University forms EMail Committee
Group will assess and review current system, define policies and standards

By CHRISTINE VIDAL
News Services Editor

A university-wide committee has been formed to oversee and evaluate the email policies, service standards and implementation architectures of UB's central and distributed email services.

The UB Email Committee was formed following the failure of the university's central email server in February.

"When the email system came down and it took us over a week to restore service, it became clear that the system that we had for backups was too lengthy," said Voldemar Innus, senior associate vice president for information technology. "We also began to question our overall email strategy, and it seemed wise to put together a broad-based group to look at the issues people had raised."

Headed by Brian Murphy, director of health-professions information technology, the UB Email Committee will play an important part in determining the future of the university's email system and the way resources will be expended in the delivery of email services.

The committee has been asked to assess and review the email system UB currently has in place.

In addition, the committee also will define specific email policies and review standards, based on an analysis of how AAU peer institutions, such as Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, Pittsburgh and Virginia, are handling their email strategies, and benchmarking UB's email capabilities against those institutions and other leading academic and commercial organizations.

Finally, the committee will be asked to make a set of recommendations "on how we should proceed with what we have," Innus said.

Recommendations will be reviewed by the IT Coordinating Committee and then forwarded to the IT Steering Committee for final approval.

Progress reports will be made to the IT Coordinating and Steering committees as the work proceeds.

The process is expected to take "a number of months," Innus said.

In addition to Murphy, members of the UB Email Committee include Rebecca Bernstein, director of electronic media; Charles Brunskill, director of Science and Engineering Node Services; Ray Dannenhoffer, assistant dean for support services in the Department of Anatomical Sciences; Charles Dunn, director of technical services; Charles Kaars, assistant vice president for sponsored programs administration; Joseph Kerr, assistant vice president for technology services; Joel Kuntz, instructional support specialist in the College of Arts and Sciences; Richard Lesniak, director of academic services, Computing and Information Technology; Joseph Mantione, assistant vice provost for technical services in the Office of the Provost; Gretchen Phillips, manager of UNIX support services in CIT, and Stephen Roberts, associate director of the University Libraries.

Information about the UB Email Committee is available at http://www.hpitp.buffalo.edu/hpitp/UBEmail.