Email
at Rutgers

Registering your email address

You don't have to use a Rutgers system for mail, although we recommend it. But whether you use Rutgers, AOL, or some other ISP, please make sure that you register your email address with the University. An increasing number of University offices are using email to communicate with and deliver services to students, faculty and staff.

To check whether you are properly registered, please look yourself up in the Rutgers Online Directory.

To register or change your email address:

Student online directory change form
Online Address Directory Record form for faculty and staff. Faculty and staff can also ask their department office to submit the paper version of the Address Directory Record.

Reading and sending email

Here are the major ways to read email at Rutgers:

The easiest way to read and send mail is using Rutgers web mail. Anyone who has created a computer account on one of the OIT campus systems (eden, rci, pegasus, andromeda, clam or crab) can use web mail. You will login with your username/NetID and password from the campus system. To create an account see the account creation web page.

Web mail is fine for people who don't get much email. For those who handle larger amounts of mail, or who want a mail reader with more features, we recommend using Netscape or Outlook Express. While these are faster than web mail, they require you to do a small amount of work to set them up on your computer. You can use these mail programs together with web mail: They all use the same usernames/NetIDs and passwords, and they will all see exactly the same mail. It is probably most convenient to use the email program that comes with your web browser. (Outlook Express comes with Internet Explorer.) However given a choice, we believe that Netscape has significantly fewer problems with viruses and other security risks than Outlook Express. Documentation:

• Newark and New Brunswick: Netscape Email or Outlook Express. (Newark students should use pegasus.rutgers.edu and Newark faculty/staff andromeda.rutgers.edu where this documentation mentions the New Brunswick systems eden.rutgers.edu and rci.rutgers.edu.)
• Camden: See the Netscape mail document from the Camden help pages for Windows, Macintosh, or Unix.
[The instructions for Netscape are for 4.7. See Email in Netscape 6 for Netscape versions 6.x, 7.x, and Mozilla.]

While Netscape and Outlook Express are the most common mail programs, you can actually use any mail program that supports "IMAP." IMAP is an industry-standard method for accessing mail on a server. While we can't supply specific instructions for all possible mail programs, the instructions for Netscape and Outlook Express will give you the information you need in setting up other mail programs. Many people at Rutgers use the full Outlook program, which comes as part of Microsoft Office. If you want to buy a separate mail program, Mulberry provides the most complete support for the features of IMAP.

People who prefer to use traditional Unix/Linux software may want to try pine. This is primarily a Unix screen-based program, although there is also a PC version of Pine available. If you have a computer account on one of the OIT campus systems, you can run pine on your campus Unix system. To do so, you will need to connect to the Unix system using SSH and login with your username/NetID and password. Documentation:

• Newark and New Brunswick: pine, SSH. (For Pine, Newark users should use the "short introduction" for RCI.)
• Camden: Unix.

Other Mail-related Services

Here are several other mail-related services you may want to know about:

Rutgers Online Directoy. University Email directory.
Listserv. Mailing list system (primarily NB, but open to all). Make sure to look at the last entry on the page, which gives instructions for setting up a new mailing list. See the Listserv archives page to look at archives of the lists. The archive web interface also lets you add and remove yourself from lists and make other changes.
Official mailing lists. See the description later on this page for how to add yourself to the lists and look at archives.
Computing policy web page. Email policies.

Mailing lists

There are several kinds of mailing list discussed in the following paragraphs:

	A list defined in your address book
	A list you maintain using a Rutgers list server
	Official University lists, covering all students in a college or school, and faculty or staff by mail code

NOTE: If you are going to send mail to more than 50 people, please see the email guidines in the computing policy web page

Address books. There are a number of ways to create mailing lists for email use. If you are the only person that is going to use the list, and it is small (under 50 people), you can use the address book feature of your mail program. Netscape, Internet Explorer, and pine all call it the "address book". Other Unix mail programs use a file called .mailrc in your home directory.

Address book entries are easy to use, because you can create and modify them yourself. However they have two major problems: (1) they are private; (2) they are not appropriate for larger lists.

Suppose you want to maintain a list of staff in your department. If you enter their addresses in your address book, you will be able to send mail to all of them. However no one else in the department will be able to use the list, because it's in your private address book.

Mail list services. For this reason, most official lists are done using special mailing list software. Once a list is created, you can send mail to it just as if it were a normal user. For example, you might send email to all faculty in the web science department by sending email to websci_faculty@email.rutgers.edu.

Newark and Camden users can set up mailing lists by contacting the help desk on your campus. New Brunswick users should see the NB Listserv mailing list system. This web reference covers all aspects of the Listserv system, including requesting new lists, maintaining existing lists (i.e. adding and deleting members and changing parameters), and looking for messages in the archives.

Official University lists. Computing services maintains a set of mailing lists that cover all students, as well as most faculty and staff. Currently the student lists classify students by college or school, and by class year. Faculty-staff lists are based on a set of mail codes based on the adminstrative hierarchy of the University. These lists are generated automatically from administrative data. Mail sent to the lists is redirected to a list manager, who will review it for appropriateness and may combine it with other information into periodic digests.

The official lists use the Listserv system. Thus archives of the lists (lists of past messages) are available on the Listserv archive page. You can add or remove yourself from a list, and make other changes, by going to the archive page for the list. However there's a limitation: The official mailing lists are built automatically, based on the student records database and the payroll database. If you are put on the list automatically, you can't leave it. If you join the list voluntarily, you can undo that. For example, suppose you are a student in Rutgers College. You will automatically be on one of the Rutgers College lists (e.g. RUTGERS_JUNIOR) and the New Brunswick Official Student Listserv (NB_ALLSTUDENTS). You can't leave those lists. However if you want to see information about Cook College, you can join a list such as COOK_JUNIOR. If you join that list yourself, you can later remove yourself from it.

Other email services

Help in setting up departmental systems. OIT can give you help in planning and setting up a departmental mail system. Newark and Camden users should contact the help desk on your campus. New Brunswick users should contact the Microcomputer Support Services Group.

Course email. Sometimes faculty are interested in an email system that is limited to students in a specific course. This is available through WebCT, Web Course Tools. Email within WebCT is very easy to use, as long as students can use a web browser. However it is limited to students within your course.