Direct Student Email

Introducton
 

• Schools and departments at Purdue University have a need to communicate with their students about a broad range of topics related to the student's academic pursuits and financial status with the University. The cost and the logistical problems associated with preparing a surface mailing to the students are impediments to this communication. Electronic mail is becoming the preferred method of communicating with students because of its speed and ease of use. However, email has other costs that include hardware and software used to support email.
   
  University organizations are requesting higher volumes of email to carefully targeted audiences and receivers want to limit items coming to their electronic mailbox. As the use of email grows there is a need to provide rules by which to manage its use. The Direct Student Email (DSE) System was initially designed in 1998 to meet the needs for mass communication with Purdue students system wide. Increasingly, people are setting up filters for their email to route to folders that are then deleted as unread. Anyone considering using DSE to communicate with students must consider the importance of the message to the student and whether email is the best alternative means of reaching the targeted audience.
   
  DSE is not intended to replace the use of mailing labels to send surface mail, listservs, electronic news groups or mailing lists. DSE is an alternative means for officially communicating with students with regard to messages that have an academic or student organization benefit or pertain to their financial or enrollment status with the University. Messages of general information should be placed on Purdue-Board, SSINFO, departmental websites, or on the Events Calendar at: http://calendar.purdue.edu/.
   
  These Guidelines are consistent with the Policy for Access and Use of Purdue’s Electronic Mail System (September 29, 1995) issued by the President of the University. See: http://www.purdue.edu/oop/policies/pages/
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• There are different applications available within Student Services that provide the capability of selecting a student population from the student files and providing a variety of output forms (lists, address labels or inserts, electronic files). Mailman, a service available through ITaP, can be used to create distributed lists to target populations identified by the area or department.
   
• The Mail*Hub provides an authoritative source for email addresses for all students and staff of Purdue University. The information about email addresses which appears on the Mail*Hub is maintained by the individual and provides the capability for storing or forwarding email which has been received. Provision is made for restricting access to the information in the Mail*Hub if the individual so requests. As such, perpetuating email addresses in departmental applications is strongly discouraged since the information cannot be refreshed by the Mail*Hub. Student information changes daily, which may inadvertently violate FERPA.