Using Class Mailing Lists

Introduction

Computer & Network Services has recently begun constructing mailing lists for many classes offered at UAH for the current term. Utilization of the lists by faculty depend upon two things: One, the class must be assigned to the faculty member in the Faculty Management Module of SIS; and two, the faculty member must have added a Mailing List Password and current email address in his entry in the UAH Online Campus Directory. Let's take a closer look at each of these requirements and then how you would go about sending an email to all members of your class.

Faculty Management Module

The Faculty Management Module (FMM) is a part of the Student Information System (SIS) that associates a faculty member with a particular course. This is how, for example, you have access to your classes in the Web for Faculty product to post grades via the Internet. Because mailing lists must be protected against abuse, we use the information from the FMM to determine what faculty member should have access to a given mailing list. The Office of the Provost can update the FMM to associate you with the courses you teach.

Mailing List Password / E-mail Address

Once we determine what faculty member teaches a given class, we look in that person's Online Directory entry to find out what password to assign to a mailing list. All mailing lists for a given faculty member will have the same password, which you specify by updating your directory entry. Use of this password when sending an email to your class will help prevent unauthorized use of your mailing list.

If your email address is missing (or incorrect), you will need to update it also. Class mail lists will not be generated unless there is an email address listed.

Specifying a mailing list password

To specify your mailing list password, you must log in to the Online Directory. Point your web brower to http://www.uah.edu/cgi-bin/dirupdt.cgi and enter your username (this will be your email.uah.edu name if you have an account on that server - if you do not have an email.uah.edu account, do a directory search at http://www.uah.edu/cgi-bin/dirread.cgi and make a note of your UID) and directory password. If you have never logged in to the directory before, your directory password should be the same as your employee ID number (SSN). Once you log in to the directory, you will see a list of items you can change and one of them will be called "Majordomo password". Whatever you make this value will be what you use to send out emails to your class.

Sending the email to your class using the password

The class mailing lists will have names consisting of the term code, a dash, the department, course number, a dash (or L for labs), the section number, then "@uah.edu". Some example mailing list names might be:

01F-EH101-01@uah.edu (this is a Fall 2001 class)
02S-BYS219-01@uah.edu (this is a Spring 2002 class)
02M-BYS209L03@uah.edu (this is a Summer 2002 lab)

To send to a list that is associated with you in the Faculty Management Module, you would compose a message to the address of the list, and the first line of the email must contain a special line like this:

Approved: mail-list-password

Use the password that you have specified in your directory entry. Note that this line will be removed from the email before being sent to the list. Note also that it must be the first line of the message (or in the header area, if your mailer lets you specify header fields) and must begin in the first column. You must follow this Approved: line with a blank line.

When you specify (or change) your Majordomo password in the Online Directory, the change in the mailing lists will not take effect until the next day. This is because the lists are created overnight. Also, they will generally be updated only until the last drop day of a class.

How do I know what mailist lists I have

When you access your directory entry, you will see a list of mailing lists that are associated with you.

How current is the mailing list

Each mailing list will be populated with the preferred email address that the student puts in his SIS record (which may or may not be the student's email.uah.edu address). This will ensure that you are sending to the address the student has designated.

Questions & Comments

If you have any questions or problems, please email Jim McCullars at jim@info.uah.edu .