UBIT LISTSERV Procedures

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 9, 2019

On this page:

Summary

Setting up a LISTSERV mailing list is a collaborative effort between the LISTSERV owner and the VPCIO area. The LISTSERV mailing list owner and VPCIO area have ongoing maintenance and operational responsibilities.

Ongoing maintenance and operational responsibilities

VPCIO area

  • Provide support for list owners (UBIT Help Center)
  • Maintain the list management software (LISTSERV)
  • Periodically review the lists to see if they are active
  • VPCIO area does not monitor the content of messages and list archives

List owner

  • List owners have responsibility for the lists, including monitoring discussion on the list and the content of messages and archives and enforcing 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)
  • List owners must allow subscribers to sign off any list. Exceptions include class lists, emergency lists, and centrally-managed lists of enrolled students or employees

List members

  • List members are required to abide by all applicable university policies
  • Mass mailing requests to the University community must follow the UB Email for Mass Communications Policy referenced below.
  • Services or software that automatically reply to email messages should not be included as subscribers to a LISTSERV list.

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Periodic Review

Lists are reviewed periodically to see if they are active: a list is considered active if it has distributed email to its subscribers within the past 12 months. Inactive lists and any associated archives will be automatically removed with the exception of lists used solely for emergency notification. List owners of emergency notification lists are asked to contact cit-listserv@buffalo.edu with the list name, a brief description of the list, and the fact that the list is used for emergency notification.

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Initial set up

  1. A UB faculty or staff member(s) requests the creation of a LISTSERV mailing list from the VPCIO area. The requestor(s) is identified as the list owner
  2. The VPCIO area approves and creates the LISTSERV mailing list
  3. The list owner names the list and sets up list configuration
    • Configuration options include whether a list name is publicly viewable and whether a list will have its messages archived
    • When a list owner sets up or configures the list, s/he determines not only whether the messages will be archived, but also who can view the archives. Most list owners configure the archives to be viewable only by members subscribed to the list. A public list may have its name viewable on the web page of public list archives, but the archives may be protected so that only those subscribed to the list can view archived messages

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Best practices for email attachments

  • List members are encouraged to send links (URLs) to documents on the Web, rather than large attached documents in their email to a list. UBIT provides web space for departments, faculty, staff, and students for this purpose

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