Using E-mail

Online classes depend a great deal on email to maintain student-to-instructor and student-to-student interaction. Using email in an online class, particularly at Oakton, brings with it several unique technical considerations with which a learner should be familiar.

In this section, we'd like to cover some of the basic technologies of email and how they pertain to Oakton online classes.

E-mail and your ISP

As an online student, you're expected to have an Internet connection which you will use to access your course. Your Internet service will likely come with an email account. You may also have a publicly available email account such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail.

All these email services are independent of Oakton and your Oakton Online class. Access difficulties should be taken up with Internet provider or the outside service provider.

E-mail and Oakton

By virtue of being an Oakton student, you have received an Oakton network account, including an Oakton email address, though you do need to activate it. When you are on campus and log into the college network, you can easily check your Oakton mail via our Squirrelmail-based web mail application. This is best accessed via the email icon in MyOakton. This is also where you go to activate your Oakton email account.

If MyOakton is down, students can check their Oakton email from on- or off-campus by using the College's Webmail interface page.

E-mail and your Online Courses

You may have an email that is strictly internal to your course management program. You will only be able to use your this email to write your instructor and others in the course and it's only accessible from within the course management program.

Your instructor will tell you which address to use for class purposes.