can create their University email account through the Account web page. Information on University email accounts is at http://uits.arizona.edu/services/email.

Faculty and Staff can set (or review) their official University email address, (or turn on or off the appearance of their address in the UA on-line Phonebook), as follows:

  1. Go to the main UA web page and click Employee Services under Faculty & Staff.
  2. Click Employee Link under Personal.
  3. If a pop-up appears about Website certification, you can clidk OK.
  4. Log in using your NetID and Net Password.
  5. Click Personal Information.
  6. On the Personal Information page, click Update your email or permission setting.
  7. You can edit/enter your email address, typically: user@cs.arizona.edu.
  8. There is also the question: Do you want to include your email address in the UA directories? Enter a Y(yes), or N(no). The default has been set to Y.


Faculty and Staff who cannot find their official University email address using Employee Link, should contact the department's Business Manager to make sure their official email address is entered into the appropriate University database.

Reading University and CS email

You may read your University and forwarded CS email through the web interface, (CatMail for students or UAConnect for Faculty/Staff) or any standard email client (e.g.,Thunderbird, Pine). To access the Account page and make changes, you must know your UA NetID .

University email accounts have an address of the form: user@email.arizona.edu, where user is your assigned email name. Note: your University email user name may not be the same as your Computer Science email user name.

Forwarding Email

Forwarding is available in both CatMail and UAConnect. 

For UAConnect, a copy is always retained before forwarding.  Although the mailbox size is 10GB, this automatic retention may cause problems (e.g., mailbox full errors) if you do not check for and delete unwanted email from your official University email account on a regular basis.

Students. Faculty, and Staff are responsible for checking that their email forwarding is working correctly. The easiest way to do this is to send a test email to the forwarded address and check that it arrives where intended. Note: email forwarded to an invalid account, such as a non-existent CS account, is bounced (returned) to the sender with no record of this event noted at the forwarding mailhost. Students who forward University email to other accounts must to be careful to avoid forwarding email to a closed or invalid account.

 

Bulk and SPAM Emailings Using CS or University Equipment

The word Spam as applied to email means Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE).

Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.

A message is Spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk.

Bulk email is normal email when it comes from authorized individuals and pertains to University or Department business. For example, your course instructors may send an entire class messages pertaining to course assignments or the Department secretary may send mail regarding deadlines, or Department functions.

Individual students however, are not allowed to use University or Department facilities for bulk emailings. You may read the Computer Science Department Head's policy on SPAM.

There are other University email policies that might be worth reviewing:

If you wish to communicate with large groups of fellow students, consider using newsgroups, listservs, and web pages (e.g., weblogs).

As with other policies, if you are not sure that it applies in your situation, send email to lab explaining what you are trying to do and we'll tell you if it fits under Department guidelines.

Last updated August 18, 2011, by Tom Lowry
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