UBIT Policy: LISTSERV

Category: Information Technology

Responsible Office: Enterprise Infrastructure Services

Responsible Executive: J. Brice Bible, Vice President and Chief Information Officer (VPCIO)

Date Established: November 12, 2009

Date Revised: June 24, 2019

On this page:

Summary

The Vice President and Chief Information Officer’s area provides the LISTSERV mailing list service for University-related communications.

Policy Statement

A LISTSERV mailing list is created for one or more of the following purposes:

  • Conducting official UB business
  • Supporting UB's research initiatives
  • Communicating within departments or units
  • UB instructional activities
  • Officially-sponsored student clubs or organization
  • Regional organizations or government agencies affiliated with UB

The university LISTSERV mailing list service is not a national mailing list service provider.

Content Monitoring

  • As an academic institution and a New York State government entity, the university supports the concept of freedom of speech. The discussion of unpopular views are important in a free and democratic society. VPCIO staff will not remove content from LISTSERV archives unless the content is in clear violation of university policies or Federal or State laws. VPCIO staff do not monitor LISTSERV message content or list archives.
  • List owners are primarily responsible for editing or removing a post at the request of the person who submitted the post.

Mandatory LISTSERV Moderation

Any LISTSERV containing all students, all staff, or all faculty are required to be moderated. Moderating listservs prevents spoofed email or mistakenly composed email from going out to these large groups.  For these reasons, moderating is recommended in general.

Subscriber Monitoring

  • VPCIO area does not monitor subscribers.

LISTSERV Message Retention

  • Archived messages are retained for a maximum of five years.
  • The VPCIO area reserves the right to remove archives from individual lists that use excessive amounts of storage.

Compliance

Violations of this policy will result in appropriate disciplinary measures in accordance with university policies, applicable collective bargaining agreements, and state and federal laws.

Applicability

This policy applies to LISTSERV owners, editors, moderators, subscribers, and VPCIO area staff who provide support to the LISTSERV service.  

Definitions

A LISTSERV mailing list is based on a computer program called LISTSERV that allows individuals to create, manage, and control electronic mailing lists. Each list has a topic of interest. To avoid requiring everyone within a mailing group to maintain a separate alias or nickname for the group, the LISTSERV product maintains a single list of subscribers that everyone can use.

Responsibility

Enterprise Infrastructure Services

  • Creates lists, maintains the list server software (LISTSERV), periodically reviews LISTSERV for active status, and supports the UBIT Help Center
  • Annually reviews list owners.  Lists can have multiple owners. Each list must have at least one owner who is a current UB employee (faculty or staff affiliation).  If a list does not have such an owner, Enterprise Infrastructure Services will make a reasonable attempt to find one.  If a suitable new owner cannot be found, the list and its archive will be deleted

UBIT Help Center

  • Provides support for list owners, editors, moderators, and subscribers, assisting in resolving problems related to their lists
  • Escalates technical problems to Enterprise Infrastructure Services when needed

LISTSERV Owner

  • Requests a list, name the list, and set up the list configuration. List names are required to follow the UB standard.
  • Monitors discussion and content of messages and archives
  • Establishes and enforces rules of conduct for the list
  • List owners are also responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of their list(s), including adding and deleting subscribers, answering questions from list subscribers, and assisting UBIT in resolving problems related to the list(s)
  • The LISTSERV owner must be a current university employee

LISTSERV Member

  • Abides by applicable policies

Contact Information

Director of Enterprise Infrastructure Services
305C Computing Center
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: 716-645-3031

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