MIT Alumni/ae Association Tests Its First Online Service Lee Ridgway

At a place like MIT, creating online services for alumni sounds like a 
natural thing to do, and this is what the MIT Alumni/ae Association is 
about to launch with its Alumni Network Services (ANS). The 
impetus for ANS came from two directions: 

* In 1994, surveys conducted for the Association's Long-Range Strategic 
Planning Committee indicated that alumni wanted services which only MIT 
could provide, including better alumni directory services. 
Alums also wanted to see more creative use of technology in delivering 
these services.

* Advances in interactive network services, including the World Wide 
Web, were providing relatively easy ways to make extensive information 
available over the Internet.

The Alumni/ae Association recognized that the Internet, and especially 
the Web, could be the basis for online services for alumni. This 
technology would also make it easier for alumni to maintain their con-
nections with MIT and other alums, thereby fostering a greater sense of 
"virtual" community.

In 1995, a Committee on Online Communications was formed with a broad 
representation of alumni, and charged with developing a plan to 
deliver network services to alumni.

Email Forwarding for Life
The first ANS to be offered is Email Forwarding for Life (EFL). EFL 
provides a permanent, lifetime email address that acts as a forwarding 
service: messages sent to an alum's EFL address are automatically 
forwarded to that person's actual email address. Alumni registered for 
EFL will be able to update their email address in the ANS system and 
are, in fact, responsible for keeping it current.

EFL is now undergoing beta testing by volunteers from the 1996 
graduating class and the Class of 1991. Plans are to have the testers 
put EFL through its paces for two months. During this time, changes may 
be made to the system in response to feedback from the testers. If all 
goes well, the Association will begin a staged rollout of EFL to all 
alumni early in 1997.
 
Once EFL is in place, the next service will be a searchable online 
alumni directory. Access to ANS, and to EFL, is through the Alumni 
Network Services Gateway at

http://web.mit.edu/alum/ans/

Because of the way security and authentication are being handled for 
ANS, Netscape Navigator 2.0 or later is the recommended browser 
for accessing the system. Other browsers will be evaluated during the 
beta test. Details on browser setup and connecting will be included in 
the notices to alumni about registering for ANS.

EFL Registration and Formats 
Alumni register for ANS and EFL through a series of Web pages. The alum 
sets up an ANS username and password, and supplies other information 
that will authenticate him or her as a bona fide MIT alum. Part of the 
information includes the email address to which the alum wants messages 
forwarded.
 
The format for EFL addresses is name.class@alum.mit.edu, where name is 
some form of the alum's name and class is the year of graduation. A 
sample address for an undergraduate alum would be: 
<JaneDoe.87@alum.mit.edu>. A graduate alum known by his nickname might 
have an address like this: <BobBonzai.G91@alum.mit.edu>.
 
This format is designed to be consistent and fairly intuitive, so that 
if you wanted to try to send email to an alum whose name and graduation 
year you knew, you could make an educated guess at what that 
person's EFL address might be (although some name combinations might 
take a couple of tries). EFL subscribers may also publicize their 
addresses on their own.

Recipients of messages forwarded through EFL receive them via their 
regular email service. Header information will always indicate when a 
message has come through EFL. EFL is not an email service itself 
and messages are not stored on any of the ANS or EFL servers. 

Privacy Concerns
In using the Internet to deliver services to alumni, the Association is 
well aware of the need to guarantee - as much as possible - a secure 
environment that protects privacy and personal information. This is 
particularly crucial when it comes to online directory information. When 
an alum logs onto ANS with Netscape, data transmitted between his or her 
computer and the ANS server is protected through "security certificate 
negotiation." This is an automatic process that establishes an encrypted 
link between the two systems.

ANS subscribers indicate what address information they want displayed in 
the online directory using the same online form they use to log in and 
update their EFL addresses. This form also has a box for Online 
Notes, where a subscriber can enter personal information and 
automatically send it to his or her class secretary.

Under Consideration
EFL and a searchable alumni directory are just the first two of a range 
of possible online alumni services. Other services being considered are 

* Publishing a calendar of Alumni/ae Association and MIT events 
around the world

* Enabling online registration for MIT and Alumni/ ae Association 
events

* Publishing an electronic version of Technology Review's ClassNotes 
and CourseNews sections

* Providing career assistance

* Setting up chat and newsgroups around topics of interest to alums

* Making some MIT Libraries' services available through ANS

* Facilitating distance learning opportunities and making MIT 
lectures and seminars available over the Web

* Providing news about MIT research.

For more information about ANS and EFL, go to the Alumni/ae Association 
home page at
 
http://web.mit.edu/alum/www/

and select the Network Services link. You can contact the Acting 
Director of ANS, Jason Slibeck ('91), at x3-8262 or <ansinfo@mit.edu>.