UMD provides several large email lists for broadcasting messsages to the campus, including the most commonly used, umd.business.announce. Email lists with large subscription have the potential to inconvenience a large number of people when they are misused. Please review and use these guidelines to help reduce inconvenience and annoyance.
Access to umd.business.announce is controlled by the Chancellor's Office and is not available to everyone. Requests should be directed to Robert Borden.
A number of email lists are available at UMD. Sign up for the ones that interest you. ITSS can create new lists for interested departments. Contact Gordee Bennett for more information.
Before broadcasting an the announcement of an open-to-the-public event via email, make sure it is in our Campus Events Calendar and has been sent to Currents, the faculty-staff newsletter. Contact Cheryl Reitan in University Relations for information about Currents and/or entering information into the calendar.
Avoid sending the same message out many times. Limit yourself to one early announcement and one a day or two before the event. If your event is not open to the public, make that clear in the text and send only two messages at the most.
Not everyone uses the same email programs and software. Include a web link for all html email and include a text version, or web version, of the message when using attachments.
Fundraising by individuals and organizations is discouraged on the UMD email system through umd.business.announce or individually to all employees through UMD campus email. If every campus unit and organization sent one solicitation each year, we would all get hundreds of solicitations per year. This distracts many people from the primary business of the campus.
Some fundraising activities are central to the mission of the campus, including the United Community Campaign and Development Office fundraising activities. If you have a fundraising event that you believe is central to UMD's mission, you may request permission to solicit from the Chancellor's Office, but please recognize that only a limited few will be approved. Please send email requests to chan@d.umn.edu or written requests to the Chancellor's Office, 515 Darland.
Organizations wishing to participate in the United Community Campaign should contact Human Resources about the proper procedures to be certified by the state.
No announcements that are of personal benefit to the sender are allowed. This includes sale of personal property, requests for assistance in personal matters, and dissemination of personal opinion.
Do not use campus lists to announce events or announce activities for organizations that are external to the University, no matter how good the cause. In this way, we preserve our academic independence and integrity and avoid a proliferation of announcements unrelated to our work.
Most email programs make it easy to reply to all recipients of a message. Nearly always, the reply is only of interest to the original sender. Please take special care to ensure that your response goes to the sender only when responding to a message that was sent to a large list.
The subject line should allow people to know exactly what the message is about. People should be able to tell whether the message content would be of interest to them without opening the message.
Get it right the first time you send a message to a large list. It is very annoying to get one or more corrections to a broadcast message. Ask someone else to review your message before you send it out. Departments may want to designate a single individual to send email to umd.business.announce. This person should be a good communicator and be familiar with these guidelines.
Don't add to our existing load of spam (unwanted messages) by becoming a spammer yourself. Ask yourself who really needs to see your message. Don't make a large number of people read and process a message that only affects a small number. Use a smaller listserv or email alias to reach smaller groups.
Make sure the recipients know who you are and what your role is. Make sure to sign your message and provide contact information for those who wish to follow up.
If you want to get your message across, keep it short. If you need to deliver more detailed information, consider putting it on a web page and including a link to the web page in your message.
Announcing events can definitely be enhanced with a picture or other attachment. Nevertheless, when you send a large photo to the 800 recipients on umd.business.announce, it uses gigabytes of data on our mail servers and slows down all email delivery. Two options would help us deliver the mail more efficiently:
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