Re: Email Naming Conventions

[Bob Bayn <bob.bayn () USU EDU>]

When we first started creating email aliases of the form "First.Last () usu edu" we had some concerns that too much 
user control over the alias would lead to abuse that would be embarrassing to the institution.  In some contexts we 
fixed the "Last" name part from our records and allowed the user to select any "First" part.  For a long time, I got 
notifications of any "First" part that didn't match their name somehow.  The only thing I learned from that was about 
the relationships between real given names and nicknames (Peggy vs Margaret, etc) and so we quit monitoring.  I suppose 
we now have some first names like "Studmuffin" or "Chickmagnet" or "EternalMormon"

But now we use USU-branded gmail for student and alumni email addresses and have an interface that gives the user a 
huge list of choices based on their name as we have it recorded.  It gives them a whole bunch of choices of any of the 
words in their name of record (including their "preferred" nickname) and word fragments and initials.  But the 
arrangement that I liked better was to give them the words of their name
(Mine would be Robert Leon Bob Bayn) and let them delete as much as they want from the end of each word, up to and 
including deleting all of some of the words but requiring them to have at least the initial from two parts.  Then you 
just have to test their choice against existing addresses to prevent collisions.    We allow people to delete their 
account (and all server-side storage) and create a new account, especially if they change their name - as with a 
marriage or divorce.

Now, this doesn't always result in an "intuitive" email address but the variety also reduces the expectation that 
anyone can be contacted by making up a presumptive "First.Last" email address.  After all, we have had as many as four 
"Aaron Andersens" enrolled here at one time and they make a variety of choices ranging from "A.P.A" to 
"Aaron.D.Andersen" and one goes by the nickname "Duke".


Bob Bayn     (435)797-2396     Security Team coordinator
"IT will NEVER ask for your password via email, honest!"
Office of Information Technology at Utah State University
________________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of STEVE MAGRIBY 
[magriby () UT EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 10:44 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Email Naming Conventions

We are in the process of outsourcing Alumni Email to Microsoft’s Live.edu. In the future we may consider outsourcing 
current students to Live.edu.

Considering the likelihood that these will be “cradle to grave” email accounts we are trying to determine how best to 
establish an email username that will be intuitive but still minimize the need to include numbers in the username.

Currently we are planning to start out with:

                1st name.last name (i.e. John.Doe@)

                1st name.MI.last  name (i.e. John.J.Doe@)

                1stnameLastname (i.e. johndoe@)

We would appreciate suggestions from anyone using  a naming convention that the users are comfortable with.