Access for All

By Daniel Brown

"Youngstown State University is committed to providing all students, faculty, and staff, access to technology.” – Donna Esterly

This made me laugh. Access? Really?

Sure, students and faculty have access to labs with Mac computers, various hallways with plasma screen TVs, an alert system that will send texts straight to your cell phone and even ZoomText Xtra software for the visually impaired. Unfortunately, access to our MyYSU is an e-mail juggernaut. If you do manage to sign into this mess of a system sending and receiving e-mails is always an adventure. E-mail may not be as “cool” as plasma TVs and Mac computers, but it’s probably the most important technology a university needs. If YSU is committed to technology then it must improve the e-mail service for students and faculty.

Everyone should still remember the MyYSU portal meltdown from earlier this semester. Many students gathered around computers and tried to access their e-mails and instead were greeted with loading screens. In the hyperlinked article Paul Carrier, who works at the Tech Desk, said, “We see more panic when the portal doesn't work at all.” The panic is justified. A working e-mail system is something every university must have. It’s the primary mode of student/teacher communications. Teachers send class cancellations, test information and important class documents to the students through MyYSU e-mail. Many students save important information in their e-mail using it as a large internet flash drive. They also send homework to teachers and communicate with class members via the service.

I have fallen victim to the faulty e-mail myself. Unable to access MyYSU, I’ve driven 45 minutes only to find out my class was cancelled…the teacher informed everyone via e-mail. I haven’t received study guides sent by teachers through the service and I’ve also sent homework in only to have it not find its destination. Some teachers understand, others have been less understanding thinking I lied about sending or not receiving items. These issues could seriously affect a student’s grade or relationship with a teacher, I know in my case it has.

This is not something that has just become a problem this semester. A Facebook group dedicated to the shoddiness of YSU’s e-mail service was started in 2007 with the title MyYSU is a JOKE! Fourteen members still remain in the group, though the administrator has left the group. The description of the group says, “The largest communications hub for YSU never works, has [too] many things to work with and all I want to do is check my E-MAIL! If I want to see campus [announcements] I will check out my Facebook damnit.” Three years after this group was made, problems still remain.

Current YSU student Ashley Urmson is fed up with the YSU e-mail.

“My god, we can’t even use it and they keep messing around with it, not fixing anything. It’s perfectly fine and they keep trying change it,” Urmson said, “Right now, it’s worthless.”

Urmson said she tries to check her e-mail from her smart phone but always gets a “username and/or password not found” message.

“I plan around being able to check my e-mail at my convenience, it’s so annoying when it doesn’t work,” Urmson added.

It’s not just students who are fed up. Bob Hogue, a YSU associate professor of computer science and information technologies said that the YSU e-mail “is nearly useless and is a horrendous mis-expenditure of money.”

I asked Mr. Hogue what could be done to fix the e-mail; he just didn’t know exactly what could be done.

“I don't know, but judging from how long it has been a piece of junk, it must be extremely difficult to fix. Either that, or there is no commitment from anyone at the top to fix it,” Hogue said.

There are three reasons Hogue feels a university established e-mail is important.

1. It is a quick and efficient way for people to exchange important information.
2. It is a normally-expected element of the educational environment of any institution that hopes to call itself a university. 3. It provides a way for student to contact their instructor and for the instructor to know that it is really the student (using things like Hotmail or Yahoo addresses doesn't prove that the sender is who he or she says it is.)

Hogue suggests that other universities, such as Arizona State, have saved money using Gmail as an alternative to having their own e-mail. Regardless Hogue isn’t happy with the current state of YSU e-mail.

“YSU mail is a joke,” Hogue said.

Early semester e-mail malfunctions were blamed on old technology. I guess YSU didn’t “maintain a current, reliable, and secure computing and networking environment” a statement that was found in their Technology Master Plan. The plan is dated 2003. When it comes to e-mail the university has failed its students as well as its master technology plan. All is not lost, now is the time for our university, armed with a new president, to take up the challenge of providing a current, reliable and secure e-mail for students and faculty. I hope the university will address this but until that time you can reach me at my new e-mail address, FinallyHadEnough@Gmail.com.