IU Northwest: The IT Help Desk

Email @ iun.edu

I'm a new student. Why do I need an IUN e-mail address? I've got my own e-mail.
How do I get an IUN e-mail account?
I'm a new employee. How do I get an IUN e-mail account?
What is the proper user for e-mail at IU?
What's WebMail?
Where can I find the Help File for WebMail?
Setting up Outlook Express as your E-mail Client - for students and web accounts
What are Account Quotas for Webmail?
What are Campus E-mail Guidelines?
How do I Change My Password?
My password doesn't work anymore. Who changed it?

Why do I need an IUN e-mail address? I've got my own e-mail.

As a student at IUN, the main reasons to have an iun.edu account is to stay in touch with everyone on the IUN campus and to use a computer on the IUN campus. Instructors often require students to have an iun.edu account to use for that particular class in order to pass on information directly affecting that class. There are also many important announcements passed along to everyone on the iun.edu address concerning campus events and information.

Further, by establishing your iun.edu account, you will also have access to Oncourse, a web-based system many classes use. Think of Oncourse as a website for your class. Your instructor can post various materials and even set-up a chat room or a message board for the class to use.

How do I get an IUN e-mail account and Oncourse access?

An IU NetID (which includes iun.edu e-mail and Oncourse access) is available to any registered student and any staff or faculty member.

Students who have never had an IU NetID account may go to the Marram 103 Student Technology Center (the 'big computer lab' in common parlance) and one of the lab consultants will be able to guide them through the online process. (Bring your Student ID. Where can you get one? At the ticket booth near the main or north entrance of the Savannah gym.)

Students may also establish new accounts through the http://itaccounts.iu.edu link. This may be done from either an on- or off-campus computer. If this process does not initialize the account, the student should visit the Marram 103 lab.

If you are a returning student and once had an account but have forgotten your password, etc., stop in at the IUN IT Help Desk in Raintree 204 with a photo ID and the technician on duty will be able to assist you. Please make sure to bring your photo ID because we cannot do anything without confirming identity through your Photo ID. (An IUN Student ID is preferred but a valid state driver's license would be fine.)

New staff and faculty can simply go to the same link -- http://itaccounts.iu.edu -- and establish their first account. The process is hopefully self-explanatory and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. If a message is received at the beginning of the process that the person cannot apply for this account, then the new employee's information has not been entered into the IU human resources database (or PeopleSoft). The person should then try to establish this account at a later date. If the new employee is part-time, they will need to have a sponsored account. This may be established through the same link but must be done so by the employee's supervisor. The technology account may also be created from home.

I'm a new employee. How do I get an IUN e-mail account?

New employees can create their New Technology Accounts by following instructions on the Account Management Service page. Notice that the account may be created also from home.

Any time you need assistance with your password, you will need to come in person to The IT Help Desk, Raintree 204. For security reasons, password assistance cannot be handled over the phone or via e-mail or fax. Be certain to bring a PHOTO ID, preferably an IUN Employee ID. An IUN Employee ID may be obtained at the ticket booth near the north end of Savannah Student Center next to the main entrance to the gym. Along with a photo ID, employees will need to have a letter verifying employment from their department director in order to obtain an IUN Employee ID Card.

What is the proper use of university e-mail at IU?

What's WebMail?

WebMail is an Internet interface for your iun.edu account. This allows you to access your IUN e-mail from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection. You can access the WebMail start page through the IUN Homepage. Just click on the WebMail icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

If you are accessing WebMail through a browser, it is strongly recommended that you use Microsoft Internet Explorer and not Netscape Navigator. The two student computer labs are running the Windows 2000 operating system (on the PCs) and Netscape has stability issues with this OS. You will have a better web experience in general with Internet Explorer when on this platform.

For instructions on how to configure e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express for the PC or Entourage for the Macs, and other basic features about WebMail, please see the links here or the IU Knowledge Base.

Where can I find the Help File for WebMail?

Once you have logged into the Webmail function, you will have access to the Help file.

What are Account Quotas for Webmail?

As with most e-mail systems, Webmail and the iun.edu accounts have a storage quota or a limit on the amount of space you are allowed on the server. The base storage limit for these accounts is approximately six megabytes for shakespeare accounts. This is quite a bit of room if most messages are plain text (which the vast majority of e-mail messages sent throughout the IU system should be). If you are storing e-mail messages that have large attachments, then your storage space can be eaten up rather quickly. The Webmail server space is not meant to house large file attachments -- save large attachments (defined as attachments greater than 50 kilobytes) to your computer's hard drive or to removable storage media (such as a Zip disk) and delete the message from your account. (Obviously, if you need to save the text of the message, simply copy and paste it into a word processing application and save it in conjunction with the attachment.)

When using WebMail through a web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer is recommended), deleting messages from any folder (such as the New-Mail-Mail Inbox, etc.) will move that message to the Deleted-Deleted Messages folder. It will not automatically delete this message -- it will simply move the message from the folder of origin to the Deleted folder. At this point, the user has a couple of different options in order to permanently delete a message. The user can go into the Deleted folder, select the message by placing a checkmark in the appropriate box, and then clicking the Delete button located near the top of that window. This method, however, can prove to be rather cumbersome. A more pragmatic method is to set the deleted messages folder to empty itself on a regular basis.

