Policy on Mass E-mail Communication

The Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties maintains a current email list of IUB faculty for use in distributing important notices to IUB faculty and librarians. That use is governed by campus policy set by the Bloomington Faculty Council (http://www.indiana.edu/~bfc/docs/policies/massEmailProcedures.pdf), which states that "Routine, periodic, targeted electronic mailings from an administrative office or official to any substantial portion of a campus or the University community, such as all students, all faculty, or all staff, must be approved in the first instance by the appropriate campus or University officer. Membership on distribution lists for these mailings can be automatic and mandatory only as long as mailings to the list directly relate to and facilitate the teaching and learning, research, or service missions of the campus or University, and are consistent with the stated purpose of the list (that is, are relevant to the vast majority of the list membership)." Commercial, political, or religious communications are specifically prohibited.

In the spirit of the BFC policy, and in order to limit undue intrusion into the work of IUB academic personnel, the Office of the Dean of the Faculties will consider requests for distribution to the entire faculty only when they meet the following criteria:

1) the announcement is of critical importance to the central academic responsibilities of faculty and librarians; or
2) the announcement is likely to be of interest to a majority of the IUB faculty and librarians; or
3) the announcement directly affects the individual professional appointment of the IUB faculty or librarian.

Requests for access to faculty email addresses for research purposes will be considered only if the research is deemed likely to have a direct impact on the academic mission of the IUB campus (e.g., research on student engagement, faculty teaching practice, etc.). Research use that involves email access to faculty and librarians must first be submitted to IU's Human Subjects Committee (HSC) for their approval (see http://www.research.indiana.edu/rschcomp/index.html for further information). [Note: this policy is currently under review by the Bloomington Faculty Council, and may be revised pending action by the Council.]

Under special circumstances these criteria may be waived at the discretion of the Vice Provost of Academic Affairs/Dean of the Faculties.

Practice

Requests for submission of emails to IUB faculty or librarians should be submitted in writing to the Office of the Dean of the Faculties at dof@indiana.edu.

By BFC policy, email distributions must clearly identify the recipient, sender, subject, and reply-to address, and shall consist of a plain-text message without graphics or bolding, italics, or other formatting. Mass emails may not include file attachments.

Further information about this policy may be obtained from the Office of the Dean of the Faculties at dof@indiana.edu or 855-2809.

Examples

Examples of announcements that would be considered appropriate for campus-wide distribution under this policy include:

• critical announcements about new procedures for submitting grades through Oncourse or OneStart
  
• regular announcements about campus policies on grading, religious holidays, etc.
  
• announcements of opportunities for internal funding competitions through campus-wide academic offices
  
• announcements of campus-wide academic or cultural events such as ArtsWeek events, or a campus-wide forum on a major political event;
  
• announcements of changes in faculty health or retirement plans;

Examples of announcements that would not be considered appropriate for campus-wide distribution under this policy include:

• announcements of special campus events that will involve relatively small subsets of IUB faculty/librarians;
  
• announcements of department- or school-based events;
  
• advertisements for commercial products of potential interest to IUB faculty;
  
• solicitations for contributions to non-profit organizations;
  
• announcements of partisan political activities.

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