Bearcat Online Student Guide

Account Creation and First Time Login

All students receive Bearcat Online e-mail accounts upon registering for classes or attending orientation. Accounts may be accessed in any of the following ways:

1.)  From http://email.uc.edu/

2.)  By clicking “Bearcat Online e-mail” under “Other Resources” on the menu on the left side of the OneStop web site.

3.)  By clicking “Webmail” in the Blackboard Tool Menu box on the Blackboard home page. 

Your initial password is either your birth date (MMDDYYYY) or the month and day of your birth plus the last four digits of your social security number (MMDDSSSS). If you do not know your userid, follow the Bearcat Online account information link below the password box or see https://www.uc.edu/ucit/email/account_create_done.asp.

Passwords 

Passwords should be at least seven characters and include both letters and numbers. Special symbols and alternating lower and uppercase letters are also permitted. 

Students should change their passwords every six months. For privacy and security purposes, e-mail passwords should never be shared. Users are also strongly encouraged not to leave written passwords in an unsecured location.  

Password Change Requests

Password changes are performed in person only. A valid photo ID must be shown at one of the following:

630 Steger Student Life Center, Main Campus West 

UCit Help Desk, 400 University Hall, Main Campus East

IT Help Desk, E680 MSB SERV, College of Medicine

Room 112c Muntz Hall, Raymond Walters College

Room 9, Peter Jones Building, Clermont College

Raymond Walters and Clermont College students, faculty, and staff should visit their home campus UCit locations. Main Campus UCit is unable to make changes to  Raymond Walters or Clermont College based accounts. 

Password Changes for Distance Learning Students

Distance learning students should contact the UCit Help Desk using the number on their student records. 

Account Review and Removal 

Bearcat Online e-mail is a service provided to active students of the University of Cincinnati. An e-mail account is subject to removal and deletion after a student has failed to register for any classes for five consecutive quarters.

Size and Space Limitations 

To keep Bearcat Online services efficient and economical, UC limits each account to 50 MB of space, which should support the needs of the average student user. Once a mailbox reaches 50 MB, a user may not send or receive any new messages until the mailbox size is reduced to < 50 MB. 

Messages may be a maximum of 15 MB including headers, subject lines, and attachments. 

In managing mailboxes, students are encouraged to do the following:

1.)  Install Eudora, which enables users to download messages to their PCs.

2.)  Remove large attachments from e-mail messages and save the attachments to their PCs.

3.)  Empty the “Trash” folder on a regular basis. 

Auto Forwarding 

A student may have his or her Bearcat Online messages forwarded to another e-mail address. It is the responsibility of the individual user to insure that all information regarding alternative accounts is kept up to date and accurate. This includes adjusting appropriate spam and bulk mail filters. Students who have their Bearcat Online e-mail forwarded to other accounts should also continue to check their Bearcat Online e-mail on a weekly basis. Special school bulletins, such as closing announcements, virus notices, and university announcements are not forwarded. 

To enable Auto Forwarding, log in to your Bearcat Online account, click on “Options” on the left side of the page, click on “Forwarding,” and enter the e-mail address to which you would like to forward your mail. 

Recovery

We apologize for the inconvenience, but UC E-Mail Services does not perform mailbox recoveries for Bearcat Online accounts. Be sure to back-up items of importance to you.

Technical Support and Account Maintenance

Please send Bearcat Online account maintenance requests to Technician@UC.Edu. Be sure to include your name, contact number, birth date, username, and student ID number. 

Please note in regard to account deletion requests:  Bearcat Online account deletion is permanent. An account cannot be restored once it has been removed. 

Spam Management

The University of Cincinnati Office of Information Technologies has implemented several methods for detecting and managing spam. For a more thorough discussion of spam, please read the article "Keeping Spam out of Your Email."