Table of contents
Email is a cheap and efficient way of communicating with University members, but many are concerned about the amount of unwanted email they receive, and the University's ICTC Regulations forbid the transmission, without proper authorisation, of e-mail to a large number of recipients, unless those recipients have indicated an interest in receiving such e-mail.
There are obviously circumstances in which it is necessary and appropriate that administrative information is sent to all members, or to defined subsets, and the Information and Communications Technology Committee has laid out guidelines under which this may be done
As well as mailings to thousands of people, similar consideration needs to be applied when mailing to say 20 people and the guidelines in section 3 should still be followed.
There is a restriction on the Oxmails which prohibits sending more than 200 messages in the one transaction- to overcome this, you need to use a mailing list or specialized mass mailing software which splits up the transaction into individual messages- see section 4 below
The use of mass emailing is restricted to important matters where this means of communication is considered to be both appropriate and necessary to reach the required audience. Details of less important matters such as conferences, events, etc. should be published by other means, such as notice boards or opt-in mailing lists.
Mass mailings to all members, or to general subsets, eg those defined by staff category, may only be sent by the University central administration. This will include the Vice Chancellor's Office, the Registrar's Department, and the Council Secretariat. Other bodies that may send information relating to their particular areas include Student Administration and Payroll.
Information particular to members of a particular division, faculty etc may be sent with the authority of the Head of Division or Faculty.
Departments responsible for facilities, services, etc, may send information about those services to those who use the services.
Mass mailings create a large amount of network traffic, delay other email, and result in thousands of copies of the same material being stored on servers across the University. To limit the impact, messages should be as short as possible, and sent as plain text- not as a Word attachment. If a large amount of information is to be conveyed, or special layout is required, the message should simply contain information about where the full text can be viewed on the web.
Options
The following are some examples of specialized software- no endorsement is made.