Methodist University Office of Institutional Computing

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

We hope that the following frequently ask questions and answers will give you the information you need to better understand how the University's network works. We would also ask you to submit any questions you may have to

Q 1: How does GWAVA work and what is its purpose?

A 1: All Methodist University email accounts are filtered through GWAVA software (Spam filter). GWAVA is the Universities SPAM filter. GWAVA software contains a tool called the “GWAVA Digest Report”. This allows the user to “Release” an email sent to his or her email account that has been corralled. GWAVA software checks all incoming and outgoing Internet email against the filter rules and if it triggers a rule, it is corralled, blocked or archived. The system catches about 150,000 incoming spam messages a day. Once you have released or have not released the emails you have, you can then delete the Digest Report email. The release time is approximately 2-4 minutes, although heavy traffic may increase that time.

Internet email is blocked based on one or more of the following criteria:

A virus was detected in either the email itself or in an attachment (No Option to Release)
The email or attachment contains one or more of the words in the content filter. These words can either be bad language, sexually oriented, or other words that can be spam related.
The email or attachment is over the 8 Mb size (No Option to Release)
The email is SPAM or potential SPAM.
The email sender is on a SURBL (Spam URI Realtime Block List) or RBL (Realtime Blackhole List).

Definition of SURBL, RBL, and SPAM

SURBL: it is used to detect spam based on message body URIs ,usually Web sites. SURBLs are not used to block spam senders. They allow you to block messages that have spam hosts that are mentioned in message bodies.
RBL: a list of IP addresses whose owners refuse to stop the proliferation of spam. The RBL usually lists server IP addresses from ISPs whose customers are responsible for the spam and from ISPs whose servers are hijacked for spam relay.
SPAM: Real spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup. In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth.

Q 2: Can GWAVA Learn to allow specifice emails from specific domains?

A 2: No, unfortunately we can not. For the GWAVA antispam engine to work properly, the engine needs to be provided a representative sample of HAM (solicited email message-good email) and SPAM (Unsolicited email) to learn from. It is extremely important what we feed the antispam engine e-mail that it represents what the University as a community receives normally. A wide range of samples, both HAM and SPAM is best. Adding the same message 500 times to your spam engine will NOT lead to good results. While quantity is important, even more important is the quality of the messages you provide. It takes approximately 50,000 messages. The most important thing is to have positive results, and to obtain those consistently. This is a tricky part of the equation, because some users release everything (SPAM and HAM), and other users do not release any SPAM. A lot of emails are closely related and can be labeled as HAM or SPAM so we must be careful. We when deal with messages consistently we will build that HAM volume of email and we will receive positive results, and as you can see this takes time.

Q 3:Why does it take awhile to recieve and send emails?

A 3: Email is not instantaneous. The GroupWise servers have a default minimum setting of 1 minute to send and receive email. The incoming and outgoing emails are first scanned by GWAVA to ensure they do not contain viruses which adds to the amount of time before the message is sent or received. Sometimes depending where you are accessing the internet from also plays a part in the sending and receiving email. Slower, congested networks or internet access will slow the sending and receiving of email.

Q 4: How can we contact Computer Services?

A 4: You can contact the Computer Services CAC Lab Attenant on campus at ext 7300, or off campus at 910-630-7300. You can also send questions or problems to the Help Desk email account:

Before you call, please vist the Office of Institutional Computing Web Page.

Office of Institutional Computing

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