During 2005 we gathered email policy information from several Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) institutions, Drake University, the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Florida.
During this investigation, we sent the following email message:
Our administrators and faculty desire to use technology for official communications with students. They would like a high degree of assurance that their communications will be delivered to the students.
Email works relatively well but there are some problems. Even though we maintain "@uiowa.edu" routing addresses for all of our students, many of our students choose to route their mail to off-campus email providers, such as AOL. Due to anti-spam policies and disk quotas, we can not provide a high degree of assurance of email delivery to the students.
I would like to know what modes of communication that your institution uses for "official" communications with students. If email, how do you address the issue of reliable delivery? If you use some other mode, such as a student portal, I would be interested in more details.
We also included some information from public web sites.
The following is a summary of the results of this investigation.
In October 2005 their Student Email Policies web page stated:
Reviewed 07/20/05
In order to provide easy communication among students, faculty and staff, OIT has as one of its goals to provide a convenient, fast, functional and reliable mail server, which students can access on- or off-campus using a web browser or an email client of their choice.
We wish to support academic needs at a reasonable cost in money and staff time. So we need email policies which support reasonable academic needs, but which place restrictions on inefficient email practices. There are many pressing academic needs for IT resources, and so it is not our priority to devote unlimited resources to provide email. The policies which follow are intended to meet the above goals. Students who use the system responsibly and with reasonable care should not be adversely affected at all.
In July 2005 a university representative replied:
We don't have a written policy, but probably should. Ours would be similar to most of the examples you've provided.
One thing that we do handle a little differently is diskquota... In the wee hours every other Tuesday morning, a process checks for students who are more than 10% over their quota. Those that are over are so notified and given until midnight Thursday to clean up. Checks are made several times per day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and those who do clean up are thanked and removed from futher checking until the next time. Those who remain overdrawn at midnight on Thursday have incoming mail privs revoked. When they do clean up, they may send a mail message to a special address that checks their quota and either turns incoming privs back on or reports back on how overdrawn they still are.
In October 2005 a university representative replied:
All students have an ISU net-id and we use email as if it's the official method of contacting students. We will have a new policy in place in spring of 2006.
Beginning October 2005 the University of Florida will no longer permit their "Gatorlink addresses to be forwarded to third party accounts."
"To provide better service and more reliable information to its students, the University of Florida will discontinue the policy that permits Gatorlink addresses to be forwarded to third party accounts. Students will still be able to forward Gatorlink accounts to other email services that are maintained by their departments in the UFL.EDU domain. This policy will become effective for all students on October 1, 2005. All students are encouraged to begin using their Gatorlink email accounts as soon as possible to insure they receive all official correspondence of the University of Florida." - Gatorlink Student E-mail Forwarding Policy, Effective Oct 1st, 2005
Introduction
At Indiana University, there
is an increasing need for fast and efficient communication with currently
enrolled students in order to conduct official business at the University.
Students tend to communicate extensively through electronic mail. Each student
is issued a University network ID and email account for use throughout the time
the student is registered for classes at the University. Accordingly, email is
an available mechanism for formal communication by the University with students.
If a student chooses to forward his/her mail to another email address (AOL,
Hotmail, departmental server, etc.), the student’s primary campus email address
remains the official destination for official university
correspondence.
The following policy is consistent with the Bloomington
Faculty Council “Mass Email Procedures and Restrictions” as well as policies and
procedures established by the Office of the Vice President for Information
Technology and Chief Information Officer. It does not make email the only
official method of communication. While campuses are encouraged to adopt the
policy on email as an official means of communication, each campus will have the
option to do so.
Policy
Email shall be
considered an appropriate mechanism for official communication by Indiana
University with IU students unless otherwise prohibited by law. The University
reserves the right to send official communications to students by email with the
full expectation that students will receive email and read these emails in a
timely fashion.
Assignment of
Student Email
Official university email accounts are available for
all registered students. The domains for the addresses vary according to campus
(e.g., indiana.edu for IU Bloomington, iupui.edu for IUPU Indianapolis, iun.edu
for IU Northwest). Official university communications will be sent to students’
official university email addresses.
Students are expected to check their
email on a frequent and consistent basis in order to stay current with
university-related communications. Students must insure that there is sufficient
space in their accounts to allow for email to be delivered. Students have the
responsibility to recognize that certain communications may be time-critical.
Students will not be held responsible for an interruption in their ability to
access a message if system malfunctions or other system-related problems prevent
timely delivery of, or access to, that message (e.g., power outages or email
system viruses).
Forwarding of
Email
Students who choose to have their email forwarded to a private
(unofficial) email address outside the official university network address, do
so at their own risk. The University is not responsible for any difficulties
that may occur in the proper or timely transmission or access of email forwarded
to any unofficial email address, and any such problems will not absolve students
of their responsibility to know and comply with the content of official
communications sent to students’ official IU email addresses.
Course Related Use of
Email
Faculty may assume that a student’s official university email
is a valid mechanism for communicating with a student, although faculty should
exercise caution about including sensitive data, such as grades, in an email.
