Initialize your campus-issued e-mail account
To overcome problems faculty are having with using students' personal e-mail addresses the college is requiring students to use the college-provided e-mail address with D2L and other communications with the college. When you log into Desire2Learn the e-mail address associated with your Desire2Learn account will be the campus-provided e-mail address.
It is critical for you to activate your account before the term starts so the e-mail server will not reject messages sent by your instructor.
- You'll need your IHCC student number or Tech ID. This is the same as your username for D2L.
- Go to https://www.metnet.edu/initiateAn external link to being the initialization process.
- Read the policy information and click the I Agree button.
- Input your Tech ID, select Inver Hills Community College from the menu, choose a password, and then submit the web form.
- Login into your account.An external link (NOTE: changes to accounts settings are updated every 15 minutes; the amount of time you will need to wait is determined when your updates were submitted within the 15 minute cycle).
- Send yourself a test message and check to make sure it arrives. This will ensure that the account is working correctly.
- Establish a habit to check your e-mail routinely; you can use the WebMail client at https://webmail3.metnet.edu/An external link or an e-mail client application such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. To setup your program to access your account, you will need these server settings.An external link
- Don't forget to delete unneeded messages so your account doesn't fill up and cause new messages to be rejected.
Even if your instructor or classmates don't use e-mail, you should establish a habit of checking your @metnet.edu account at least weekly because the college is implementing a new policy that will use e-mail for official communications starting with the summer term. The college will only use the college-provided e-mail address for official communications; that is your @metnet.edu address.
Why We Use METNET E-mail Accounts
First and foremost, the college wants to establish a reliable channel of communication between instructors and students, as well as between classmates. This is particularly important for online courses where much course-related communication is via e-mail. Our experiences using student provided e-mail addresses have not been particularly positive. Some students mistype their e-mail address, making it unusable. Others abandon e-mail addresses during the semester and fail to provide their new address. Others mismanage their e-mail messages and allow their accounts to fill up so new messages are undeliverable. All of those scenarios interfere with communication, learning, and successful course completion.
By using a campus-issued e-mail address and account we are certain the address is valid, can monitor the quantity of messages being stored in the account, and take corrective action if a failure or problem is discovered.
