Geographic Information Science is a field that requires basic computer literacy. The goal of these pages is to help students who are interested in GIS to be certain that they have mastered skills that are necessary to their success in future GIS courses and beyond. One of the criteria for enrollment in GIS courses at the University of West Florida is viewing this material and providing evidence that you possess these minimum competencies through a written exam. This is the _____ page in the Basic Computer Skills series. Here you will learn the following concepts:
How email works
Email is an important method of communicating in this day and age. It sends messages instantly from one person to another and can send large files that would otherwise need to be mailed or delivered in person. As a student of UWF, you now have a student email address. This is how the university, your professors, and your peers will primarily communicate with you during your time here. You should use your student email for all university and class related communications rather than your personal one.
An email address contains two parts. A user name and an email provider.
abc123@students.uwf.edu
The user name is your unique identifier. At UWF, this is typically your first two or three initials followed by 1-3 randomly generated numbers. The email provider is who is providing the email service. You are probably used to seeing providers such as gmail, hotmail, or yahoo. The UWF email system is supported by Google's Gmail.
It is important when sending an email to make sure you get the address completely correct. If you send an email to abc123@student.uwf.edu (forgetting the s at the end of students), it won't send. Gmail will be able to help you through by being able to autofill most UWF email addresses from it's internal directory. You still have to be careful though. There might be two people with the same name. If that happens, make sure to verify the address of the person you are emailing to make sure your message gets to where it needs to go.
If you would like to learn more about how to navigate in Gmail, view Google's Help or view GCF Learn Free's Gmail tutorial.
Write and send email messages
Sending an email
When you want to write a new email, you start by clicking the compose button on the left side of the screen. This opens a new compose window in the bottom corner of your window. Here, you add the recipients, the subject, the body, and any attachments. When you are done writing, hit send.
When you create a new email, you have three options To, CC, and BCC. Whoever you send the email To is actively part of the conversation. They are people the message directly affects and who you require action from. To can be used for as many addresses as you like. CC stands for Carbon Copy. Whoever listed here may not necessarily be a part of the conversation, but they are being kept in the loop. BCC is used when you want other people to receive the message, but you don't want other recipients on the email to know. You can see recipients in the To and CC fields, but not in BCC. This is often used when emailing large groups. |
Send your email too early? There is an option to Undo Send, but it has to enable first. Click the gear icon in the top right and select Settings. Uner General, scroll to Undo Send and Enable Undo Send. Set your cancellation period and save changes. Now, when you send a message, and undo button will appear at the top of the page for the amount of time you selected. |
Attachments
Many times you will need to attach a file to an email. In Gmail, there are two ways to do this. First is to attach via the paper clip icon in the compose window. This opens up a file browser where you navigate to where the file is saved on your computer to attach it. The second method is to attach a Google Drive file. Make sure that your Google drive file is correctly shared though. If it isn't, you should get a warning with an option to change sharing permission when you hit send, but it's always good to verify first. Also, if you have very large files that you attempt to attach via the paperclip, Gmail will automatically upload it to Google Drive and attach it that way.
Replying to an email
Adding a signature
