implement sensible email addresses for students... and sensible names in the email directory
Anonymous submitted on
Tuesday 23rd October 2018
Complete
Email addresses are tricky to remember. This is made worse because people's full names are not in the email directory.
Can this be fixed by isolutions please? (At least the full name issue?)
Responses
Here, you can view the complete set of official responses from the sabbatical officers regarding this submission.
Students' Union replied on
Friday 23rd Nov 2018 1:20pm
Hello again!
Now that a couple of weeks have passed and iSolutions have provided a repsosne, I feel that we're in a much better position than we were. Due to the long-term nature of this project I'm going to close this You Make Change for now, but with the intention of re-opening it as soon as there is an update.
Thank you for your submission, and do let me know if I can do any more to help out!
All the best,
Samuel Dedman (VP Education 2017-19, vpeducation@susu.org)
Students' Union replied on
Tuesday 20th Nov 2018 1:51pm
Hello again!
I've just had a response from iSolutions on this question - full text is below!
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We are currently looking into improving the formatting of names within the University IT systems, including the email directory and Banner etc. Unfortunately, it is not an easy process especially as there are disparities affecting the formatting of names across the IT systems. But we are working hard to come up with a solution and will let you know as soon as we have made progress on this.
It is unlikely this project will be completed this academic year but we will keep you informed of timeframes as we progress with this project.
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I'll leave this You Make Change live for a bit longer yet to allow for more voting to take place.
All the best,
Samuel Dedman (VP Education 2018/19, vpeducation@susu.org)
Students' Union replied on
Friday 26th Oct 2018 1:36pm
Hello there!
Thanks for getting in touch. I'm honestly not sure what technical work would be required to make this happen, but I'll do my best to find out. I've sent your request over to our contact at iSolutions, and will let you know as soon as they have replied to me.
In the meantime your response is now live on the SUSU website, so please share it around so that people can vote on it!
All the best,
Samuel Dedman (VP Education 2018/19, vpeducation@susu.org)
Actions
Forwarded to Education
Friday 26th Oct 2018 1:11pm
Comments
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My last university dealt with this just fine. Names in the address book and upon receiving emails appeared as if they were a normal, sensible name. For these there can be any number of duplicates, it does not matter. For usernames, everyone had the first initial of their first name and then the first 5 letters of their surname. In the case of duplicate names and surnames, one letter from the surname was dropped and replaced by a digit which incremented by 1 for every student. If nothing else, names should appear sensibly in the address book at receiving emails. It is ridiculous to be receiving emails from such random address (which in no place has a full name linked to it). If someone sends you an email and only references their first name it is impossible to work out what their full name is!
This is a little trickier than you think. There are thousands of students and names start to duplicate. Especially with Chinese students. The current emails make sense as they're the student's initials combined with the academic year when the account was created, plus other items.
I'm also not sure that the address book should be easy to navigate in the first place as it may be a privacy issue.
However if support the option for students to be able to add an alias they can share with others that will lead to their normal uni inbox.
