Email Address Policy

CTS

Faculty and staff email addresses will be formatted as firstname.lastname@oswego.edu
- Example: john.smith@oswego.edu
Student email addresses will be formatted as lastname.firstinitial@oswego.edu
- Example: smith.j@oswego.edu
Email addresses (the part before the '@' sign) will be limited to twenty (20) characters including the "dot" separator.
- Email names will not include any special characters such as a hyphen
For common names belonging to multiple individuals, a number will be appended to the last name based on the order of email address creation.

Faculty and staff example: john.smith2@oswego.edu
Student example: smith2.j@oswego.edu
Numerals 1 and 10 through 19 will not be used to avoid confusion with the lower case letter L.

Email addresses will be based on the faculty or staff member's legal name as recorded by Human Resources.
- A very limited number of exceptions will be allowed (see #3)
- For email addresses where the first and last name total more than 19 characters, the last name will be included in full and the first name will be truncated appropriately
Existing faculty and staff email addresses will be converted to the new schema beginning June 15, 2009.
Existing email addresses will be aliased to the new email addresses.
- Email directed to the exiting email addresses will continue to be delivered as usual.
Existing user account names used to log into most college information systems must continue to be used. The new email addresses will not function as authentication credentials, including logging into the email system.

In keeping with the primary objective of this proposal, exceptions may be granted to faculty and staff to select a preferred name rather than using their legal name as a basis for their email address according to the following criteria:

A faculty or staff member is commonly known by their middle name rather than their first name
- Example: A. John Smith - john.smith@oswego.edu
A faculty or staff member is commonly known by multiple words in their first name that may include their middle name or a form of their middle name.
- Example: Mary Elizabeth Smith - marybeth.smith@oswego.edu
- Example: Sally Ann Smith - sallyann.smith@oswego.edu
A faculty or staff member is commonly known by a first name that differs substantially from their legal name.
- Example: Edward Kennedy Ellington - duke.ellington@oswego.edu
A faculty or staff member with a hyphenated last name is commonly known by both words, first word, or last word.
- Example: Mary Jones (Mary Jones-Smith) - mary.jones@oswego.edu
- Example: Mary Jones-Smith - mary.jonessmith@oswego.edu
A faculty or staff member with a long first name and/or last name that when truncated to conform to the character limitation creates an embarrassing or undesirable first name.
- Example: Farthing Cowlperthwaites - fart.cowlperthwaites@oswego.edu
Exceptions will be discouraged for common nicknames for first names.
- Example: Joe for Joseph
- Example: Kim for Kimberly
Preferred name selections will be reviewed by CTS for technical/format compliance.

Email addresses for departments (the part before the '@' sign) will be limited to twenty (20) characters.
- Email addresses will not include any special characters such as hyphen
- Email addresses will not include a "dot" separator
Existing email addresses for departments are not required to change.
- Departments wishing to expand their existing email address beyond eight characters may request a change.
For departments who choose to change their email addresses, existing email addresses will be aliased to the new email addresses.

Listserv email address conventions are not affected by the schema.
- All list names will end in "-list".
- List names will be limited to twenty characters including the "-list" designator.
- The listserv email address format will remain listname-list@ls.oswego.edu.