All students enrolled at the OWATC will receive a student Gmail account. This will be the email account the college faculty and staff will use for routine communication with students.

Currently enrolled students, as of July 1, 2012, have email accounts available now.

New students will have email accounts available within 24 business hours of enrollment.

To access your email account, go to Gmail at http://mail.google.com/a/student.owatc.edu to sign in with your given OWATC Username and Password as explained below—do not create your account.

First-Time Users

• Student accounts are set up in the following way:
• Up to First seven (7) letters of last name (if last name is fewer than seven letters, it will be your full last name)
• Dot (.)
• First three (3) letters of first name
• Last four digits of your student id number
• @student.owatc.edu
  • All student email accounts end with student.owatc.edu
• Password is your birthdate, year, month, day First Name initial (must be upper case), Last Name initial (must be upper case)—yyyymmddFL

Example: Brendon Peter Landcaster, Student ID number 2000987654 Birthdate: May 22, 1991
Assigned email: landcas.bre7654@student.owatc.edu
Assigned Password: Student birthdate—yyyymmddFL 19910522BL (letters must be upper case)

Passwords can be changed by you once you have logged in to your Gmail account.

Forwarding Your Email

Student email can be forwarded to a personal email account if preferred. View instructions here.

Canvas Users

If you have a course that uses our online Learning Management System, Instructure Canvas®, you will receive an email invitation in your student email account from Instructure.com. The email contains a link to Canvas. Please click on the link and you will be directed to the Canvas Login screen. Please enter your user id and password as listed below.

Canvas URL: https://owatc.instructure.com/
The User ID for Canvas is your Student Email.
Password: Your email and Canvas accounts have the same password.

Advantages of Student Email

• The student.owatc.edu extension identifies you as a student and allows you to get educational/student discounts for software and hardware purchases
• College communication with students for routine information
• Allows your instructors to communicate with you
• Integrated into Instructure Canvasâ„¢ for course communication
• Allows communication between yourself and other students

Help Desk

• If Google does not recognize your account, to confirm your account contact your instructor
• Google has extensive Help to aid you with your OWATC.edu Gmail account

Summary of the Student Email Procedure

OWATC provides students with an OWATC email address to enable faculty, staff and administrators to communicate more effectively and efficiently with students. Appropriate use of email is essential to the success of this method for contacting students.

Responsibility for checking your email regularly

Email is an official mechanism of communication within OWATC.

Students are expected to check their email on a frequent and consistent basis in order to stay current with College-related communications. Students have the responsibility to recognize that certain communications may be time-critical. “I didn’t check my email”, an error in forwarding mail, or email returned to the College with “Mailbox Full” or “User Unknown” are not acceptable excuses for missing official College communications via email.

Using other email accounts

Students wishing to have email redirected from their official OWATC address to another email address (e.g., @aol.com, @hotmail.com, or some other email account), may do so, but at their own risk. The carrier will provide a mechanism that allows students to forward their official OWATC email to another email address. The OWATC will not be responsible for the handling of email by outside vendors. Having email redirected is the responsibility of the student.

Privacy, security, and confidentiality

Electronic mail systems should in no way be regarded as a secure medium for the communication of sensitive or confidential information. Because of the nature and technology of electronic communication, the College can assure neither the privacy of an individual’s use of electronic mail resources nor the confidentiality of particular messages that may be created, transmitted, received, or stored thereby.

Educational uses of email

Faculty will determine how electronic forms of communication (e.g., email) will be used in their classes. They can make the assumption that students’ official OWATC email accounts are being accessed, and use email for their communication accordingly.