Faculty looks at consequences of email crash

By Ellen Goldbaum
News Services Editor

Some people are calling this week's email system crash a preview of Y2K. Others describe a kind of email withdrawal, wondering who has been trying to contact them. Still others fear an irrevocable loss of important material. And for a campus steeped in the virtues of educational technology, the crash has forced faculty to see just what its limits are and how they will work around them in the future.

"If we're becoming so dependent on this technology, then what are we going to do when there are problems?" asked Deborah Burhans, a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, a department that has its own server and so was unaffected by the crash. "This experience argues for a course's online component to be Web-based and not email-based," she said.

For students expected to email their assignments to professors, the crash has earned them a short extension on their deadlines, while course listservs have been silenced temporarily.

But on Tuesday, when Burhans asked the 150 students in her Computer Science 101 course how many of them were severely hampered by the crash, the answer surprised her: Almost none.

She also was surprised by the fact that about a third of her students said they had outside email accounts, a point that makes sense, she said, considering many of them live outside the area and need to have an additional account for use during vacations and the summer.

Faculty, staff and students informally polled by the Reporter say that while they have been seriously inconvenienced by the email system crash, they have been able to work around the problems so far.

But for others, the consequences are far more serious. One faculty member noted that there could be critical ramifications if email messages concerning grant applications or paper publications are missing.

Of course, the longer the problem continues, the more serious the consequences.

"It's a complete disaster," said Hank J. Bromley, assistant professor of educational organization, administration and policy. "It is as though someone came into my office in the middle of the night, pulled things out of my file cabinet at random and threw them out and then left a note saying 'We're sorry, some unknown amount of your material is gone and we don't know what's missing.' This is completely unacceptable."

Bromley, who said he uses his email as a filing system, explained that he works "tethered to my email."

He uses it to communicate with colleagues and students, and to organize national conferences, a task that requires communicating the same message to many people at the same time. "The worst part of it is I simply don't know what I've lost," he said.

Other faculty members reported it was frustrating not to have email available, especially if students were trying to contact them.

Mary Flanagan, assistant professor of media study, noted that the crash will force people to think of how extenuating circumstances like these will affect how they work and teach. "We'll have to think of all the 'what ifs,'" she said. "So if the server goes down, will students be able to participate in an online learning environment and what are the alternatives? We'll have to design for that because failures will happen."