Please send all questions to your instructors:
myrna.rudder@utoledo.edu allen.rioux@utoledo.edu

Course-Related Email

Email is an efficient and effective means of communication in the engineering profession. We will be using email to facilitate communication in this course. However, we will not be using your personal email addresses such as aol.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, juno.com, buckeye-express.com, etc. for course-related purposes.

Email Accounts

As an Engineering student you have at least two email accounts at the University of Toledo.

College

The first account is an email account on the engineering server, eng.utoledo.edu. The userid for your email address is usually your first initial followed by up to seven letters of your last name. For example, dsolarek@eng.utoledo.edu and arioux@eng.utoledo.edu are both valid email accounts on the engineering server. [NOTE: On the course Listserv, we will talk about how to forward your engineering email to your personal email address.]

As you might imagine, it can be rather difficult determining a person's email address using the above scheme. For example, what are the email addresses of David Russell and Daniel Russelletti? To prevent such confusion, email aliases have been established on the engineering server. Your official engineering email alias is of the form:

 firstname.lastname@eng.utoledo.edu

http://webmail.eng.utoledo.edu/

University

The second account, assigned to all UT students (including engineering students) is an email alias address. Your official UT email alias address is of the form:

 firstname.lastname@rockets.utoledo.edu

You may access this account via the University's web interface.

https://rockets.utoledo.edu/

http://myut.utoledo.edu/

Course Listserv

As indicated above, when we correspond with you individually, we will use your engineering email address or your UT-assigned email alias address. For course-related email that is sent to the entire class, we will use the course Listserv. Course announcements, homework assignments, homework assistance, exam notifications, class cancelations, etc. are just a few of the topics that may appear on the course Listserv.

A Listserv is a mailing-list program that facilitates group communication. Fast and efficient group communication is possible with the use of a Listserv. Traditional email remains ideal for one-on-one interaction, Listservs advance the concept a step further by disseminating a single email message simultaneously to a group of people who have previously subscribed to the Listserv. This means that if you send an email message to:

 engt2000@crabbynick.com

You will need to subscribe to the ENGT 2000 course Listserv. To do so, simply click on the link below and follow the instructions found on the Web page that it points to.

 http://crabbynick.com/mailman/listinfo/engt2000

Email is Forever

Email ⁽¹⁾ is a very convenient way to communicate. It eliminates the need for the sender and receiver to be linked in real time, as with a telephone conversation, yet it is much faster than writing and mailing a letter. There are, however, some important things to remember:

• You have absolutely no control over where your email goes - so do not say anything you would not want to see hanging on a public bulletin board.
• Many companies/organizations have a policy regarding archiving of email. What you put in email can be around for a long time.
• It is all too easy to "flame" - that is, to respond angrily to a message. Count to 10 (or 100) before you reply.

The guidelines presented on this page should help you to make effective use of the Internet email messaging service.

Text Formatting

Most email programs do not have the ability to use standard text enhancements, such as boldface or underlining. Some conventions are employed to indicate these enhancements such as _underlining_ or *boldface*.

TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING, and is perceived by some readers to be rude. It is also harder to read than lower case. To avoid accidentally irritating people; use the normal mix of upper and lower case letters in your messages. Some people avoid the use of capital letters altogether, however, it is usually best to simply capitalize as usual.

Some keyboards have lots of extra symbols, but email does not transmit them well and you will simply create a message which is unreadable. Use only the standard letters, numbers and symbols found on an old fashioned typewriter.

Netiquette

One of the earliest lessons in getting along in the world of email is how to avoid getting flamed. Flames are verbal assaults on an email writer, usually brought on by a real or perceived insult, or a question or statement that appears especially dumb or out of place (at least to someone).

It is easy to avoid the flames, by using common sense and courtesy and following a few simple guidelines for internet etiquette, or netiquette.

