Communication and Email

The University provides all students with a University email account and email is used regularly in the University as an 'official' form of communication between staff and students.

Information is also communicated to students in other ways, such as the Virtual Learning Environment called Blackboard, web pages, post (for which there are pigeon holes in Schools and Halls) and on physical noticeboards.

Students should normally check their University email accounts, Blackboard and any other electronic methods of communication on a daily basis during term-time, and reply as necessary to messages received. Students should also check their pigeon-hole for mail and other notice boards regularly.

You must use your University email account for your University correspondence; do not use a 'private' email account. This is because of the following reasons:

• the University guarantees that this account will be available to you for the entire duration of your studies;
• the University guarantees that suitable, supported email software will be available to you for the entire duration of your studies;
• the University offers an email service to standards of availability, reliability, performance and security which it determines and which are under its own control;
• email sent from non university mail accounts may be classified as SPAM and hence not read.

You may set up forwarding arrangements to automatically send email received in your University account to another email account of your choosing; however, you do so at your own risk and should ensure that you forward to a valid and existing account. The University can only be held responsible for email reaching your University email account. If an email has been sent without apparent problem to your University account, the sender may reasonably assume that you will receive that email. If you do wish to forward email from your University account to a private Internet Service Provider account, you can do this by changing your email options (see the readingLive Change pages). It is advisable for a copy of the email to be delivered to (and stored in) your University account as well by including your University email address on a separate line under your personal email address in the mail options.

Unless otherwise instructed by your School, you should not submit coursework using email.