|
Volume X: Information Technology Services
Chapter E-Mail: E-mail Distribution Lists
Approved by: Administrative Computing Committee (ACC)
History: Issued 6/8/2001; Updated 4/28/2006; Revised 12/11/2006, 12/14/2009
Related Polices: Acceptable E-Mail Usage, Anti-Virus Policy, Configuration of Out-of-Office Message, E-Mail Signature Block Standard, Submitting Mass E-mails to Claremont McKenna College
Additional References: N/A
Responsible Official: Office of Information Technology Services
Policy Statement
To outline the use of College e-mail distribution lists.
Entities Covered by this Policy
- All students, faculty, and staff of Claremont McKenna College.
Contacts
Direct any questions about this policy to your department’s supervisor. Questions about specific issues may be addressed to the Chief Technology Officer (909-607-1553).
Defintions
To facilitate communication within the College, distribution lists have been created to target various audiences, for example, the student body as a whole and subsets of the student body that have commonality (i.e. same major, dorm, club affiliation, etc.). College e-mail distribution lists are created by ITS, but their membership maintenance and day-to-day control may be delegated to others according to policy direction. In many cases, submission to a distribution list may be restricted to distribution list membership, to authenticated members of a group (i.e. Faculty), or may be unlimited but moderated for appropriateness of content. Limiting unsolicited and undesired e-mail is a significant concern and is recognized as an important goal.
Details
The following will define the categories of College e-mail distribution lists and document their administration.
A. Student E-mail Distribution Lists:
1. Student Body
ITS maintains a list of all students (DL-Students), lists by year (e.g., DL-Class2009-Seniors) and local and residential students (DL-InformStudents). The student e-mail manager who is employed by ITS moderates the Inform lists. These lists are addressable by anyone sending to the moderated mailbox at either cmc_students@claremontmckenna.edu or students@claremontmckenna.edu. If a message is to go to a class instead of the whole student body, then the subject line should designate the class. For example, to send to all juniors the subject line would be: SUBJECT: Juniors Only: Junior class picture….
2. By Major
Faculty Support maintains Distribution Lists by major (i.e. DL-Student-Govt-Major). These lists are not moderated directly, but submission permission is limited to Faculty and Staff.
3. By Dorm
ITS will create Distribution Lists by dorm building (i.e. DL-Student-Dorm-Fawcett). These lists will be moderated by the responsible RAs. RAs and the Dean of Students office will have permission to mail to these lists directly. Others wanting messages to be sent to these lists will direct the message to the RA and they will forward it to the list if approved. Information directed to these lists will be limited to information that is specific to the dorm occupants.
4. By Class
Faculty may request Distribution Lists for specific classes (e.g., Class-Psych-118). The faculty member will have the ability to maintain these lists and access to the list will be restricted to members of the list (i.e. class members, professor, and anyone else designated by the professor). If non-CMC students are in the class, ITS will create entries in the directory that will forward to their school email addresses so these students can be included. If non-CMC students in the class require the ability to post to the list, then either 1) ClaremontMcKenna domain user accounts and e-mail boxes will need to be created for the students, or 2) the professor or other class member would have to act as a “forwarding agent” to forward the messages to the distribution list for them.
Faculty may also go to the Faculty Portal to send messages to a class.
5. By Club
Clubs, which are recognized by the Dean of Students Office by nature of having a faculty advisor, may request a distribution list for their organization. The club president or a club officer/board member will be defined as the owner and maintainer of the distribution list. Membership on the list can only be created after the club official receives e-mail from the individual requesting membership. Should individuals be placed on a club list without the individual’s request, the club’s distribution list may be removed. It is therefore mandatory that the club officials retain the e-mail messages that requested inclusion in membership of their distribution list. Anyone requesting removal from the list should be removed immediately. Club officers can determine if permission to submit to their list should be open to everyone or limited to club distribution list membership or to a specific moderator. Membership will be limited to only CMC Students.
Alternatively, Claremont-wide e-mail distribution lists may be created on listkeeper@claremont.edu.
B. Faculty and Staff E-mail Distribution Lists:
1. Staff and Faculty
ITS maintains a distribution list of all faculty (DL-Faculty) and staff (DL-Staff) (of those staff who have computer accounts). There is also a list for inform message processing for faculty (DL-Informfaculty) and staff (DL-Informstaff).
2. By Department
ITS maintains a distribution list of each faculty department with a name defined by CMC-facdepartment_name (for example CMC-fac-history-dept). Similarly, each staff department is similarly defined by CMC-staff-department_name (for example CMC-staff-Development).
3. Staff Committees and Groups
Distribution lists for different staff committees and groups are also maintained. Senior Staff and Administrative Staff distribution lists are maintained by the President’s Office. Other staff committees like the Administrative Computing Committee, EOC, Building Coordinators, etc. also have distribution lists.
C. Creation of New Distribution Lists:
Any faculty or staff member of the CMC community is entitled to become a list owner, so long as the following conditions are met.
- The purpose of the list must pertain to CMC business.
- Lists are not open to off-campus subscribers unless special permission is obtained.
- The list is at no time used to participate in or promote activities that are illegal or violate the CMC code of conduct.
- To request list ownership, please contact the ITS Help Desk at extension 70911 or help@cmc.edu.
Authentication of Users
In order to protect our community from unwanted solicitations and other forms of spam, some distribution lists (such as DL-Students, DL-Staff, and DL-Faculty) only accept submissions from a limited number of people. This security is based on CMC user names and passwords, and therefore, even if an individual is approved to send to such a list, they must use an email client that will send their user name and password to the email server for verification. If not, the message will be rejected. Some examples of such clients are: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Web Access, and authenticated SMTP email clients. For assistance regarding secured distribution lists, please contact the ITS Help Desk at extension 70911 or help@cmc.edu.
|