Although the student e-mail system was improved this summer, there was an unforeseen result of the upgrade: students cannot access their email account from NEIUport, the school’s new portal. The newly upgraded e-mail system is just different enough that the connector on NEIUport is incompatible, thus an error message pops up when one attempts to access email from NEIUport.
The summer upgrades included better filtering options for spam, the ability to forward NEIU Webmail into students’ external email accounts, and better editing features for email, as well as, a newer interface. “It’s Sun’s [Sun Microsystem’s] upgrade over the old system,” Kim Tracy, head of university computing services said.
In the meantime, students can access their email by going directly to the webmail system. Tracy said that Computing Services is working on the problem and it will be solved “probably in the next few weeks.” The problem affects student e-mail only, because it was the first to be upgraded. Tracy did say, however, that a new connector to Blackboard, the academic suite used by many professors to post documents and handouts, should be online by the time of this printing. In the coming year, students must use their webmail account to log in to Blackboard.