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Listserv Policy

Purpose

The purpose of the L-Soft LISTSERV server at West Virginia University is to provide an electronic communications tool for the faculty, staff, and students of West Virginia University.

Scope

This policy applies to all University staff, faculty, administrators, officers and students (collectively, "users"), including those on the regional campuses and Extended Learning sites.

Policy and Procedure

New List Request

New LISTSERV lists can be requested by filling out the LISTSERV form that can be found by logging in to Magic Self Service Help Desk. All fields of this form must be filled in for the list to be approved. The request will be sent to the Technical Support Services (TSS) unit of the Office of Information Technology, Support Services, who serve as the LISTSERV administrators. Once the request is received, a LISTSERV administrator will contact you to discuss the request.

List Names

All list names should be as descriptive as possible without being too long (list name length will not be limited but a suggested length would be approximately 8-12 characters) and must be approved by a LISTSERV administrator.

List Maintenance

All lists hosted on the WVU LISTSERV server must be related to WVU (ex: research discussion or campus wide committee). The person responsible for a list is known as the list owner. At least one owner on every list must be a full time employee of West Virginia University. Any student who requests a LISTSERV list must provide the name of a full-time employee to serve as the sponsor for the list (this person must be associated with list purpose). The primary list owner will be the person who is contacted, if a problem arises in regards to the list. The list owner is responsible for maintaining the list on a day to day basis. This list of responsibilities for this person includes, but is not limited to:

• Maintaining subscribers on the list.
• Dealing with any problems that arise pertaining to his/her list(s).
• Unsubscribing anyone who requests to be removed.

If the primary list owner leaves WVU, a new list owner must be established and identified to Technical Support Services prior to the change of ownership.

Individuals should not be subscribed to any unofficial LISTSERV list without their prior knowledge and consent. List owners should unsubscribe anyone who requests to be removed from any unofficial list. Individual departments may require that employees be subscribed to lists that directly relate to completing their jobs.

Lists may not target all of the employees or students at WVU. Any announcement that targets all employees should be sent to E-News for publication in the next electronic newsletter. Any announcement that needs to be sent to all students should be sent via Mountaineer Information Xpress (MIX).

List Archives and Supplemental Files

An archive may be kept of any list that is on the WVU LISTSERV server. Archives will be stored on the LISTSERV server. Archives can be made web accessible for easier access.

Supplemental files may also be stored for LISTSERV lists on the LISTSERV server. These files allow for customization of your lists. Each list is allotted 50 MB of space to store these files.

LISTSERV Virus Scanning

All messages and attachments that are received by the WVU LISTSERV server will be scanned for known viruses before being distributed to the WVU list subscribers.

List Deletion and Disabling

The primary list owner can request that any list s/he owns be deleted at any time by contacting the OIT Help Desk.

Technical Support Services reserves the right to disable a list if no list owner can be identified or if it is determined that the list is being used inappropriately. Inappropriate use includes but is not limited to:

• Targeting the majority of the WVU faculty staff and/or students
• Sending inappropriate messages to the list subscribers
• Not resolving error messages that pertain to the list that they own

Official Lists

In order to facilitate communications between the Office of the President and various campus groups, provide more timely and accurate announcements, and reduce the costs associated with traditional paper generated announcements, these lists are used to communicate information to the following groups: WVU Deans (wvudeans@listserv.wvu.edu)

• WVU Directors
• WVU Major Administrators
• WVU Chairpersons
• WVU Faculty
• WVU Staff

Guidelines

1. Campus announcements may be posted to the listservs but will be held for the next edition of The Mountaineer E-News (weekly electronic newsletter).
2. These listservs shall be used in accordance with other (official use) university policies.
3. Individuals (subscribers) are added to the proper list electronically by use of the title code information contained in the on-line phonebook directory. The lists are updated regularly to ensure new employees are added and terminating/retiring employees are removed.
4. Since these lists will be used to distribute official University information, subscribers will not be removed from their constituent list, and may not remove themselves from these lists.
5. All notices sent to these lists must contain the following:
   • The subject line has a clear indication of the content of the e-mail (New Indirect Costs, Software Auditors in WV, etc.)
   • The first sentence in the message contains a statement of who (specifically) should be interested in the message (Business Officers, Departmental Computer Specialists, etc.)
   • For long documents, the document should be made available through a URL (with a link in the message to this URL) and a brief message announcing the availability of the document.
6. Individuals sending announcements to these lists must recognize that not all University employees or students have access to electronic mail, and may want to consider sending campus mail announcements to these groups of employees and/or students.
7. Official LISTSERV addresses will be maintained by the Technical Support Services in the Office of Information Technology, Support Services. These lists will be designated by the CIO and all identified employees will automatically be subscribed to the appropriate administrative lists. These lists are used by central administration and University units to communicate important information to employees in a timely manner.

Server Maintenance

The LISTSERV server will reside in the Office of Information Technology’s Data Center. The server will be maintained and serviced by the Office of Information Technology, Information Systems.

Maintenance on the LISTSERV server is scheduled for the next to the last Sunday of every month from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM (noon).

Support

Support for LISTSERV will be handled by OIT Support Services, Technical Support Services. This support includes but is not limited to:

• New list creation
• Training for new list owners
• Assistance in list configuration changes
• Assistance in resolving problems with LISTSERV lists

Questions or Problems

Questions, concerns or additional information about this and any OIT policy should be directed to the CIO office at OIT_Admin@mail.wvu.edu.

Responsibility

The Associate Provost for Information Technology (CIO) is the policy administrator for information technology resources and will ensure this process is followed. Additionally, Deans, Directors and Department Heads are responsible for compliance with University policy within their respective administrative areas.

Policy Last Updated: November 17, 2006

Updated November 13, 2007