Email policy and practice This policy applies to all staff (including agency workers, casual and temporary staff), visitors, contractors, students, alumni and researchers of Anglia Ruskin University, and to those using our IT resources. 1. Email policy 1.1 As an institution, we recognise that email is an important communication tool for our staff, students and alumni. Email systems are provided to help in the performance of duties. For the purposes of running University affairs, all staff and students will be issued with at least one email account and they should use that account to conduct their business or studies. Alumni will be issued with an email address upon request. 1.2 Use of email by staff, students and alumni is permitted and encouraged where its use is suitable for business purposes and supports our goals and objectives and those of its business units. Email is to be used in a manner that is consistent with our standards of business conduct. Reasonable personal use is acceptable, so long as such use is not excessive in volume, frequency or time and does not disrupt or restrict usage by other legitimate users. 1.3 The use of computing resources, including email, is subject to UK law and any illegal use will be dealt with appropriately. 1.4 Email messages sent through Anglia Ruskin s email systems, stored or archived are treated as University property. Individuals who use their email address (that is, any email address ending with anglia.ac.uk) for personal use implicitly waive their privacy, and agree that those messages may be monitored with the approval of the Office of the Secretary and Clerk and under the terms set out in section 2.1. 1.5 We reserve the right, for legitimate business purposes, to redirect the email of staff who have left the institution to an alternative internal address. Users are responsible for ensuring personal emails are stopped. 1.6 All email will be delivered to centrally maintained servers. Faculties, departments and service units will not operate their own mail servers unless there is a legitimate business reason or a course of study that requires them to do so, and they have received authorisation from the Office of the Secretary and Clerk. Such ad hoc server systems will be carefully monitored and will always operate within this policy. All staff email will be stored
centrally. Local storage of email on personal PCs or servers is not permitted. All email will enter and leave through a prescribed route, thus ensuring that it is scanned for viruses and bulk email (spam). 1.7 Automatic forwarding of email, and the store and forward email function, is permitted for students [i.e. they can forward emails to a personal / non-anglia account]. It is the responsibility of the student to manage and maintain this service. We take no responsibility for any undelivered mail forwarded to a non-anglia account. It is not permitted for staff to forward emails to another system for the purposes of keeping a private copy or to circumvent the archiving policy described in section 2.2.2 (for staff) and 2.2.4 (for students); this includes setting up the automated forwarding of emails to a non-anglia account. Mail forwarding is only permitted for business and/or academic purposes. 1.8 Email sent to any address outside Anglia Ruskin will be stamped with a standard disclaimer generated automatically by the system when it detects a non-internal address. This disclaimer will be separate from personal signatures and cannot be modified by users. The content of the disclaimer will be agreed with the Office of the Secretary and Clerk and modified only with their approval. Disclaimers will not be added to internal email in order to reduce demands on central storage. 1.9 Users may allow delegate access to their email account. Delegate access will only be allowed by using the delegate access facility within the email program, not by sharing user names and passwords. Where access is required to an email account and the owner is not available to grant permission, access shall only be authorised by the individual s line manager. 1.10 Users must not allow access to their email program and password (other than when authorised as described in section 1.9 above) by any other person. Sharing of user names and passwords to access email is not permitted and will be treated as a disciplinary offence. Page 2 of 7
2. Email practice 2.1. Monitoring 2.1.1 Misuse of email can have a detrimental effect on other users and, potentially, on our public profile. In some circumstances it may be necessary to intercept or monitor email communications. This is done for a range of legitimate business reasons, for instance to gain access to routine business communications when staff are on sick leave or to ensure that inappropriate emails are not being sent. 2.1.2 We maintain the right to access user email accounts to protect University interests as detailed above (in section 2.1.1). Such direct access to any email account, however, will only happen in the pursuit of an appropriately authorised legal or disciplinary investigation. Anglia Ruskin reserves the right to scrutinise information transmitted through our email system, and to determine the suitability of the information. Specific content of any transactions will not be monitored unless there is a suspicion of improper use. 2.1.3 To fulfil its responsibilities with regard to UK law and the JANET Code of Conduct, Anglia Ruskin is obliged to monitor email traffic. Therefore, the use of email may be subject to monitoring for security and/or network management reasons. Users may also be subject to limitations on their use of email resources in order to maintain or enhance the service to all users. 2.2. Archiving 2.2.1 Staff email will be automatically archived if it is older than two months. 2.2.2 Archived staff email will be retained for a period of 2 years from the last modification date (i.e. the date when the email was last viewed in the archive or in the mailbox). 2.2.3 Should staff require archived emails to be stored for longer than 2 years permission must be requested from the Secretary and Clerk. If permission is granted then an additional archive folder will be created for that individual with the appropriate retention period. 2.2.4 Student and alumni email will not be archived. Students and alumni will receive a fixed quota of storage space and will be expected to manage their volume of email within this. 2.3. Address lists and calendar access 2.3.1 A global address list will be maintained for the purposes of directing email. Page 3 of 7
