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The college I work for used to host student email accounts. But it got so expensive in time and money, that they had to stop. Thus, no student ever gets an emai
by jerrac 16y ago
The college I work for used to host student email accounts. But it got so expensive in time and money, that they had to stop. Thus, no student ever gets an email account from us. One of the options we've considered was using Google Apps, but if it really isn't accessible, then we likely won't. A good portion of us are sticklers for making sure the ADA requirements are met.
That said, as a former student of the college, it stinks for most of the students. One of the primary ways to get education discounts is having an .edu email address. My colleges students are just out of luck there.
As for the ebook reader stuff, um, were inaccessible readers the only way to read the material? That would be bad.
If there were other, accessible, ways, then there's no good reason to stop the students who can use the readers from using them. Or to stop the College from encouraging their use.
Basically, every effort should be made to make sure those who need accessibility help, get that help. But if there is a tool that is inaccessible that would help all the other students, then that tool should be used. The only time tools like that should be blocked are when they are the only way for a student to complete a course, or get essential information from the college.
Preventing non-disabled students from using tools that will help them succeed, just because those tools are inaccessible, is just as bad as not providing methods for disabled students to succeed.
- roryokane 16y agoWhat if your college provided email accounts that only forwarded mail to a student-chosen account? Then students could access their mail from any accessible internet or desktop client they choose, and they could get discounts requiring .edu accounts. It would require students to sign up for email on their own, but I wouldn’t think that to be a problem – it’s like requiring students to buy their own textbooks.
- jerrac 16y agoWe would still have to deal with the administrative tasks of all those thousands of forwarding accounts. The only thing that forwarding would save is storage space. And that's likely a minimal cost. Though, since that kind of thing isn't what I deal with, I might ask the people who do what they think of that idea.
- pmorici 16y agoIt couldn't possibly be that prohibitively expensive to provide simple forwarding. Purdue University for example offers a life time @alumni.purdue.edu forwarding address to every graduate.
- jerrac 16y agoReally? Like I said, that's not my purview, and I may mention the idea to those who would be responsible for it. The main sticking point right now, I think, is that we are short staffed, and administering the service would be just that much extra. That's also likely one of the reasons we aren't using Google Apps yet.
- pmorici 16y agoReally, https://gateway.purdue.edu/ https://gateway.purdue.edu/ once you graduate you go signup through the alumni website and then you can change your address or the forwarding address via the web at any time. It's not like some sys admin is sitting there creating accounts for each graduate that wants a forwarding address. Sounds like you might need to advocate a healthy does of automation. In my 4 years of school I never had an IT problem and never interacted with anyone from the University IT department.