Ball State University is considering a contract with Microsoft that would provide free server space to university alumni for e-mail accounts, the vice president for information technology said.
Microsoft has already signed the contract and Ball State plans to sign within the next few days, O'Neal Smitherman said.
The specifics of the contract are not being released until both parties have signed it, but the contract generally allows Ball State to work with Microsoft in order to provide extended e-mail and other web services to alumni, Smitherman said.
The contract between Microsoft and Ball State would allow the university to communicate with alumni by providing them a permanent Ball State e-mail address.
The new alumni e-mail accounts would have the same domain name as the current student addresses: @bsu.edu.
Ball State hopes to provide the new service not only to students who will graduate after the contract is signed but also to any other alumni, regardless of their graduation dates.
Smitherman first mentioned the possibility of an agreement at the Board of Trustees meeting on May 6. But Ball State has been trying to find alternative ways to correspond with alumni for some time because many alumni change e-mail addresses as they start new careers or move to different parts of the country, Smitherman said.
"We wanted to keep in touch with them [alumni] no matter what changes they made to their contact information," Smitherman said.
Student WebMail accounts are now electronically archived after two semesters of not being used, said Fred Nay, director of university computing services at Ball State.
The inactive accounts are kept in the archives for a few years but are eventually deleted, he said. There is currently no way for students to keep their Ball State accounts usable after graduation.
"To keep all of those active would be a massive project," he said.
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