The following access rights are authorised for the address list: Staff list Students list Distribution lists Staff access Yes Yes Yes Student access Yes Yes No Alumni Alumni department No No Each user may access their own calendar. Users may access all calendars in order to ascertain whether the other person is free or busy (they cannot see details of appointments). A user may grant another user access to their calendars. The following table identifies which class of user may be granted access. Staff calendar appointment details Student calendar appointment details Staff access Yes (by grant access) Yes (by grant access) Student access Never Never Alumni Never Never 2.4. Email addresses 2.4.1 Email addresses will be in the form: <first name>.<second name>@anglia.ac.uk for staff <first name>.<second name>@student.anglia.ac.uk for students <first name>.<second name>@alumni.anglia.ac.uk for alumni Where there is a duplicate name (e.g. Joe Bloggs), the email address will take the form: First Joe Bloggs joe.bloggs@anglia.ac.uk Second Joe Bloggs joe.bloggs2@anglia.ac.uk and so on. 2.4.2 The first name and second name should be as close as possible to the person s real name, but there may be times when someone prefers to be known, or is generally known, by a shortened or other name and so the Page 4 of 7
first name and second name will reflect that (e.g. real name Stephen Bloggs; email address: steve.bloggs@anglia.ac.uk). 2.4.3 Email addresses will not have apostrophes (e.g. O Casey = ocasey) or accented characters (e.g. Böhr = bohr). 2.4.4 Typically, the first name field will be equivalent to the known as field in the HR system and student administration system. On rare occasions, some special forms may be required for names that do not take the form first name second name (e.g. Asian names). These will be decided upon in consultation with the staff member or the student as the need arises. 2.4.5 Any proposed email addresses, for example a departmental address, that do not take the form described above will be referred to the appropriate CMT member for approval. 2.5. Signatures Users should also add a signature to their emails. Signatures should contain the known name (as selected by the user) followed by the full name of the sender, together with their title (if any) and position. Any contact details may be inserted below this information. An example of an approved signature is illustrated below (in red): Dear James, I will be at the meeting tomorrow. Sarah -- Dr Sarah Smith Dean of Science and Technology Tel. 0845 196 1234 Mob. 07777 123 456 <- Known name <- Signature separator <- Full name <- Title <- Contact details Please note that use of the dash dash space (-- ) format close to the beginning of the signature, after the Known name, adheres to an email standard where the signature can be stripped out automatically for greater clarity in email response. Page 5 of 7
3. Email usage 3.1. Users should: 3.1.1 Keep emails brief and use subject lines that are to the point. Email is a short message medium, keep messages as short as possible. 3.1.2 Read messages before sending them to check for clarity and to make sure that any form of discrimination, harassment, University representation or defamation or Data Protection issues is not unintentionally included in the content. 3.1.3 Understand how to use and not to mismanage the CC and BCC options. Only CC in people who really need to receive the email. 3.1.4 Use file compression techniques such as zip programs to reduce the size of large documents and consequently the strain on the email system. 3.1.5 Manage their inbox effectively use folders and delete any messages that are no longer needed. 3.1.6 Not over-use the urgent flag as it will lose its value. 3.1.7 Never reply to spam. 3.1.8 Avoid using email for sensitive or emotional messages, or for contentious content. 3.1.9 Draft staff emails with the same care as headed letters as they are a form of corporate communication. 3.1.10 Be careful when replying to emails sent to a group: only reply to those who need your response. 3.1.11 Ensure that the terminal is locked or logged out when left to avoid malicious emails being sent in the name of the user. 3.1.12 Avoid 'mail storms' (long discussions sent to a distribution list) consider oral communication or use a bulletin board. 3.1.13 Avoid excessive use of the reply all function to minimise email traffic. 3.1.14 Use the read receipts function sparingly. Attaching a read receipt to every email is considered to be unacceptable use of the email system (as it generates a return email for each email sent) and may be arbitrarily turned off by the system managers. 3.2. It is unacceptable to: 3.2.1 Use the email system for personal gain or for commercial purposes. 3.2.2 Send or retain any material that is obscene or defamatory or that is Page 6 of 7
intended to annoy, harass, cause offence or intimidate another person. Note: any email received that is inappropriate or illegal should be reported to the C&ITS help desk as soon as possible. 3.2.3 Represent personal opinions as those of Anglia Ruskin University. 3.2.4 Upload, download or otherwise transmit commercial software or any third-party copyrighted materials without the copyright holder s written permission. 3.2.5 Reveal, transmit or publicise confidential or proprietary information, which includes, but is not limited to, financial information, databases and the information contained therein, computer network access codes, patent information and business relationships. 3.2.6 Send unsolicited messages to a large number of people (spamming). 3.2.7 Send messages requesting recipients to forward, thereby setting up a chain action (chain mail). 3.2.8 Send messages purporting to come from someone other than the actual sender (spoofing). 3.2.9 Send material advocating criminal activity or activity that may bring Anglia Ruskin into disrepute. 3.2.10 Send material that could be used to breach computer security or facilitate unauthorised access. 3.2.11 Send personal data about a third party in contravention of the Data Protection Act. 4. Revision This document will be reviewed every two years, and updated as necessary. Page 7 of 7