• Email is informal and friendly. It is more like a friendly, chatty letter to a friend than a business letter. First names are the norm, even among strangers.
• Email, especially to mailing lists and newsgroups, is a public forum. You probably cannot avoid stepping on _someone's_ toes, even with the most gentle of comments, but you can pay attention to what is going on in the other postings, and avoid inviting a flame response.
• Practice safe email. Do not put anything in a private message which you would not post in a public place. Many "private" messages have been mis-addressed and sent to the wrong person by mistake - or the whole group!
• Long rambling letters with few paragraph breaks are hard to read, so be brief and break the screen up visually by writing short paragraphs and inserting blank lines between them. Your readers will appreciate the extra space between paragraphs even if they do not realize what you're doing.
• If you subscribe to an electronic mailing list, it is usually wise to read the incoming messages for several days or weeks to learn the norms of the group before you send a message yourself. This practice, called lurking, will help you see if the people in the group are prone to flames, and allow you to decide if your questions are appropriate to the group.
• Most importantly, write to the person as though you are speaking to him or her face to face. Follow the same rules of courtesy you would if he or she were in the same room with you, and you will be in good shape.

Humor, Emotions and Smileys

One problem with email is the difficulty many people have with writing humor or sarcasm which is _clearly_ understood by the reader as humor. Since there's no way to read body language, hear the tone of voice, or pick up any other non-verbal clues, be careful with satire, sarcasm and subtle humor. It is hard to write humor - it is easy to hurt feelings or cause misunderstandings while _trying_ to write humor. Some people have been deeply offended by statements the sender intended to be humorous, resulting in unnecessary "flame wars."

Since it can be very (*_very_*) difficult to determine someone's tone [of voice] from the written word, little symbols or smileys (officially called emoticons: emotion + icon) are used to indicate when a statement is intended as a joke or intended to express some other emotion. A smiley uses a series of 2-4 common punctuation characters to construct an inline icon which represents a basic emotion or characterizes an adjoining statement. Smileys are usually placed immediately after the words, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which they apply.

Here are some examples of basic smileys. To view them on your monitor, it helps at first to tilt your head to the left. To view them on this page, simply turn the page 90 degrees clockwise.

Smiley	Meaning
:-)	The most basic smiley. This smiley is used to inflect a sarcastic or joking statement since we cannot hear voice tone or inflection in email.
;-)	Winky smiley. Writer just made a flirtatious and/or sarcastic remark. More of a "do not hit me for what I just said" smiley.
:-(	Frowning smiley. Writer did not like that last statement or is upset or depressed about something.
:-I	Indifferent smiley. Better than a :-( but not quite as good as a :-).
:->	Writer just made a really biting sarcastic remark. Worse than a ;-).
>:->	Writer just made a really devilish remark.

Other widely used smileys include the following:

Smiley	Meaning
(-:	Writer is left handed.
%-)	Writer has been staring at a computer monitor for 15 hours straight.
[:]	Writer is a robot.
8-)	Writer is wearing sunglasses.
B:-)	Sunglasses on forehead.
::-)	Writer wears normal glasses.
B-)	Writer wears horn-rimmed glasses.
:-{)	Writer has a mustache.

There are many more smileys, but these examples should give you the basic idea. For a detailed listing, check out the Unofficial Smiley Dictionary at: http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/ascii/smileys.html

Abbreviations

There are also some abbreviations or acronyms used when sending email to help keep messages short. For example, a common abbreviation is BTW, which stands for by the way. Here are some other abbreviations commonly used in email messages:

Abbreviation	Meaning
BTW	By the way
IMHO	In my humble opinion
IRL	In real life
LOL	Laughing out loud
ROTFL	Rolling on the floor, laughing
TTYL	Talk to you later
TTFN	Ta Ta For Now
<G>	Grins (used to indicate humor)
<BG>	Big Grin
GFE2E    or GFETE	Grinning from ear to ear

There have been visitors since 1/12/2004