UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – SUPERIOR

Policy Subject:   Policy on eMail & other forms of electronic communication

Date Revised:         July, 2006 

I.   Background and Purpose

The campus email 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 email.  Official electronic communications will be sent to campus email addresses only.  If a user elects to use another email address, it is his/her responsibility to set up routing so that campus email will be delivered to that address.

There are several methods of electronic communication including staff and student email digests, portal news and event calendar, email distribution lists.  Electronic communication usage guidelines.  Please use a communication method that is resource efficient and minimally intrusive. 

II.   Constraints

Applicable UW System Administration Policy Documents

Applicable UW-Superior Policy Documents

State Statutes

III.   Definitions

Email digests are email targeted to students or staff combined into a single, daily mailing.

Email distribution lists are sets of email addresses combined into a single list.  Generic distribution lists can be found in the Exchange global address book.

The postmaster is defined as the Technology Services person(s) responsible for maintaining the campus email system.

IV.   Policy Statements

1)  People are encouraged to use electronic communication methods that are :
·  minimally intrusive - pertinent to at least 30% of the recipients
·  resource efficient - large messages should be linked from a server not replicated in an email message eg. News and Event Calendar

     If there is a need to send message to multiple recipients, consider the following:

·  Is it University Business?
·  Is the issue/activity open to the public?
·  Is it possible to send it through a smaller, more focused distribution list to which the message best applies?
·  Replies should be made to the sender, not the whole group.

2)  Technology Services has the authority to:

·  Impose limits on message size, attachment size, and e-mail-related storage.  See below - Limits.
·   Block attachments with known methods of virus transit.  See below - Attachment Blocking. 
·   Remove "dead" e-mail to recover storage space for messages that are no longer valid or have expired.
·  Prevent situations that burden the campus with incremental costs or otherwise interfere with the operation of the campus email system. 

3)  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.

4)  Directives from Campus Administration and announcements of a health or safety nature are the only communication that should be sent to the "everyone" staff or student distribution list. These include construction updates, service outage notices, service restoration notices, safety, weather information, emergencies.  Other "everyone" email communications should be sent to the appropriate digest (_digest_student or _digest_staff in the Exchange Address Book). 

V.   Policy Procedures

1)   If an e-mail message is larger than the limit allows (See Limits below): The message will not be sent, and notification is sent to the sender. The postmaster is also notified. 

2)  When an e-mailbox reaches the storage limit, the owner is notified that he/she will not be able to send messages. 

3) When an e-mail message is sent or received, its content and attachment(s) are scanned for possible viruses, worms, etc.  If such content is found an attempt is made to clean the message/attachments(s).  If the clean attempt fails the message/attachment(s) is(are) deleted and the sender and the postmaster are notified.

4)  If an e-mail message contains an attachment of one of the blocked file types (See Attachment Blocking below), the attachment will be permanently deleted and the sender, recipient and the postmaster will be notified.  

VI.  Compliance 

Email users who do not comply may have their access privileges revoked.  Appeals and requests for exceptions shall be directed to the IITS Council. 

VII.       Limits:

· Any one e-mail is limited to a size of 10MB, including any attachments.
· Student and Staff digest submissions should be limited to a size to 60KB including any attachments.
· User e-mailbox storage is limited to 210MB for students, faculty and staff.  This includes all folders within the mailbox.
· When an e-mailbox is within 10MB of reaching the storage limit, the owner is notified that he/she will not be able to send messages.
· When an e-mailbox reaches the storage limit, the owner will no longer be able to send messages.
· When an e-mailbox exceeds the storage limit by 10MB or more, the owner will no longer be able to send or receive messages.

      Attachment Blocking:
      For virus protection purposes, following attachment files types are blocked:
·         *.vbs
·         *.exe
·         *.bat
·         *.com
·         *.cmd
·         *.scr
·         *.chm
·         *.pif
·         *.ceo
·         *.rar

Technology Services reserves the right to add file types to blocking as necessary