By LISA BORROWMAN
Students desiring to use their university-assigned e-mail accounts must pass a 'computer etiquette' test before gaining access to the world outside of BYU.
Although the works are still in progress for assigning e-mail addresses to each student, the university expects official policy to be implemented by Fall 1997, said Kelly McDonald, executive director of university computing services.
The success of the student response to the Cougarnet system has prompted a university technology committee to propose each student be assigned an e-mail account upon admittance to BYU. The program will make it unnecessary for students to explicitly sign up for an account.
However, the initial e-mail account will have an electronic barrier, making it inaccessible beyond the bounds of the university until the student has taken the 'drivers-license'-like test.
The test, available from and administered on a Web page, can be taken at the student's convenience.
The initial reading, from which the test will be extracted, expands on concepts relating to social etiquette on the Net. The need for the test stemmed from problems McDonald encountered with the Cougarnet system.
Students were not necessarily aware that sharing network identification was a violation of university policy concerning privacy, he said.
Other issues raised were electronic harassment and using the network for commercial purposes, which is illegal because BYU is a non-commercial institution, McDonald said.
Cougarnet was a pervasive project instituted to gauge student interest, McDonald said. Student interest was substantial.
Funding was not appropriated for the project when it began a few years ago because the administration was not sure students were ready for it, McDonald said. Thus, students had to pay a semester fee for the services.
'Even with the fee, (student) interest is almost higher than we can provide,' McDonald said.