Cmail is the name Cornell uses to refer to the services currently provided through Google Apps Education Edition. Cmail provides integrated email, calendar, file storage, and web site services for all current undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. It also provides collaboration tools that, for example, allow groups to review and edit, in real time, shared files.
Cmail includes Gmail with a 7.3 GB mailbox and built-in voice and video chat, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and more. All about Cmail.
A second service for email, calendar, and collaboration -- Umail -- may be available in the future. At this point, a date has not been determined. Powered by Microsoft Live@edu with Outlook Live, Umail would include Outlook Live email and calendar with a 10 GB mailbox, Office Live Workspace, SkyDrive with 25 GB of storage, and more.
Cmail accounts are provided automatically to all students (including undergraduates, graduate students, and professional students). To use your Cmail account, you simply need to set it up. You will continue to use your NetID@cornell.edu address (for example, ewe1@cornell.edu) with Cmail.
Generally speaking, faculty and staff will not have Cmail accounts, and students will not have accounts in the central Exchange service that faculty and staff began using in September 2009. Exceptions can be made to meet very specific needs.
The primary reason is to provide students with a broader and better set of services than Cornell's budget allows. For example, Cmail (Google Apps) provides each student with much more online storage space -- 7.3 GB on Google -- more than 20 times the 300 MB now provided by Cornell.
Near the end of 2007, two task forces, one for faculty and staff and one for students, were commissioned to evaluate the university's email and calendar services. Seven students and eight faculty and staff served on the Task Force for Student Personal Productivity Services.
The task force engaged in a careful and thoughtful analysis that included assessment of student needs via a random survey, discussions with other universities, and vendor responses to a Request For Purchase (RFP).
Part of their analysis included gathering statistics on Cornell's email forwarding service, which showed that over 4,000 students routed their Cornell mail to a Google account, over 600 routed to a HotMail account, and smaller numbers to other vendor domains (AOL, RoadRunner, etc.)
In May 2008, the student task force recommended Google Apps Education Edition and Microsoft Live@edu with Outlook Live as the best options for students. President Skorton and Cornell's senior administrators accepted this recommendation (see the final report) in summer 2008.
Yes. Many have decided to offer either Google Apps or Microsoft Live, and some offer both. Offering both has several advantages:
One benefit is that Google and Microsoft have an opportunity to build a student's preference for their services, with the hope that the student will continue using their services after graduation, at which point Google and Microsoft can include advertisements again. While a student is enrolled at Cornell, Google and Microsoft provide these services without any advertising.
Yes. No matter where you access your Cornell email, whether that's through Cmail or another email account you have, your Cornell email address will still be your NetID@cornell.edu (for example, ewe1@cornell.edu).
NOTE: This answer applies only to students who were enrolled at Cornell prior to April 2009. Students who enrolled starting in April 2009 or later do not have Cornell email (postoffice) accounts.
Only temporarily. After you activate your Cmail account, your Cornell email (postoffice) account will be discontinued in 35 days. During the activation process, you will have a one-time opportunity to have Cornell Information Technologies copy most email that is in your Cornell email (postoffice) account to Cmail.
If you don't use this one-time opportunity, and you want to save any email in your Cornell postoffice account, you will need to use Cornell WebMail to download it to your own computer or removeable media (such as a USB flash drive).
If you want to keep your Cornell email (postoffice) account for a while longer, you can delay when you activate your Cmail account. Your postoffice account will be closed eventually -- the exact timing has not yet been determined, but your account will be available for at least the 2009-10 academic year if you do not activate your Cmail account.
No. Just like you can do now, you will be able to use Who I Am to route your Cornell email to the external email account of your choice. Cmail provides more services than just email, however, and you may want to use some of them.
Yes. Because Cmail services are hosted outside of Cornell's networks, using them counts toward the 10 GB of off-campus (Internet) traffic that each student is given each month. The usage of most students is far below that threshold each month, so the additional usage needed for Cmail services is expected to be covered.
Per the Network Usage-Based Billing (NUBB) policy, usage above 10 GB per month is billed at a fraction of a cent per megabyte.
Cornell Information Technologies will be monitoring the effects of Cmail usage on NUBB allocations to determine if an increase in the base monthly allocation is needed.
No. Although Umail would include Outlook Live and may seem very similar to the Outlook that faculty and staff use with Cornell's central Exchange service, it would be completely separate. Umail's calendar service, for example, would not be integrated with the faculty and staff's calendar service.
