UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – SUPERIOR
Policy Subject: Policy on E-mail
Date Revised: 17 December 2003
I. Background and Purpose
The campus e-mail system is an official communication tool for University Business. Students, faculty, and staff will be considered officially notified of any University Business communication transmitted via campus e-mail. Official electronic communications will be sent to campus e-mail addresses only. If a user elects to use another e-mail address, it is his/her responsibility to set up routing so that campus e-mail will be delivered to that address.
There is a need, from time to time, to send official email messages to all students, faculty and staff on campus. E-mail users should think carefully before sending a message to everyone. Whenever possible, a more selective distribution should be used. Personal or unofficial messages should not be sent to everyone. These messages should instead be sent to the campus community distribution list. Messages to all students should be sent to Student Development for distribution.
II. Constraints
· Applicable UW System Administration Policy Documents
· Applicable UW-Superior Policy Documents
· State Statutes
III. Definitions
· “Everyone” email is defined as a message sent to the “_Everyone (staff)” distribution list.
· The "campus community" distribution list is defined as “_Campus_Community.” list.
· The postmaster is defined as the Network Services person(s) responsible for maintaining the campus email system.
IV. Policy Statements
· Network Services has the authority to:
o Impose limits on message size, attachment size, and e-mail-related storage. See Limits.
o Block attachments with known methods of virus transit.
§ See Attachment Blocking.
o Remove “dead” e-mail to recover storage space
§ Messages that are no longer valid or have expired.
· Messages regarding University Business, relevant to the entire campus community should be sent to the "everyone" e-mail list. These may include construction updates, service outage notices, service restoration notices, safety, weather information, emergencies, etc.
o Messages regarding surplus university items, materials, furniture, etc., should not be sent to everyone. Those messages should be sent to:
§ The Business Office to be posted on the appropriate website.
§ The campus community distribution list.
o Messages asking faculty and staff to excuse students from class attendance for athletic or academic reasons should not be sent to everyone.
§ Coaches and organization advisors shall advise their students to contact the faculty members teaching the classes that will be missed.
§ Coaches and organization advisors shall use an appropriate, focused, distribution list such as _Faculty.
· Individuals may not use University IT resources to sell or solicit sales for any goods, services or contributions unless such use conforms to UW-Superior rules and regulations governing the use of University resources. University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum. No one may use University IT resources to represent the interests of any non-University group or organization unless authorized by an appropriate University department.
V. Policy Procedures
· If an e-mail message is larger than the limit allows (See Limits.):
o The message will not be sent, and notification is sent to the sender.
o The postmaster is also notified.
· When an e-mailbox reaches the storage limit, the owner is notified that he/she will not be able to send messages. See Limits.
· When an e-mail message is sent or received, its content and attachment(s) are scanned for possible viruses, worms, etc.
o If such content is found:
§ An attempt is made to clean the message/attachments(s).
· If the clean attempt fails:
o The message/attachment(s) is(are) deleted
o The sender and the postmaster are notified.
· If an e-mail message contains an attachment of one of the blocked file types: (See Attachment Blocking.)
o The attachment will be permanently deleted
o The sender, recipient and the postmaster will be notified.
· If there is a need to send message to the entire campus, the following guidelines apply:
o Before sending an “everyone” message, individuals should consider:
§ Is the issue/activity open to the public?
§ Is it University Business or open discussion to all?
§ Is it better to send it through a smaller, more focused distribution list to which the message best applies?
o Replies to everyone email shall be made to the sender, not the whole group.
o Training shall be provided to educate email users in the use of distribution lists.
VI. Compliance
· Email users who do not comply may have their access to the “everyone” list revoked.
o Appeals and requests for exceptions shall be directed to the IITS Council.
VII. Appendices
o Any one e-mail is limited to a size of 10MB, including any attachments.
o "_Everyone" e-mail is limited to a size of 30KB including any attachments.
o User e-mailbox storage is limited to 25MB for faculty and staff, and 20MB for students.
§ This includes all folders within the mailbox.
o When an e-mailbox is within 5MB of reaching the storage limit, the owner is notified that he/she will not be able to send messages.
o When an e-mailbox reaches the storage limit, the owner will no longer be able to send messages.
o When an e-mailbox exceeds the storage limit by 5MB or more, the owner will no longer be able to send or receive messages.
o For virus protection purposes, following attachment files types are blocked:
§ *.vbs
§ *.exe
§ *.bat
§ *.com
§ *.cmd
§ *.scr
§ *.chm
§ *.pif
§ *.ceo
§ *.rar
o Network Services reserves the right to add file types to blocking as necessary