DURHAM STUDENTS HAVE begun a proposal to get ITS to change the university’s email system to add IMAP access, which will give undergraduates the same functionality as staff and research postgraduates.

There are two ways of accessing an email system: from an email client (such as Microsoft Outlook) on your computer, or through a webmail interface which allows you to visit any computer connected to the internet and deal with your email from there.

Most email providers, such as Hotmail and Gmain, offer a webmail service – but recently it has become standard to add the IMAP protocol, regarded the industry standard for email delivery.

However, ITS currently do not allow undergraduate students access using anything other than Outlook Web Access, which only has full functionality in Internet Explorer.

The first complaints were raised with ITS in October 2007, but no progress was made. The issue was finally brought to the university’s IT Users Group in February 2009, where a report into the issue, written by students, was requested.

ITS have been citing both security concerns and increased support levels for their reluctance to make progress on the issue.

Yet Durham University is the only university in the Times Top 10 not to provide IMAP for undergraduates.

DSU will be holding a council meeting on Monday to vote on the motion of whether or not supporting the campaign should become policy.

Campaigning students will be meeting with ITS management early next term.