To set the deleted folder to empty itself, go to the Webmail homepage and log into your account. Click on the Options button located near the top of the window. Below the four checkboxes, you will find an option for "Maximum Number of Messages to Retain in Deleted Messages Folder". Setting this to 1 (the numeric symbol for one) will delete all messages in that folder once in a 24-hour period. Setting this same option to 0 (the numeric symbol for zero) will delete the messages in this folder when you Logout of your current e-mail session (remember to always use the Logout button located near the top of the window). Setting this option will greatly decrease the chance of exceeding the storage quota on your account.

What are Campus E-mail Guidelines?

To further reduce the chance of exceeding the storage quota, here are a few rules-of-the-cyber-highway for e-mail.

Business e-mail is done in plain text. HTML e-mail may have the potential to look "fancier" but it also unnecessarily eats up bandwidth and storage space.
When mass e-mailing the campus, attachments should rarely be used. If you must attach a file, it should be no more than 50 kilobytes and accessible by an application common to the IUN community (such as Microsoft Word). Large graphic images, Power Point presentations, campus event fliers, etc., should never be attached to a mass e-mailing. These types of materials should be posted on on appropriate bulletin boards or (better still) on departmental websites. Send your e-mail with the link to the website rather than the attachment.
Phone first If you are sending a large attachment to an individual, call them before you send it and let them know it is coming. They may not have the storage space available in their account. With large files it is always best to deliver it to the person on removable storage media when at all possible.
Send One E-mail. Pushing for attendance at an event you've worked hard to make great is understandable, but one or two, plain-text campus-wide e-mails is more than sufficient.
Believe it or not, people will just start deleting excessive messages concerning the same event so you are still not reaching the audience despite deluging them with three messages per day (for example). A couple of well-timed messages combined with other simple promotional techniques will do the job much more effectively.

Below are links that explore this issue a bit more in depth.

How do I Change My Password?

Go to the Password Maintenance page.
Enter your Network ID Username (this is the part of your e-mail address before the ampersand, e.g. johndoe@iun.edu -- johndoe is the Network ID Username).
Enter your Current Network ID Password.
To either reset or change your password, enter the same or a new password in the Set Passwords To text area.
Re-Enter to Confirm the password -- Retype the same password you used in Step 4.
Click on the Change Password button.

Wait for the subsequent page to load completely. If you see any error messages (they will be in red), use the Back button or Backspace key and return to the Password Maintenance page. Type carefully and make certain you are entering the correct information; check that the CAPS LOCK is not on. (Your password will have two or more numerals in it -- if it doesn't, you're using the wrong password.)

If all else fails, stop by The IT Help Desk in Raintree 204 (please bring a Photo ID).

My password doesn't work anymore. It worked fine last week. Who changed it?

Password problems are perhaps the most common situation The IT Help Desk personnel encounter on a daily basis.

The IT Help Desk handles passwords for the iun.edu e-mail accounts. This same password will also be used for access to Oncourse.

While some users insist that when their password doesn't work it has somehow been changed, this isn't the case. Passwords do not change on their own nor does a computer have the capability to simply change a password at random. Further, The IT Help Desk and Computer Services personnel cannot change your password nor do they have any access whatsoever to anyone else's password but their own.

The steps below should remedy most password problems:

Are you using the correct password? Your iun.edu/Oncourse password will have at least two, non-alphabetic characters, typically numerals. If you are using a password that only has letters, then you are using the wrong password.
Are you typing the password correctly? Carefully type in the password. These passwords are case-sensitive so if you used both uppercase and lowercase letters when you created your password, you will need to type it exactly the same way.
Is the CAPS LOCK key engaged? Check to make sure this is not the case. As mentioned,
passwords are case-sensitive and if the CAPS LOCK key is engaged, you are, in effect, typing the wrong password.
Are you typing the username correctly? As with your password, your username is case-sensitive. Type it using all lowercase letters.
Are you trying to login on the correct IMAP server? The default server for WebMail (if you are accessing it through a browser) is IMAP3. Your server in all likelihood will be either IMAP3 or IMAP4. (To use IMAP4, click the arrow to the right of the server name to obtain a drop-down list.)
Are you using Netscape Navigator on the Windows 2000 platform? The Windows 2000 operating system (the most common OS on campus) has some issues when using Netscape Navigator. We recommend using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or better to avoid any of these problems.
The 'Intruder Lockout' Error Message. Intruder Lockout is one of the security features for the iun.edu e-mail accounts. After seven unsuccessful attempts to log in (by you or other persons), the account is locked to protect against an intruder. This is done since hackers will use programs that run through many variations of passwords until they hit one that works. If you get this message when trying to log in, come to The IT Help Desk in Raintree 204 and we will contact the necessary network administrators to unlock your account.
Have you activated your IUN account? If you have not gone through and successfully completed the e-mail account set-up through the IUN website, then you do not have an iun.edu account and you will not be able to login (obviously). Every registered student is assigned a username. This username remains only that until you activate the account. Go to either of the open student computer labs (Marram 103 or Savannah 227) and one of the lab monitors will be glad to help you walk through the set-up. If you are a new employee, please have your department call The IT Help Desk and we will request an account to be set up.