AS-5 Acceptable Standards for District-Wide Message Posting

The MCCCD email system was established to link our community of 10 colleges, centers and the District Office. Presently, we have over 18,000 members on the distribution lists that are used to post messages district-wide. The lists are provided as a courtesy for communicating essential messages related to college or district operations. Further, the email system is considered to be a public resource that requires exercising responsible stewardship for its use. Thus, Standards of Practice have been established by the Chancellor to authorize college-identified designees to post messages and general announcements to the following distribution lists: DL-MARICOPA-BUSINESS and DL-MARICOPA- ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Each college will identify designees who will act as authorized senders on behalf of a program, process, group, or department officially sanctioned to post messages for their college-approved function. Although this group of persons may act as their own review, the Standards of Practice herein still apply. An example of persons that may be appropriate for this group are division chairs, marketing directors, theater directors, training development managers, diversity coordinators, policy group campus representatives, or other individuals whose official function regularly includes both planned or unplanned communication to the entire MCCCD community.

Additionally, each college shall identify designees who may or may not be members of the authorized senders described above, who will review messages sent on behalf of a college program or activity prior to posting. Parties that seek to have a message posted district-wide to either list must submit the message to the appropriate designee.

The Standards serve to supplement, but not replace the existing administrative regulations for Electronic Communications and Technology Resource Standards and are as follows:

1. Neither distribution list shall serve as a discussion forum for personal exchange, but instead shall be used to post messages that are applicable and necessary to carry out district or college operations.
2. The DL-MARICOPA-BUSINESS list was established for the exclusive purpose of notifying all employees of matters that are essential to conduct the administrative, academic and functional operations of the Maricopa County Community College District. Posting messages to this list is strictly limited and the messages should have applicability to all employees. Electronic messages, links and attachments that are appropriate to post to this distribution list include system-wide instructional and curricular issues, human resources matters (i.e., employment postings from the employment department that are posted on behalf of all locations, compensation and benefits), mandatory employee training, Governing Board meeting dates and agendas, safety alerts, legal or statutory compliance, internal policies and regulations, functional operations (i.e., system outages, virus alerts) and Chancellor communications to the employee community.
3. Messages that are otherwise related to general announcements for college or district sponsored events and activities or other student-organized events should be posted to the DL-MARICOPA-ANNOUNCEMENTSdistribution list. Examples include: course offerings, temporary work assignments, theater productions and college newsletters.
4. A sponsorship includes activity where an employee is acting or serving as an agent on behalf of the MCCCD and within the course and scope of his her employment as the organizer of the activity, or where MCCCD as an entity is actively involved in the planning and managing of the event.
5. Messages will be reviewed by authorized senders/designees according to their applicability for posting to either the DL-Maricopa-Business or DL-Maricopa-Announcements list.
6. Messages that serve the purpose of announcing a college activity or event shall contain the following: College location, name of department, division, department or employee organization sponsoring the activity, point of contact.
7. Messages on behalf of external organizations that have requested that an event or activity be announced require review by the appropriate college or district designee to establish the institutional linkage. For organizations that are located on site at a college or affiliated as a formal partner, the partnership or affiliation should be noted within the message (either as a footnote or within the text of the message). An example would be an agency where a college or district has a formal partnership but is not considered to be a sponsor of the activity or a service learning project. Examples of this are the Boomerz program at SCC and the Girls for a Change program at GWC.
8. Messages of a commercial or personal nature (i.e., personal ticket sales, general holiday style greetings, last name changes) should not be posted to either distribution. Likewise, courses or workshops for an external institution where an employee serves as the instructor and will be paid for teaching the course are also prohibited. With respect to name changes, parties may send notice on a limited basis to those individuals that they work directly with.
9. Targeted Messages – in all instances, employees are first encouraged to identify the target audience for the information being shared. Some messages may be appropriate to send to limited distribution lists – such as notices for conferences or professional growth opportunities. In these cases, the Maricopa Directory can be used to identify established distribution lists according to department or discipline.
10. Often in determining the applicability of posting a message to a broad audience, or whether or not the item is considered “Maricopa Business,” the “photo copy” test is used. Is this an activity that we would use monetary funds to photo copy and distribute via inter-campus mail? If not, the message should not be distributed electronically.
11. Parties seeking to have a message posted should submit the item to the appropriate college designee as early as two weeks prior to either the event, but otherwise in a reasonable time prior to the event to facilitate an adequate review of their proposed content.
12. Frequency – Any individual message should be sent a minimal numbers of times to both have a reasonable opportunity to achieve a desired aim, but not so frequent as to become an annoyance. While no specific limit is in place, senders may consider twice as a reasonable limit.
13. Images and Links – Images and links that are contained in messages are limited to acceptable use standards that are outlined in the Technology Resource Standards Administrative Regulation. Likewise style and documentation guidelines shall be utilized when incorporating images and links within an outgoing message. While no formal directives exist regarding message format, size or style, the limit imposed by the MEMO system for maximum message size is 800KB. Also, any imbedded links should be relevant to the approved content, or education related, or district/college sponsored or district/college affiliated web sites or material. Links that are presented for reference purposes should be evaluated as to whether the source follows internet research guidelines. Guidelines for evaluating whether a link may be transmitted include but are not limited to: accuracy & legitimacy (is the source considered scholarship or propaganda), currency, neutrality, verifiability, presentation of alternate views, descriptions of the limitations of the data or research.
14. In all instances, messages should adhere to the guidelines established in the Electronic Communications and Technology Resource Standards administrative regulations that are featured in the Blue Book and online at https://district.maricopa.edu/regulations/admin-regs.
15. The standards apply regardless if the posting to a distribution list is initiated from a computer located on or off campus. Likewise, combining individual distribution lists to all employee groups (i.e., DL-MAT, DL-PSA, DL-FEC, etc.) for the purpose of submitting messages to all email users, or circumventing the DL-MARICOPA-BUSINESS or DL-MARICOPA-ANNOUNCEMENTS lists is considered to be an action that is subject to these standards.
16. Matters that relate to concerns about the organization itself should be vetted through appropriate channels which include employee group leadership, the employee ombudsperson, College Presidents, Vice Chancellors, the Chancellor and the Governing Board as necessary.
17. The practices outlined within these standards are meant to address the protocol for posting messages district-wide to all locations and all employees. Employee and constituency groups are encouraged to develop their own standards that direct the appropriate posting of messages to their self-maintained distribution lists.
18. Enforcement – Consistent with the Electronic Communications administrative regulation, supervisors, college presidents or their designees should take necessary steps to ensure that employees under their supervision have notice of, and will comply with the regulations and any protocols of the MCCCD electronic communications network, as issued by the associate Vice Chancellor of Information Technology, college president or designee. Issues related to enforcement of policy will be addressed in accordance with established processes in job group policy manuals.
19. Questions related to the Standards or guidance in evaluating a message prior to posting, may be directed to [email protected] at the District Office.