This policy will ensure that all students will be able to comply with course
requirements communicated to them by email from their course instructors.
Responding to an
Unofficial Email Address
IU employees need to be careful when
responding in detail to a query sent from an unofficial email address since
there is no assurance that the sender is, in fact, the student. A recommended
step is to provide generic replies only, directing students to university tools
that require authentication, such as Oncourse or self service functions, or to
require students to provide their primary campus email address to receive a
reply.
December 10, 2003
A University assigned student email account shall be the University's official means of communication with all students on the Twin Cities campus. Students are responsible for all information sent to them via their University assigned email account. If a student chooses to forward their University email account, he or she is responsible for all information, including attachments, sent to any other email account.
The University of Minnesota provides students with an email account upon the student's matriculation to the institution. This account is free of charge and currently is active as long as the student remains active. Increasingly, email is becoming the primary mode of communication between students and the University. The information distributed via email varies from college updates to registration summaries.
Some students do not use their University assigned email account. Other students forward their University email account to an alternative account (i.e., America Online, Yahoo, Earthlink, etc.). When students do not use or forward their University assigned email account, vital information is often not conveyed as the email is unopened or the associated attachment is not forwarded.
It is imperative that students understand that a majority of information will be communicated to them via their University assigned account while they are students. To better serve our students, upon matriculation students are informed that their University assigned email account is the primary means of communication from the University community and that they will be held responsible for the information in the email.
To review the entire policy for the University of Minnesota, see http://process.umn.edu/groups/ppd/documents/policy/email_pol.cfm
Background
At the
University of Wisconsin-Madison there is an increasing need for fast and
efficient communication with currently enrolled students to conduct official
business at the University. Students tend to communicate extensively through
email. Each student is issued a University network ID and email account for use
throughout the time the student is enrolled for classes at the University.
Students are responsible for activating their account from the log-in page of
the My UW-Madison portal. Accordingly, email is an available mechanism for
formal communication by the University with students. If a student chooses to
forward his/her mail to another email address (AOL, Hotmail, departmental
server, etc), the student's primary campus email address remains the destination
for most official university correspondence.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974, establishes rules under which the university must operate to protect the privacy of student information. Since email is increasingly used as a vehicle to communicate official information from the university to the student (and is, in fact, an officially recognized vehicle for that purpose), it is important that any information sent be shared only between the party sending the information and the student. Use of an email account that provides us with a great level of assurance that it is indeed the student to whom we are communicating allows the university to communicate with that student in a way that protects their rights and insures that we are communicating to the student.
We have a high level of confidence that email messages sent within the university arrive at their destination and show up in the inbox of the recipient. We are less confident that email sent outside the university actually arrives and can be read by the individual. The vagaries of the Internet, spam filters, lack of storage space, etc. are all factors which decrease our confidence that email will arrive as expected.
Sending email over the campus backbone gives us a high level of confidence that email will not be read by someone for whom it was not intended.
Email address custodian: Office of the Registrar in cooperation with ISIS Campus Community Committee
Email service provider (email assigned and maintained): Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
| Preferred Email All students are responsible for activating
their university network ID and their email account. The university
assigned student email account shall be the University's preferred means of
communication with all students attending the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Students are responsible for all information sent to
them via their University assigned email account. If a student chooses to
forward their University email account, he or she is responsible for all
information, including attachments, sent to any other email account.
|
Student - students are
expected to check their email on a frequent and consistent basis in order to
stay current with university-related communications. Students have the
responsibility to recognize that certain communications are time-critical.
Students should be aware that their email addresses will be available to faculty
on class roster(s) available through My UW-Madison.
Registrar -
will respond to unique student requests and will promote the use of email
communication for official correspondence. The Registrar's Office will maintain
the email address as part of the student record in ISIS.
Departments/Programs - faculty and staff are encouraged to post
student attachments to a web page and refer to that site within the email rather
than include an attachment to each student email. Email addresses should be used
for institutional/educational purposes only.
Faculty - having a
preferred email that is a campus email address will help to ensure that all
students will be able to comply with course requirements communicated to them by
email from their course instructors. Student email addresses will be available
on class rosters. These email addresses must be used for
institutional/educational purposes only. Faculty should exercise caution about
including sensitive data, such as grades, in an email. Faculty should be
familiar with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). See
http://registrar.wisc.edu/ferpa/. Learn@UW may provide its own
course management-related email. This allows faculty the option of communicating
with students through the regular student email or the CMS. Both are provided by
DoIT.
DoIT - The Division of Information Technology will provide
email service, maintain the appropriate use policy and other related information
technology policies. See http://www.doit.wisc.edu/.
DoIT will communicate, as appropriate, to students and to campus about email
services and policies.
The EDUCAUSE CIO list has had two threads concerning e-mail communications.
The main archives are located at http://listserv.educause.edu/archives/cio.html
Look at the archives for August and
September 2004, searching for notes with the subject line "Mail quotas and
'official e-mail communication' requirements". The other thread is in
April 2003 and has the subject line "Required E-mail Use".