UC Davis has updated its policy governing mailing lists to better align with other University of California and UC Davis policies on uses of proprietary electronic communications. The updates to PPM 310-18, Email Lists and Mass Electronic Messaging cover topics including who may serve as the administrator or owner of a campus mailing list and the university’s approach to closing mailing lists that are out of compliance with policy.

An email list, or listserv, is a distribution list allowing a group of subscribers to automatically receive email messages. The two basic types of email lists are announcement lists and discussion lists.

Announcement lists (Dateline is one example) allow owners to send information via newsletters or announcements without allowing subscribers to respond to the list. Discussion lists allow all subscribers to take part in exchanges. These are often used for class discussions or for conversations among groups of participants with shared professional interests. 

Information and Educational Technology, or IET, hosts Sympa, the central email lists service for academic or administrative units and members of the campus community. The updates to the policy include:

• A requirement that only active faculty or staff may serve as administrators or owners of email lists. Student employees, retired faculty, temporary affiliates or non-affiliates may not serve as administrators. Administrators may request that active students be assigned as secondary administrators under their supervision.
• Language detailing the university’s ability to close an email list if it remains inactive for one year or more, if the administrator is no longer an active member of the staff or faculty, or if use of the email list is noncompliant with policy. Noncompliance issues include use of email lists for topics other than university business, such as efforts to promote events, fundraisers or activities that are not sponsored by the university or a recognized university entity.

While the university encourages members of the campus community to exercise their right of free expression and engage each other on topics of shared interest, university platforms are to be utilized as outlined in the UC Davis Electronic Communications - Allowable Use Policy.

The updated Email Lists and Mass Electronic Messaging policy will be implemented in phases. The first phase is focused on ensuring that new requests for mailing lists are completed in compliance with the policy. Subsequently, the university will review existing email lists to identify those that have been dormant for long periods of time and those for which the administrators are not active staff or faculty.

IET is currently updating its suite of email list webpages to reflect the updated policy. The Office of Strategic Communications has posted a page of guidance and resources, as well as the steps administrators can take to bring their email lists into compliance. These include:

• Delete the lists you no longer need
• Reassign ownership of lists
• Contact IT Express to request that student(s) be assigned as secondary administrators
• Keep only the lists that you need and use.