Starting tomorrow, some Penn State students may notice that Webmail looks a little different.

Kevin Morooney, senior director of academic services and emerging technologies in Information Technology Services (ITS), said tomorrow ITS will begin switching about 5,000 users a day over to Webmail 2.

Users will be switched during non-peak early morning hours, and it will be very unlikely that anyone will notice any service interruption, Morooney said.

Students enrolled at Penn State for the summer will not be transferred to Webmail 2 until the session ends, Morooney added.

Webmail 2 development began in-house last spring, he said, and the new system was designed to address a number of issues and problems users have experienced with Webmail.

"We've used a variety of student focus groups," Morooney said. "We've beta-tested with students, we've beta-tested with staff."

He said those who use Post Office Protocol (POP) to retrieve their e-mail using programs such as Outlook or Eudora will not notice any change. Most students, however, use Webmail to read their messages, Morooney said.

"By a very large factor, Webmail is the dominant e-mail client for students," he said.

Morooney said the Webmail system has been completely redesigned and is now much faster than it was in the spring.

However, he said performance for each individual depends on a variety of factors, such as the condition of the computer being used and the time of access.

"We only have complete control over one portion of the experience," he said.

Webmail 2 will also feature a cosmetic overhaul to bring it up to the standards of popular web-based e-mail services such as Hotmail or Yahoo!, he said.

Abigail Grim (freshman-nursing) said the current look of Webmail leaves much to be desired.

"The format of Webmail is less modern," she said.

However, Morooney said Webmail 2 won't look too foreign to users.

"The user interface isn't changing radically," he said.

Michael Greenley (freshman-mechanical engineering) said he doesn't use Webmail, instead choosing to POP his mail to a program on his computer.

He said he may consider switching to Webmail if it were more like Google's Gmail.

"I like how it's tabbed and searchable," Greenley said of GMail.

Webmail 2 will be adding a tabbed interface, which Morooney said was requested by many users.

"It enables someone to do multiple things at once," he said, explaining that users will be able to quickly switch to various tasks and more easily copy and paste text between different messages.

Another feature of Webmail 2 is a new e-mail filtering system that will aid users in avoiding spam.

Andrew Ha (senior-hotel and restaurant management) said his frequent use of Webmail has resulted in a deluge of junk e-mail.

"I'm getting more and more because I use it for everything," Ha said.

Ashley Ripka (freshman-international politics) said she's happy with Webmail as it is.

"I don't think it needs changed at all," she said.

Morooney said while many users should be happy with the update, he expects suggestions and complaints to start rolling in rather quickly during the transition.

"One phenomena of going through any change process is that if you're successful at scratching the itches that motivated you to upgrade, it's only a matter of hours before someone says 'Oh, I want this too,' " he said.