With Lotus Notes appearing to cause more problems than the number of e-mails it can hold, almost 2,500 of the 13,750 undergraduate students have begun to forward the e-mails sent to their student accounts to other e-mail servers such as Yahoo and Gmail.

Susan McCabe, assistant CIO and director of Systems Integration, said there are multiple reasons 20 percent of students forward their Lotus Notes e-mails. One reason could be the limited space Lotus Notes provides, leaving many students' inboxes full and unable to accept new e-mails.

"Most external mail sources offer unlimited or very large quotas," McCabe

said.

In addition to more space, McCabe added it's easier for students to only deal with one account, rather than several.

"Most students already had a mail account when they came here," McCabe said. "Friends and family know it and [students] want one place to look."

Junior Beth Geiger has her Lotus Notes e-mails forwarded to her Gmail account for similar reasons.

"I like it because all of my e-mails are in one place," Geiger said.

Aside from practicality, Geiger also appreciates not having the issues

she experienced with Lotus Notes.

"On my Tangent, it takes forever for Notes to load," Geiger said. "Gmail is a lot faster and it doesn't make my computer freeze like Lotus Notes did."

Not all students have issues with Lotus Notes that are annoying enough for them to switch servers.

Despite being unhappy with how slow the e-mail is to start up, junior Mike Werhan said "I don't have any other e-mail accounts I'd rather use, and I don't think I ever will. I don't have a problem with Lotus Notes."

With the large number of students forwarding their e-mails and the problems with Lotus Notes, it's important for students to still check their accounts or at least read the e-mails forwarded to their new address.

"Our primary reason for establishing mail accounts was to enable greater collaboration between students and faculty," McCabe said. "By creating the mail accounts we are able to deliver e-mail lists of course rosters. These can be used for e-mail distribution lists, access to QuickPlace

and access to WebCT/Isidore."

Although many students are unhappy with Lotus Notes, McCabe said there is no talk about switching servers, although it could happen in the future if there was a compelling reason.

There may be problems with Lotus Notes but receiving school e-mails is important, regardless of how students receive those messages.

"It's important for a student to forward their Notes mail if they would prefer to use Yahoo or Gmail," McCabe said. "The notes account is the primary communication mechanism of the university."

Nearly 20% of students no longer use Notes