Listserv

The following are the conditions under which all mailing lists are administered by Information Technology:

1. Mailing lists are intended for use by faculty or support staff. Other individuals or organizations, such as students or student clubs, must obtain a List Sponsor or make use of publicly available mailing list services from an external provider.
2. List Sponsors agree to act as a List Owner, although other individuals may be designated by the Sponsor as a List Owner.
3. Mailing Lists are intended for use with University-related, non-teaching functions. If your Mailing List is intended for teaching, you should contact Teaching and Learning Support Services. If the List is intended for non-university functions, you should contact an external mailing list provider.
4. Mailing List names must adhere to the following criteria:
   1. The name must reflect the nature of the discussion group
   2. The name must end with “-L”
   3. The name, including the –L must be less than 16 characters
   4. Select a short name since list members will be required to type this when posting.
5. Mailing lists must be Private, that is to say, the List Owner must manually subscribe members to the mailing list. Public lists, those where anyone may join without authorization or may post without subscribing, are forbidden.
6. List owners agree to actively participate in the management of the list. This involves the adding and deleting of members or correcting errors, usually as a result of returned email.
7. List owners agree to delete the mailing list should a period of inactivity arise for more than twelve months.
8. When a mailing list membership exceeds 200, list owners must also:
   • Agree to use the list as a “bulletin distribution” tool (where only the list owner may post) rather than a discussion group (where all subscribers may post)
   • Ensure the option “Confirm Yes” is used to prevent spamming.
   • Ensure the option “Send Owner” is used to limit postings only by the list owner
   • Ensure the option “Reply-To Sender” is used to limit the number of postings to the mailing list.
9. When a mailing list membership exceeds 1000, list owners must obtain approval from the Senior Director, IT Services and Infrastructure.
10. List owners must remove list subscribers when the mailing list is used inappropriately, either by submitting articles of unrelated topics or through spamming.
11. List owners agree to review the necessary LISTSERV documentation from https://listserv.uottawa.ca or from their respective IT Reps. Of primary interest to the list owner are the three functions: ADD, DELETE, and REVIEW.
12. Information technology reserves the right to delay delivery of email from the mailing list when the volume of email becomes a detriment to LISTSERV or the email system. This is typical when the mailing list has a large number of subscribers or the submission time coincides with other large mail-outs.
13. List owners may only add email addresses to their listserv upon request by a list subscriber. Owners must not add email addresses unless solicited by the individual.
14. Exceptions to any of these conditions may only be granted by Information Technology through the use of a Service Level Agreement (SLA).
15. Information Technology reserves the right to delete any mailing list when the above conditions are violated.