1. Introduction
   
2. Scope
   
3. Policies for the Mass Mailing Service of ITSC
   
4. Guidelines and Procedures for Submitting a Mass Mailing request
   
5. Definitions
   
6. Resources / Related Topics

University departments/units/societies may need to generate electronic mass mailings of officially-required notification information, announcement and promotion of events or activities, etc. through e-mail. Such mass mailings 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 mailings have the potential to disrupt e-mail service for tens of thousands of campus e-mail system users.

The ITSC provides mass mailing service with the objective to help university departments/units/societies to dispatch mass mailings 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 mailing service of ITSC also helps university departments/units/societies dispatching mass mailings to smaller groups of staff or students if the departments/units/societies can provide the staff and students lists of these groups.

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II. Scope

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

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III. Policies  

1. Mass mailings 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 mailings should not be used to advertise or solicit commercial activities or services.
3. Mass mailings should not be used to "spam" recipients.
4. Mass mailings 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 Mailing List, which are more 'recipient-friendly' before consider requesting the sending of mass mailing.
6. Mass mailings shall be dispatched by ITSC.
7. Mass mailing 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 mailing request includes vetting and dispatching it. ITSC requires 7 working days to process a mass mailing request.
10. Mass mailings to the aforesaid "all" groups will be consolidated and dispatched in form of a digest. Different kinds of mass mailings might be grouped into different digests.
11. It is ITSC's decision as when the digests of mass mailings will be dispatched. Normally, mass mailing digests will be sent on the last working day of a week.
12. Mass mailings 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 mailings to distinguish them from other e-mails or mass mailings:

"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 mailings 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

recipients, Department/Unit/Society e-mail contact and Department/Unit/Society : are supplied by requesting department/unit/society

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IV. Procedures and Guidelines for Submitting a Mass Mailing Request

1. The authorized person of the department/unit/society 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/societies may request the sending of mass mailings by ITSC.
3. A request to send a mass mailing 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 mailings by ITSC.
   
6. In case mass mailings 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 mailings 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.

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V. Definitions

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

Mass mailing
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 mailings". )

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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VI. Resources / Related Topics

• Computer Network, Policies and Guidelines on Access and Usage
• Spam
• Majordomo Mailing Lists - Acceptable Use Policies and Guidelines
• Majordomo 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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Version 2.3
Mar 2009