About 1,200 students graduating from Ball State University this December will be the first class of alumni to have access to a Ball State lifetime e-mail account.
iConnect will be unveiled to the university community sometime in mid-November to address the post-graduation e-mail problems alumni face, Don Park, vice president of university advancement, said
"People move frequently and with people moving toward cellular communication, we're having a harder time keeping up phone number changes and addresses," Park said.
O'Neal Smitherman, vice president for information technology, said providing iConnect to alumni will permit the university to keep in touch with graduates and will allow those individuals the continuity that a long-term e-mail address offers.
Ball State is receiving the package free because of a partnership with Microsoft Corp. because Ball State will be one of the first places to implement the program.
"We have costs where professional staff and [information technology] people are involved, but Microsoft is offering the package to us at no cost," Smitherman said. "We've been able to direct the features that will ultimately be included at a large savings to the university."
The program contains many of the features common to Microsoft's MSN service, such as Messenger and other add-ons like blog space. Additionally, Ball State can send out special notices concerning upcoming events and other alumni information. "What once started out as a lifetime e-mail program is now loaded with possibilities - a whole range of services far beyond what was originally proposed," Smitherman said.
iConnect has been installed but is in a testing phase and not available for use yet, Edwin Shipley, executive director for alumni programs, said.
"I'd be very disappointed if it wasn't ready by November 30," he said.
The concept of providing an affordable, permanent contact system for graduates has been in the works for the better part of 10 years, Shipley said.
"Many other universities do offer e-mail forwarding - we didn't want that," Shipley said. "Others charge an annual fee - we won't."
The long-term cost to the university was a problem that stalled implementation of alumni e-mail until recently.
University Computing Services routinely purges Web space and e-mail accounts of graduates and inactive students.
For Brian Carnes, a July 2004 graduate, the purging arrived unannounced.
"I was checking my e-mail, as I would normally do everyday, when I discovered I couldn't log in," he said. UCS told Carnes that it had "cleared a bunch of accounts that day."
Carnes said his Ball State Credit Union statements, Department of Education loan balance information and scores of e-mails from professors, friends and other sources disappeared overnight.
"UCS did allow me a 48-hour emergency window to jump back in and pull out what I could," Carnes said.
Loren Malm, assistant director security, policy, systems and assessment at UCS, said graduates would now receive an e-mail notification pointing them to iConnect, and they would have two weeks to clear Web space and e-mail.
Shipley said he looked forward to a day when the transition from university e-mail to the alumni account would be seamless. In the meantime, all alumni accounts will be on Microsoft's servers, while Ball State's accounts will remain on the university's mainframe.
"As it stands now, graduates will need to take the step of opting-in on their own," he said.
Charles Jaggers, executive director of University Development, said the program extended Ball State's reach to the larger community.
Graduates who are abruptly disconnected from the university system harm the efforts to expand Ball State's standing at a national level when compared to other universities competing for funding sources.
"iConnect is a great idea because it not only allows graduates to keep in touch with friends, faculty and university events, it also allows them to take a greater portion of their university experience into their world beyond this place," Jaggers said.
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
