Email and Related Means of Communication

Bolton email account

The account details notified to you shortly before the start of the course give access to a personal web-based email account hosted at Bolton. The account is:

<userid>@bolton.ac.uk

This account will be available for the duration of your studies at Bolton. It is hosted on a Microsoft Exchange server and can be accessed from any web browser regardless of the platform (PC, Mac, Linux or UNIX).

The storage quota allocation is 60 Mbytes and a warning is issued automatically once 49 Mbytes have been used. Once the limit has been reached, any incoming mail will be refused although the sender will be informed that the mail could not be delivered. The account will endeavour to automatically identify and deal with junk email.

When messages in the "In" and "Sent" folders are deleted they are in fact retained, only being moved to the "Deleted" folder. Only when they are finally deleted or moved to a local folder is space relinquished. The storage quota includes the contents of the "Deleted" folder so to avoid the mail system reaching the limit it is important periodicaly either to delete the messages in "Deleted" or to move them to a local folder.

The web mail email interface using an imap based exchange server replaces the previous POP based interfaces provided to students on University systems. One effect of this change is that external access to the mail server is now restricted. The new web mail interface provides a standardised and secure access methodology for students irrespective of their location or computer systems.

 

Accessing the Bolton email account via a web browser


University email accounts are supported using the webmail function available with Microsoft exchange server. The interface is in the form of a Microsoft Outlook web interface. All communications and pages displayed are served via HTTPS pages. Unlike Hotmail and similar accounts, where only the login page is encrypted, in this case all the communications, including the emails, are delivered via HTTPS pages. To access your email account you need use to access the following URL:

http://webmail.bolton.ac.uk    (Do not add www beforehand).

You will then be presented with the login page shown below; as you can see, it is an HTTPS page. Dependent on your system and browser security settings, you may be prompted to accept a security certificate from The University of Bolton before the page is displayed. You need to enter your University id and password in the relevant sections of the form.

Login page for Bolton webmail

 

Login page options

Two configuration options appear on the login page: "Client" and "Security".

Client options
The only difference between "Premium" and "Basic" is in the detail of the graphics displayed. There is no functional difference.

 

Security options

It is recommended that this is left on "Public" rather than "Private" as this maintains the highest level of security for the interface.

 

The image below is an example of the webmail display after selecting the "Premium" login option.

Typical webmail display under "Premium" option"

For those of you familiar with Microsoft outlook, its variants or any web mail tools such as Hotmail, further explanation will be unnecessary. For the rest of us, suitable tutorials are: *** links to be added here ***

 

Accessing the web based email on the UNIX systems

For those of you unfamiliar with UNIX mail systems and tools, the webmail interface can be used from within the UNIX systems. Typing "netscape" in a UNIX terminal will invoke the Netscape browser and, once the browser opens, webmail will be accessible through the usual URL.

Older student accounts may have to reconfigure their environment before the browser can successfully access external sites. In this case, running the command "resetNetscape" in a terminal window will resolve any issues.

 

An alternative to email for transferring files between the PC and UNIX systems

At least one of the AMI modules requires you to transfer files between the UNIX and the PC system using email. To do this using the webmail interface you need to mail the relevant file to yourself.

Samba access is supported between Gandalf and the UNIX server Cad02. Thus if you open up Windows Explorer and enter the path "\\beaker" you will be able to access your UNIX student account under the "students" directory. It is then straightforward to copy one or more files from the PC to the UNIX system or vice versa.

An example of part of a UNIX file system listed within the tree structure of a Windows Explorer display is shown below.

Part of a UNIX file system appearing in a Windows Explorer tree display

 

Communicating with fellow students and/or the tutor using the automatic message form

In order to facilitate communications between students and tutors, each page of courseware provides a route that allows you to send a message to the tutor and fellow students currently studying the module. You can use it to email selected individuals on your module, or the entire group, with or without the tutor. This tool is only available for the module(s) on which you are currently enrolled. It can be reached in three ways: from the menu bar above each page of courseware, from the "MySite" panel to the right, or from "students", "contact fellow students and tutors".

 

The "Contact Tutor/Group" tool is a standard web form and uses the web server rather than the email system for sending. This has some important repercussions:

updated KS 15.04.10