1. Introduction
   
2. Guidelines for Composing Mass E-mails
3. ITSC Mass Mail Service
   3.1 Scope
   3.2 Policies
   3.3 Guidelines and Procedures for Submitting a Mass Mail Request
   3.4 Definitions
4. Resources / Related Topics

University departments/units/societies may need to generate electronic mass mails of officially-required notification information, announcement and promotion of events or activities, etc. through e-mail. Such mass mails may be accomplished either by generating temporary, up-to-date, electronic mailing lists or by other means of collecting e-mail addresses to reach the target audience.

However, if not sent correctly, mass mails have the potential to disrupt e-mail service for tens of thousands of campus e-mail system users.

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2. Guidelines for Composing Mass E-mails

Sending e-mails with large attachments, especially when reaching large batches of recipients, can cause a high server load on the e-mail system. This may slow down any sending or receiving of e-mails of our users, or even result in overall suspension of e-mail service in extreme cases. To help maintain the high quality of e-mail service for the whole University, you should read the guidelines below before composing your mass e-mail messages:

1. Compress multiple files by using WinZip or WinRAR and attach one zip file in the e-mail
2. Convert image files from PNG to JPEG format before attaching them to e-mail
3. Include links of large files uploaded to external sites instead of attaching them in the e-mail.
4. Consider alternative means of mass communication provided by ITSC, such as Mass Mail Service and e-newsletters.
5. When sending a large distribution list,

• Check the size of e-mail in draft box before sending. A size of less than 150KB is preferred when sending to a group of over 1000 recipients as it imposes a significant impact on the network traffic.
• Send attachments (more than 1MB) to distribution lists with more than 100 recipients is not recommended.
• Dispatch the e-mail during non-office hours to avoid imposing a heavy load on the e-mail system.

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3. ITSC Mass Mail Service

ITSC provides mass mail service to help university departments/units/societies to dispatch mass mails in an orderly way. The service has maintained some standing "all" electronic mailing lists including "all students", "all staff", "all postgraduate students" and "all undergraduate students" lists. University departments/units/societies can make a request to the ITSC to send e-mails to these groups.

The mass mail service of ITSC also helps university departments/units/societies dispatching mass mails to smaller groups of staff or students as long as the departments/units/societies can provide the staff and students lists of these groups.

3.1 Scope

The policies in section 3.2 below govern the mass mails of ITSC. They are created to protect CWEM e-mail users from unauthorized mass mails, and to protect the campus network and the Campus-wide E-mail System (CWEM) from an overload of e-mail activity.

3.2 Policies

1. Mass mails can only be used for activities which comply with the University regulations and policies, the Acceptable Use Policy of ITSC, and all existing laws including not only those that are specific to computers and networks, but also those that may apply generally to personal conduct.
2. Mass mails should not be used to advertise or solicit commercial activities or services.
3. Mass mails should not be used to "spam" recipients.
4. Mass mails that are not of officially-required notification information, or announcements and promotions of events or activities conducted by departments, units or societies will not be sent.
5. The requesting department must have considered the existing channels of communication including the CUHK portal, i.e. the MyCUHK, newsgroup, the web, mailing list service, i.e. the Mailman Mailing List, which are more 'recipient-friendly' before consider requesting the sending of mass mails.
6. Mass mails shall be dispatched by ITSC.
7. Mass mail is a process that imposes significant load on the Campus-wide E-mail System as well as the campus network. To ensure smooth running of the e-mail service for the whole university, ITSC has the right, in case the normal service is being jeopardized, to circumvent the process including early abortion without consulting the concerned department/unit/society.
8. ITSC will not provide the list of e-mail addresses for the requestor's retention.
9. The process of handling a mass mail request includes vetting and dispatching it. The deadline of submitting mass mail requests is 1 pm on the dispatching day. Requests made after the deadline will be considered in next dispatching.
10. Mass mails to the aforesaid "all" groups will be consolidated and dispatched in form of a digest. Different kinds of mass mails might be grouped into different digests.
11. It is ITSC's decision as when the digests of mass mails will be dispatched. Normally, mass mail digests will be sent on the last working day of a week.
12. Mass mails will be sent to e-mail address, which is in the form of xxx@cuhk.edu.hk of their recipients.
13. ITSC DOES NOT and no way can guarantee the staff/students will read the message delivered to their mailboxes.
14. Some staff or students may type in an invalid e-mail address. The result is, the message cannot be delivered and will be bounced back to the sender. Therefore, the department/unit should prepare to receive these bounced back e-mails.
15. The following disclaimer will be added to mass mails to distinguish them from other e-mails or mass mails:
    
    "This e-mail is sent by ITSC to recipients on the request of our Department/Unit/Society. If you have any queries or comments regarding the policies and guidelines for mass mails by ITSC please check at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/itsc/about/mass-mailing.html or submit them to ITSC Electronic HelpDesk at https://helpdesk.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/group/policy-help.
    
    For comments and enquiries related to this message, please send to Department/Unit/Society e-mail contact. ------ Department/Unit/Society"
    
    NOTE: details of "recipients", "Department/Unit/Society e-mail contact" and "Department/Unit/Society" are to be supplied by requesting department/unit/society

3.3 Guidelines and Procedures for Submitting a Mass Mail Request

1. The authorized person of the department/unit and student organization must submit the request to ITSC at https://helpdesk.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/group/cumassmailing with the following information :
   
   Purpose :
   Target Recipients :
   Sender's Name :
   Requesting Department/Unit/Society (In English : Mandatory)
   Sender's Contact Tel. No. :
   Message E-mail Address (This must be a CUHK e-mail address and would appear in the "From" field of your message):
   Message Subject (In English : Mandatory) :
   Message Content (In Chinese AND English is preferred) :
   Disclaimer :
   
   Request will be rejected should any of the above is missing.
   
   
2. Only authorized persons representing departments/units may request the sending of mass mails by ITSC. Student organizations must use their computing accounts to submit the request.
3. A request to send a mass mail to a wrong group will be rejected.
   
4. Same information will not be dispatched more than two times.
   
5. No individual may request the sending of mass mails by ITSC.
   
6. In case mass mails are not for any one of the aforesaid "all" groups, it is the department's responsibility to provide the IDs, i.e. staff/student IDs, of the recipients. Mass mails of this kind will be sent on its own and on a date to be mutually agreed by the requesting department and the ITSC.
   
7. No information should be submitted as attachment.
8. The size of the message should be less than 5K.
   
9. Chinese characters must be in Big5 codes and plain text format.
10. The message subject MUST be no more than 300 characters in English and/or 80 characters in Chinese (including spaces and symbols).
    

3.4 Definitions

Authorized person
An individual officially acts on behalf of a department or unit.

Mass mail
E-mail transmitted to a large number of addressees and having significant potential to negatively impact network or mail system performance. (Although an exact lower limit cannot be specifically quantified, most cases of campus mailings to 1,000 or more users should be considered "mass mails". )

Officially-required notification information
Dissemination required by law, policy, health and safety, or other very compelling reasons.

Spam
To exploit broadcast systems for purposes beyond their intended scope to amplify the widespread distribution of unsolicited e-mail.

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4. Resources / Related Topics

• Computer Network, Policies and Guidelines on Access and Usage
• Spam
• Mailman Mailing Lists - Acceptable Use Policies and Guidelines
• Mailman Mailing Lists
• ITSC Privacy Policy and Practices in Collecting, Holding and Using of Student and Staff Personal Data (PPS)
• Hong Kong Internet Service Provider Association - Antispam

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User Support Division
Information Technology Services Centre

Version 2, May 2010