Email: Basic

Use the email tool to send messages to other Carmen users from within Carmen. Users may also access Email through their Classlist tool in order to email the entire class.

Efficient use of the Carmen Email tool requires some setup for each course in which you plan to use it. Without this setup, the Address Book in your active courses will default to show all individuals enrolled in any active Carmen course. See Email: Set Up Address Book for details.

To begin, log in to Carmen and go to a Course Home page.

Accessing Email

There are two different ways to access the Email tool:

1. RECOMMENDED: Use the Email link in the toolbar at the top-left of the page. This is the quickest route, and will allow you access to your Carmen Address Book, including the students in your Classlist. This method allows more options for your recipient list.

2. OPTIONAL: Access the Classlist, and use the email links below the Classlist field in the center of the page. This method is useful should you need to search for specific participants in your class, and then email them as a group. (See Classlist: Basic for details on searching for participants).

When accessing Email through the Classlist, a new window will open to compose/send the message. Other than this new window, the Email tool behaves the same as it does when accessed directly (for attachments, address book, spell check, etc).

Composing Emails

See Email: Tips for suggestions about using Carmen email effectively and for differences between Carmen email and your local email program.

1. Click Email in the Navigation Bar.

2. If desired, click Address Book to display course participants (see Address Book instructions below).

3. Select the participant(s) on this page who will receive your message. (Those with long classlisst need to repeat this for each page of students.)

4. Click To, cc, or bcc as appropriate for the participants selected. When you are finished selecting recipients, click the Add Recipients button to close the Address Book.

Putting all names in the bcc field prevents readers from having to scroll down all recipient names before reading your email message. If accessing the Email tool through Classlist, to put names in the 'bcc:' field, you must cut and paste them from the 'to:' field.

5. Type a Subject

6. Type your email message:

Uncheck the "in HTML" box if you are sending a plain-text message.
Use the HTML Editor if you would like your message to include formatting. See HTML Editor for more information.

Click (spellcheck icon) to check spelling.

7. If desired, add attachments (see instructions below).

8. Click Send.

Adding Attachments

While composing an email:

1. Click Browse.

2. Locate the file to attach.

3. Confirm the file path and name in Attach file:

4. Click Add to add more boxes to include additional attachments. Click the Remove link to remove attachments or extra attachment boxes.

5. Click Send once you have completed composing your Email.

Using the Address Book

To add recipients to a message while composing email:

1. Click Address Book. If you have set up your course as recommended, the "Filter By" dropdown box will show the name of your courses.

You can use the “Filter By” and “Folder” dropdown boxes to limit the recipient list to a particular section or group in your course, or to access your personal contacts. See "Adding Contacts" below for more information.

2. Check the boxes to select recipients for the message. If desired, sort the list of addresses by First Name, Last Name, or Role by clicking on the column headings.

To email everyone in the course, regardless of role, click on the selection box next to To in the top bar of the address book. If this method is used, please uncheck any distributed support or administrative support members of your classlist.

3. Once recipients are selected, click To, cc, or bcc, as appropriate, to insert recipients into the correct field in the message.

4. When finished selecting recipients, click Add Recipients to close the Address Book.

5. Continue composing the message.

To add a personal contact to the Address Book:

1. Open the Address Book.

2. Click Add Contact. The Contact page opens in a new window.

3. Choose an existing folder to contain this contact from the Folder dropdown list, or click Create Folder to create a new folder in which to add this contact.

4. Enter the contact information. Personal Contacts can include addresses outside the osu.edu system.

5. Click Save to save this contact information and return to the address book, or Save and New to save this contact information and add another new contact.

To edit a personal contact:

1. Open the Address Book.

2. In the Address Book, use the Folder dropdown list to navigate to the folder containing the contact you wish to edit.

3. Click the contact name.

4. In the View Contact page, edit the contact information.

5. Click Save to save this contact information and return to the Address Book, or Save and New to save this contact information and add another new contact.